Parenthesis
by knottedblonde
Summary: "She tries to put a lot of words into the kiss, words she isn't brave enough to say out loud: She'll stand by him because she cares about him, and if there's anything he's taught her it's that when you care about people, really care about them, you don't leave. Not forever." Sequel to my other story, Artemisia. Artemis-centric; the gap between Season 1 & 2. M in later chapters.
1. Like Ancient Bruises

**AN: This piece is a direct sequel to my other Young Justice story, "Artemisia." I recommend reading that before you start this.**

 **For those of you who are returning readers, I would like to thank you for prompting me to write a sequel that covers the space between season 1 and 2 instead of following my instincts and recreating my original story from Wally's point of view. I have to admit that I had way more fun diving into this than I initially thought, and for that I thank you.**

 **I would also like to thank my wonderful boyfriend Cory who helped me with a special "recommended listening" section that will be placed at the beginning of each chapter. I always listen to music when I write and we both thought it would be cool if you all caught a glimpse into my process (although let's face it, Cory gets immense satisfaction in turning people on to new music and we had a lot of fun picking the songs together. Please inflate our egos and tell us which songs you loved and hated.)**

 **Picks from the playlist this week: Regina Spektor- Field Below. Noah and the Whale- Peaceful The World Lays Me Down. Future Islands- Balance.**

* * *

 _Parenthesis: 1) An amplifying or explanatory word, phrase, or sentence inserted in a passage from which it is usually set off by punctuation. 2) A remark or passage that departs from the theme of a discourse. A digress, interlude, or interval that provides an explanation not otherwise given in the text._

* * *

Artemis' heart beats twice before she feels the ground beneath her feet again. The air in the Cave is cold and she catches herself shivering before she forces her muscles into stillness.

She chances a half step beyond where her molecules reconstructed, the bottom of her shoe squeaking on the tile. There's no sound of her teammates, no whisper of uneven breathing or lowered voices. Her home is empty and she is, mercifully, alone.

Then the disembodied voice speaks behind her and before she can do more than glance over her shoulder Wally materializes.

 _... She needs to clear her head._

This time she counts almost twelve heart beats; twelve heart beats where they look at each other. Twelve times her heart pounds against her chest, and each time it's a reminder: they're alive. They're alive and they shouldn't be; they're alive and they've been through so much and have so much to talk about she can hardly stand it.

His hair is mused and sticking up at odd angles, his cheeks wind bitten and ears red. The look he's sending her is paralyzing in the way that it makes her stop and feel every atom in her body the way she wants him to. She wants their fingers to be entwined and she wants to feel how hot his skin can be beneath hers; she also wants to turn from him and run and never look back because she knows it will be easier than admitting anything to herself or to him, easier than letting down the walls she's fought to keep up. So much, too much, is in the air between them, too many feelings both hurt and otherwise, and she doesn't know where to start. It's terrifying for some unknown reason that she can feel her stomach sounding, can feel some small part of her pushing her forward— _go on,_ it says, _kiss him, it's okay_ —but before she's stupid enough to act on the impulse she turns to face forward again, her feet striking hard against the tile.

 _The kiss in the Watchtower had been a promise—_ no more running, not from each other— _but old habits die hard…_

This is where they are now: the world is saved and the only thing left undone is saying what they need to say, returning to that moment they lost in a supply closet when she thought they would both be dead by morning. It had been easy, before, to be brave. Now it isn't.

 _Because they've been through so much together and now it's like they're starting over all over again; it's like that moment after the Bialyan desert when they were alone in the Bioship and she had wanted so badly to say something, anything, to make things not terrible and scary and strange. But now more than ever she can't pretend she's not broken, can't pretend that she almost betrayed him whether he knows it or not. But she also can't pretend that she doesn't care for him, can't pretend that he isn't the one thing she'll do everything to protect, even if it means keeping him at an arm's length…_

 _... She doesn't deserve to be happy, and he doesn't deserve the pain she inflicts on everyone who gets too close..._

She makes it seven paces alone. Then Wally follows.

She feels dizzy, blinded by all the emotions whirring inside her; she still hasn't come down from the adrenaline rush of the battle, the taste of Wally is still on her tongue and now that they're alone and there's time, _time to talk of all the damn things,_ she can't figure out what she wants to say—and how can she? She's not equipped for this kind of fight, the fight against what she wants and what she knows she has to do; she can't sit him down and break his heart, she can't let him walk away but she also can't force herself to leave either… _It nearly killed her once and she can't do it again_ … And she's exhausted, her muscles ache and there's dry blood on her back and her eyes can't stay open and _Oh God_ , she doesn't know where to start.

Wally catches up to her as she knew he would, his little finger brushing against the back of her hand. She can sense he wants to hold it again, wants to start talking and dissecting and analyzing and all the things she doesn't have a clue how to do. She curls her fingers into a fist at her side and ignores the way his nails run across her knuckles.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the cupboard door when they enter the kitchen, pretending not to notice the way his brows tense and follow the stiffness of her muscles as she stalks towards the cabinet where she keeps her tea. She gets about as far as putting the leaves in her cup before she allows herself to glance back at him over her shoulder again; he's seated at the island, fingers flexing against the counter and looking at her with too-kind eyes. "What?"

Wally shrugs, the Kevlar on his shoulders straining as muscle pops beneath it. "… You okay?"

She scowls, as if his concern really bothers her. "I'm fine." She tells her teacup instead of him.

There's a few seconds of silence in which he watches her fill the kettle with water and place it on the burner, a few droplets spilling over the edges and hissing against the heat. "… You can relax, you know. I'm not going to, like, pull a knife on you."

For some reason this makes her laugh; she's a bit of a mess right now, nothing more than a furl of emotions sitting too close to her surface. The noise that comes out of her throat sounds raw and broken, more of a hint of her coming undone than anything else, and she forces herself to quiet it too quickly. "… You're right. And even if you did, let's face it, you wouldn't be much of a threat."

"Hey, give me some credit." His voice is still teasing but his jaw is growing tighter, his eyes bright as she struggles to keep her lips from quirking upwards. "If I recall I held my own in Bialya."

She actually snorts, the kettle whistling and forcing her to turn away from him. "Oh yeah. You held your own until I was holding you down in the sand, about to stick an arrow in your eye."

She says it without thinking and there's a moment of sticky silence, the both of them mulling over what she's just said. She hates it—hates that just when she thinks that part of herself _(the part that sees with Huntress' eyes and smokes her father's cigarettes)_ is finally tamed it lunges at the cage she keeps it in, fighting to break free. _That part of her isn't used to being caged and she has a feeling it never will be, no matter how much time goes on. She's still barely keeping it together. She's still damaged, broken, how can she trust herself not to break him too-?_

As usual he's the one to break the silence, his voice having lost some it's teasing edge. "Whatever." He dismisses, nodding at the mug she's just grabbed herself from the cabinet. He's trying a bit too hard not to remember, his eyes too focused on the movements of her hands. "… Pour me a cup too."

He's a bit better at skirting past her slip-ups than she is but she forces herself to roll her eyes at him, pretending that what she said and the easiness of how she said it doesn't bother her. With a little too much ease she forgoes the leaves plops a tea bag into his cup, forcing herself to make a face when she adds the milk and sugar for him.

For a while they don't talk, just sit beside each other at the island with their warm drinks clutched in their hands. She has the impression that Wally's forcing himself to be quiet, forcing whatever words are at the front of his mind to settle in favor of humming quietly, lips licking the rim of his cup every few minutes to catch a stray drops of tea. Maybe he knows that he can't force her to come down from the high she's operating under, can't force her to let go of the anxiety of the battle. It's something that she has to do alone and it amazes her that, maybe, he recognizes that and can simply be beside her until she does.

The scent of oranges and cinnamon hits her face and she inhales its scent welcomingly, letting it fill her lungs and unwind her. She's noticed before that Wally has a hard time staying still; even now he's begun to twitch slightly, his fingers tapping at the counter and his foot flexing around the bar of the stool. She's never asked him about it, never wondered before if years of going so fast has made it impossible to be immobile.

Wally catches her eye just as he's running his tongue over the rim again, his ears reddening and hand in too much of a rush to pull the mug away from his mouth in his embarrassment; at once there's a spill and what's left of his tea drips to the counter. She watches his lips form a swear he won't utter and at once her hair is whipped abruptly backwards and forwards, a paper towel already wiping up the mess before she can get the strands out of her mouth.

 _She has it bad for this boy, and that's exactly why she should leave him alone._

Wally crumples the paper towel in his hand and looks at her somewhat sheepishly as she pushes her hair off her face. "Sorry." He mutters. He makes a funny half movement with his hand, as if he's about to reach out and push a lock of her hair back into place, at once seeming to think better of it before he's back to gripping his empty mug. "So." He says, stretching out the word but not continuing.

She can sense that this is it—they're about to start talking—and this time she's the one who can't sit still; before he can string his words together she's off the stool and stalking towards the sink. "So." She says back, turning on the tap and beginning the process of unnecessarily and loudly rinsing out her empty cup.

She can feel Wally's eyes on her back, can see in her mind the way his teeth bite the inside of his cheek, his brows pursing at her. But even in her imagination Wally doesn't remain silent. "… So that was really something back there, wasn't it?"

She shrugs, trying to be nonchalant despite the fact that her cheeks are reddening as she places her cup on the drying rack. "Defeating Witch Boy, Savage and his cronies, and saving the planet? Yeah. I'd say so."

"Yeah, yeah, spectacular." Wally waves his hand dismissively when she turns around, then immediately leans forward slightly, one brow raising and ears scarlet. "But, uh. You know. We kissed again."

The corner of his mouth quirks up when she blushes, her eyes darting around room and looking everywhere but him. "Uh huh." She confirms, hunching slightly as she crosses her arms.

For some reason her lack of reaction annoys him; he leans back on his stool until he's barely balanced on the back two legs, kept upright only by his iron grip on the counter. "So… Wouldn't you say that was pretty spectacular too?"

The honest answer is _Yes, it was, let's please do it again right now_ but she can't bring herself to say it; instead she shrugs slightly, trying not to enjoy the grin on his face. "It was alright."

She's not surprised by the fact that he immediately frowns and rocks forward on the stool, the sound of the legs against the tile makes an ear splitting noise that they both ignore. _"Alright_?" He repeats, looking genuinely offended. "Just _alright_? You are aware that you've been kissed by the Wallman, right? Do you know how many babes would kill for that honor?"

She snorts in his face because it's easier to have this conversation if she forces herself to be a little mean, hoping he can't see the way her finger nails are digging painfully into her forearms. "I think the real question is how many _babes_ have actually had the honor? Not many, I think."

The blood from Wally's ears is beginning to flood down into his cheeks, his shoulders hunching as he presses his elbows into the table, looking sour. "I—there's been a few. Not that it's any of your business." He sighs, looking annoyed and embarrassed, and she knows at once that she's dodged a bullet; he won't try to talk to her again. There's a few seconds of huffy silence. "You're impossible." He finally mutters, running his head through his hands. She has the decency to lower her eyes to her boots.

So that's it. He's made his attempt, it's failed; if she's lucky she's been mean enough that his pride will keep the scientist in him at bay and stop him from trying again.

 _A small part of her is disappointed. But the better part of her knows it's for the best._

She smells the usual enticing scent of walnuts and can't stop herself from looking up at him, surveying him through her lashes. His hair is properly messy now, his forefinger catching on the bottom edge of his Kevlar mask as if to remove it; he's being too rough, too rushed in his frustration, and at once the material snaps back against his forehead, leaving a red mark to bruise against his freckles.

 _Freckles_.

She had mapped them in the closet, so careful in the few moments she had with him that even when she blinks now she can see the imprints on her lids; the two darker ones beneath his left eye, the warped triangles on his cheeks. It had been so important to her, having the memory.

He's important to her too. Hadn't that been what she wanted to tell him? Hadn't that been her dying wish, for Wally to know that he's her best friend, that she cares about him, that she's so thankful for him, for the fact that he came back to her even if everything between them ended up being such a mess…

 _And hadn't it been worse when he wouldn't let her say it?_

 _And wouldn't it be worse, now, if she never said it at all?_

She goes back to staring at her boots just as he looks up; she can feel her cheeks reddening under his gaze, can sense the way his mouth seems to open and close, one finger tapping against the counter. She bites her lip, peeling dead skin off with her teeth until her eyes water.

Wally makes a movement to rise from the stool and leave just as she turns back to face the sink, any sounds behind her stilling as she reaches out to fiddle absently with the tap. "… Wally?" She says his name just to buy herself some time, the edge of her nail digging into a groove on the faucet.

She hears the stool being scooted in tighter to the island, hears the three steps he paces out before stopping, looking at her over the dead man's land between them. "Yeah?" His voice cracks.

She turns the faucet on and off a few times, feeling the heat of the warm water rising as it hits the metal of the sink. "I… " She hesitates, losing her nerve last minute. "... The kiss was fine. Good, actually." It's not what she wants to say but it's a bone, a small one, that she can throw him.

There's a beat of silence before she can practically hear Wally's brain explode into thought, something between a laugh and an exhale escaping his mouth. "I knew it!" At once he's beside her, his speed whipping her pony tail off her shoulder and clutching her by the arms, ears red and face flushed with excitement.

She ignores her own blush and decides to glare the refrigerator, as if it's its fault for her being stupid. "Don't be an idiot."

"Say it again!" He's grinning from ear to ear, shaking her slightly.

" _No_."

"Say it, Blondie!"

"God, Wally!" She bursts out, slipping out of his grasp easily and already stomping around him. "The kiss was whatever. It was fine."

He keeps an easy pace with her, still grinning wickedly and ignoring the way she's trekking furiously towards the zeta tubes. "No, it was better than that. You said it was good—"

She can't stop the annoyed noise that escapes her throat, her face flaming and eyes rolling out of her head. "Fine, it's was good!" She bursts out, rounding on him and cutting off the teasing stride he's been keeping with her. "It doesn't matter, it's not like it counted!" She spits out childishly.

There's a half second where what she says doesn't quite register; then all at once his grin falters. "What? How did that not count?"

It takes her a moment to justify herself, her hands moving of their own accord to gesture wildly through the air before returning to being clenched at her side. "I—you know. It was New Years Eve! We had just saved the world. I—we should have died Wally! It was a celebration. God, Red Tornado could have come on to me and I would have kissed him."

She nearly bites her tongue; she's said the wrong thing again and suddenly the grin is completely gone from his face. "Okay, _ouch._ I'm pretty sure I can kiss better than a hunk of metal with no lips."

She has to stop herself from snarling something rude at him _("I wouldn't be so sure of that, Wallman—")_ and instead shrug, placing her hands on her hips. "Whatever. The point is, New Years Eve kisses, in any form, _don't count_. Everyone knows that." Wally continues to look confused and the annoyed noise escapes her throat again, her hands flying up in frustration. "God, you're so—"

"What about the time in my room?"

He's got that look on his face, the one he gets when he's doing his homework or struggling to solve a problem: his lower lip is jutting out slightly, his eyes focused raptly on her, hands flexing and un-flexing as they wave frustratingly through the air. He's looking at her, studying her reaction, his brow quirking when her cheeks flood red and analyzing the way her hands replace themselves into fists at her side.

She swallows thickly, addressing the floor. "We were fighting. I just did it to—I don't know. It doesn't count."

"What?!"

She doesn't like his short answers and doesn't like his exasperated tone, doesn't like that when she gets the nerve to glare at him again he's already looking at her, scowling. "What?" She hisses between her teeth, nails digging into her palm.

Wally's running a hand through his hair and she has to force her eyes not to follow the stretching of the muscles on his chest. "You're telling me that I spent weeks obsessing over something that didn't even count? And then when I finally work up the nerve to do it again, it STILL doesn't count?"

She wants to hit him. "Yes."

Wally huffs, looking just as annoyed as she is. "You're crazy." He tells her, looking stunned. "You're honestly telling me that technically, _technically_ we haven't kissed at all?"

She feels like an idiot when she nods. "Yes."

Wally makes the same annoyed noise she's just made. "Can you at least tell me what counts as a real kiss?" He sighs, still looking frustrated. "Is there, like, a list of prerequisites I can see? For future reference?"

She nearly chokes on her own saliva, her cheeks now passing red and turning borderline maroon. "For _future reference_? Are you kidding me?" She coughs out. For a moment she's entered a state of embarrassment and frustration so intense that she's temporarily speechless—this conversation has gone on for way too long, it's gotten far too stupid, she needs to leave, now, before she does something truly embarrassing—

"What?" Wally calls after her as she turns on her heel, her pony tail whipping the air in front of him and nearly catching him about the throat.

"What do you mean, 'what'? It's not like it's going to happen again!" She hisses meanly through her teeth, hand reaching out to program her digits into the zeta tube.

It's too fast for her to see, as it always is. But she still feels the wind behind her and can sense the air shifting, can smell his scent and feel his fingers binding around the joints of her wrist, squeezing so tightly that it shocks her muscles into slacking. Her little finger half-heartedly brushes against a key, her chest suddenly tight. In less than a heartbeat, he's in front of her.

"Hey!" She manages to get out, her voice oddly raspy. They're only a few inches apart and her first instinct is to immediately step back.

Wally won't have it though; before she can even transfer her weight from one foot to another he's jerked her towards him, eyes looking rough and hurt in a way that almost makes her want to drop this stupid charade. _It would be easy. Just lean in and kiss him_.

 _No._

"Are you serious?" He asks her, voice no longer teasing. It's that low tone he always put on, the one that's both enticing and a little terrifying to her; the one that warms the deepest parts of her that only wake around him.

It takes her a half second to catch up to him, eyes darting and trying to figure out his sudden shift in demeanor."W-what?" She gets out.

Wally lets go of her; she can feel the places where his fingers pressed against her, can feel the way all her blood seems to be rushing to her hand. He won't stop looking at her, his gaze hard and bright in the dim light of the Cave. "Were you serious?" He repeats, ears darkening but doing very little to quail his speech. "About not wanting to do it again?"

For some reason her throat goes dry; suddenly he's the one who won't look at her, hand rubbing twice at the back of his neck and looking disappointed. "I..." She starts, faltering slightly and stretching the word out too long. She doesn't know what to say. "... I'm too messed up, Wally."

It's a lame way to put it but he seems to get the point—his hand drops from his neck and she has to fold her arms over each other again to stop herself from reaching out to comfort him. "I don't think you're messed up." He says quietly.

"That's because you're an idiot." She says meanly, trying to force her mouth into a nasty smile. It doesn't cooperate. She hears him inhale and exhale sharply through his nose and more to help him save face than anything she turns back to the zeta tubes, fingers sliding over the keys until she hears the machine buzz to life. "I'm going home."

She isn't too surprised when he reaches out for her, one hand catching her bicep and turning her back to face him- it would be unlike Wally to let her go without a proper fight. "Artemis." He says her name quietly, something in his face shifting as he speaks; some of the softness is fading around the edges, jaw tightening as he swallows.

"What?" Her tone is borderline accusatory, her nose wrinkling slightly when he moves closer. "W-what, Wally?"

There's something predatory in his gaze; she feels as if she's being hunted, being cornered and about to be killed. She can't stop her muscles from automatically tensing, fingers itching against her will to reach up and arm herself. But it's Wally, _Wally of all the damn people,_ she's safe with him, _don't be stupid_ , she tells herself, nails digging into her forearms.

"Say it." He prompts her, voice low. "Tell me you don't want to."

She doesn't quite understand what he means, trying to keep her face as hostile as possible as he steps closer. "W-what are you—" She snarls out.

"Tell me," He stretches out his words, over pronouncing and teasing her as he glares. "that you don't want to kiss me."

Immediately she feels her expression sour, eyes dropping to scowl for a moment at the floor. She doesn't want to lie anymore, especially not to him- _She wants him. She wants him to kiss her, she wants to do a whole lot more but she's not supposed to, she can't trust herself-_ She can feel Wally's eyes on her, reading her silence correctly, and the second she glances up she feels his fingers skimming up her side, free hand mirror the position of its brother on her other arm.

"Say no and I'll stop." He says thickly.

She glares at him when his thumbs start to move, pressing and tracing the lines of muscles on her shoulders. "What are you doing?" She snarls out instead of what he wants, not quite managing to sound properly angry despite the fact that her teeth are bared. "Wally—"

"Artemis." He says, now so close that she can feel the heat coming off his cheeks. Suddenly she's hot everywhere, from the edges of her suit to the sensitive point between her legs. She can feel his too-hot temperature, can hear his breath as it pushes through his throat and escapes his lips. His hands are still moving torturously slow, hands roaming past her shoulders and thumbs dipping slightly lower and teasing the jutting of her collar bone. The touch is so soft, so gentle that she can't suppress the rush of air that escapes her mouth, her lips barely moving to pronounce a tiny "Oh."

 _She wants him._

She can see the quirk of interest that settles between his brows, irises flickering between her eyes and her lips, thumbs repeating the movement to try to entice the same reaction. Her stomach is twisting and the pulsing that's been absent for so long is suddenly back between her legs, hot and wanting.

She glares at him harder but still can't bring herself to tell him off properly, her lower lip aching as she digs her teeth into it. The corner of his mouth tugs upwards as one of his hands strays upwards, thumb trailing along the jugular of her throat and the line of her jaw, the jagged edge of a nail catching on her chin. It's all so raw; he feels so hot on her skin despite the protection of her mask. He hesitates slightly _(when she thinks about this later she chalks this up to good breeding, manners taught to him by his mother always reminding him to ask nicely, be a good boy)_ and before she can stop the movement one of her fingers has come unhooked from her arms, her forefinger reaching out to graze his chest.

He glances down, looking curious at her nail at it skim his muscles, jagged edges tracing the tips of the lighting bolt that sits there. She's aware suddenly that he's stopped breathing, lungs halting under her touch.

Then all at once he exhales, shaking slightly, his thumb pushing onward and tracing the dip of her chin and getting as far as her lower lip. "Wally." She croaks out warningly, her tongue brushing against him. At once the thumb is removed and his hand slides back down to her shoulder, his other hand leaving her collar bone and trailing up the column of her throat.

"Tell me no and I'll stop." His voice is ragged, lower and more throaty than she's even heard before; for a long second she seals her lips shut, glaring at him full on the face. She could break away from him, turn on her heel and stalk off to hide in her room and it would be easy.

 _She could leave him behind like she's always wanted to._

She's not strong enough to run. She's not strong enough to do much of anything other than scowl at him for a few more seconds. It's as if they're both made of stone, statues in the moment, unmoving in their stubbornness.

She doesn't say yes but she does close her eyes, and before she can do much more than exhale sharply she feels his fingers at the top of her throat, tilting her face towards him.

At first it's soft, the way their first kiss (whether or not it counted) should have been; his lips are barely moving on hers, tilting only the slightest so as to allow his tongue to trace her, feeling her uneven edges and weather beaten skin. For a long time she's still, mind buzzing with the most ridiculous of thoughts _(her skin is so chapped, she's going to hurt him)_ all of which suddenly go silent when he prods her mouth open with his tongue, walnut scented oxygen leaving his lungs and flooding into hers.

She can't stop the noise she makes in response- it's a feral moan that spikes up at the back of her throat, so unlike any noise she's even made before- and before she can do more than stiffen in shock he's grabbing at her; she can feel his glove sealed hands shifting up the back of her neck, raking down her back- thumbs skimming the edges of her breasts, pulling at the muscles in her back until she's flush against him, all lines of muscles and sweat and the unfamiliar hardness that's pressing against her thigh-

She can't help the fear that strikes through her. _It's too much too fast and she's not even supposed to be doing this… She'll hurt him, she knows she will, she ruins everything…._

She can't help it, can't help the startled noise she makes or the way she shoves him backwards, her hands unfolding and striking directly in his abdomen, knocking the wind out of him. "Wally!" She gasps, and it's like now that he's far enough away and the scent of walnuts isn't clouding her head she can think logically again—This isn't supposed to be happening, they're supposed to be friends, _just friends—_

"S-sorry." Wally wheezes out, doubled over and clutching at the place where she hit him, ears a bright red. "Okay, that was too much, I get it—"

She feels like an idiot now, her cheeks red and her body still responding to him—her heart is racing and the warmth between her legs is aching for him now—and she can't stop herself from ripping her mask off her face and running her hands angrily through her hair, tugging at the smaller pieces around her face and hoping the pain shocks her out of whatever delusions she's suffering from. "God, Baywatch." She hisses, trying not to feel bad for the way he winces when the words pour out of her mouth in such an angry tone. "Like hell, it was too much."

Wally finally straightens, looking nervous and just as excited as she is, uniform doing little to hide any part of him from her. She has enough hate in her body to send him one last disdainful look before she turns towards the zeta tubes, disappearing.

* * *

The light in the kitchen is on when she gets home.

She can see it from where she is now, her back still pressing against the front door and unmoving since she clicked the lock shut behind her. It's occurring to her now that she hasn't properly talked to her mother in weeks.

She manages to stay hidden for nearly four minutes, her sore muscles aching with the effort of remaining upright, her mind racked with guilt and her breasts rising and falling with uneven breaths. Then she decides it's time.

Paula glances up at her when she enters, her eyes looking tired when they survey her appearance: ripped costume, covered in blood and bruises, hair mused and lips swollen. She sighs and looks like a mother who has lost control of her daughter.

"Happy New Year, Mom." She says, her throat raw and cracking.

Paula blinks at her slowly, her lashes grazing the bags under her eyes. "It's the Western New Year. It isn't Vietnamese New Year."

"Oh. Right." There's a sticky silence, and even though her mouth is still warm from her last cup ( _and_ , she catches herself thinking, _from Wally_ ) she decides to fill it with what they both like best: a cup of tea.

She can feel Paula's eyes on her back, hard and unyielding and critical, watching as she fills the kettle with water and places it on the burner. It's the same burner that suffered from over boiled rice the one time, the incident never truly scrubbed clean from the metal and leaving an odd smell; at once the kitchen is filled with the acidic odor and the two of them turn to each other, matching wrinkles over their noses.

"You aren't going to bed?" Her mother asks, and as if knowing what is about to come she slips a book mark in the pages of her book, hands reaching to rotate her chair so as to face her better.

Huntress' eyes are peering out of Paula's sockets, and Artemis wonders how many people have looked at them the way she is now: pleading, hoping to get out alive. She knows, logically, that her mother won't kill her. At least not in a way that constitutes as homicide.

"… Listen." She mutters, turning back to the kettle as the whistle blows, the steam burning her fingers as she pours water over carefully measured leaves.

Paula sighs. "Am I about to find out why you've been acting so odd the past few weeks?"

She hesitates. Her room is exactly eleven paces away… She could shove a dresser in front of the door, block out Paula and never have to explain her own failures, her own discretions, never acknowledge the fact that the dark part of her that her parents placed there is still awake…

She opens her mouth just as she slips with the water; her little finger screams out as the nerves are fried, but instead of a curse different words fall from her lips. And once they emerge she finds she can hardly stop.

She doesn't seem to pause for breath, can hardly allow her lungs the very thing they need to keep going. For a few minutes she finds herself retracing the path of a twisted timeline: she remembers Red Arrow and his suspicions, remembers constantly hiding her past and trying to avoid the burden of her family; she tells her mother of Lawrence and the fact that they'll never escape him (not ever, _not ever_ ) and Jade who she loves but hates; she tells her of her father's offer and how she took it without hesitating after everyone had made it so clear she'd never fit in ( _it's just not in her genetics_ ) and how everything had been the same as it always was, except now Paula was on the line too…

She tells her mother of how Jade hadn't helped but she also hadn't hindered (and maybe, _maybe_ , one day she'll come back;) she tells her mother of the Light and of how she fired her arrows straight and how they had saved the world but not really, because now there's so much left to do and she still doesn't know if she's cut out for this hero thing because she destroys everything she touches, she does—

By the time she finishes she's crying like a small child, both their cups of tea cold and forgotten on the counter as Paula places her head on her lap, fingers working through tangled hair. She hasn't let her mother touch her like this in a long time, and it's a mark of how undone she is that she's allowing it.

Paula doesn't offer words of comfort, the way a mother ought to. She's quiet and her brows are tense but she does tell her one thing, before she's too exhausted and the kitchen floor is too comfortable for her to rise and walk the eleven paces to her bedroom.

"Don't you ever try to protect me again, darling." Her mother whispers. Her voice is hard and threatening but her eyes are kind. "In this family it's every girl for herself."

 _And vividly she remembers something she thought she had forgotten: her mother and Jade sitting around the kitchen table, Paula wrapping bandages on a still bloody wound on a too small arm._

 _"_ _A child should never protect its mother," She's saying, quietly so as not to wake Lawrence who is asleep on the couch. "How many times do I have to tell you, when we're out there, it's every person—every girl—for herself."_

 _Except their whole lives are a battle field, and this is what she's known all along—in life nobody can protect you, not from anything…_

* * *

"… So…"

She doesn't like the way Zatanna stretches out the word, the sound the only noise in the small stretch of hallway other than their muted footsteps on the carpet. She had awoken than morning to a flurry of text messages from various members of the Team, all dead set on passing the same message along between teammates: it's time to debrief from the previous day's mission.

She'd only been at the Cave a few minutes, just enough time to extract a few pieces of scattered homework from her bedroom and place them in her backpack before Zatanna had appeared in her doorframe, one brow raised and cheek still bruised from the night before. As usual Zatanna skips the usual courtesies of small talk, her mouth stretched wide in a mischievous grin. "… You kissed Wally." She says teasingly.

She ignores the way her cheeks redden and forces herself to scowl, her eyes fixed firmly on the door way at the end of the hall. "No. Wally kissed me."

"Detail, details." Zatanna dismisses, hand waving and hips swaying. "How was it?"

"I thought we were ignoring the details?"

"Not the important ones!"

She sighs, shrugging slightly. "It was fine." _Not as good as the one after,_ she thinks before immediately stopping the thought.

In answer Zatanna inflates slightly, a slight flush beginning to color her neck. "God, Artemis! You're killing me!"

There's a small part of her that does want to analyze what it was like: how it had felt when he had swept her off her feet, how much more neatly his lips had fit against hers this time compared to the last. How that sound he had made, the low one in the back of his throat, had sent heat through her veins blood and to her cheeks… But she's never been good at wording these things, doesn't know how to say it without sounding too pathetic or too strange. So she settles for slowing her pace slightly, her fists balling and her eyes creasing as she glares. "Excuse me, if I remember correctly I'm not the only one who kissed a teammate yesterday."

Zatanna doesn't even look up, her eyes focused on the chipping nail polish on her right hand. "Connor and M'gann kissing is old news, they do it practically every second—"

"Nice try." She scoffs, cutting the other girl off. "What about you and Boy Wonder?"

To her surprise Zatanna doesn't get embarrassed like she thought she would; instead she drops her hand back to her side, looking almost bored. "That? That was nothing." Without thinking she lets out a disbelieving noise from the back of her throat, prompting the raising of two onyx brows. "What? I'm serious. I kissed him, I told him I have every intention of kissing him again, and I _will_ kiss him again. But no. That's it."

She feels her brows purse, squinting slightly as if to catch Zatanna in a lie; she's disappointed, however, when she's greeted with nothing other than the illusion of honesty. "That's it?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't it be?"

She hesitates, having trouble as always with finding the right words. "I don't know. I kind of thought you guys might have a… thing. Or... You know."

Zatanna lets out that same laugh that threw her so many months ago; it seems too loud for her throat, a bark of a laugh that bounces off even the too plush carpet. "Please. Yes, he's cute. And yes, I have sexual chemistry with practically everyone I meet. But no. No dating, no thanks. Not worth it."

The way she says this is odd, her words fading quickly from teasing to almost a warning shudder, and she can't help but wonder the reasoning behind it. "What do you mean?"

All the snark from her tone is gone; suddenly it's as if Zatanna's speaking words she's spoken a thousand times, both out loud and inside her head, sounding too well rehearsed. "Please. Dating a teammate is pretty much the worst thing I could do. I mean, have you seen Connor and M'gann? Every mission it's the same thing: one of them gets hurt and the other lets out this heart breaking scream and then they're distracted the rest of the time, making stupid mistakes and tripping up the rest of us."

As she says it Artemis realizes it's true: it's the same narrative all over again, all the raw emotion between Connor and M'gann coming out in spurts in the middle of a mission, their problem's morphing into something the whole group of them have to solve. She thinks of the rare moments one of them has been hit too hard, as fallen too heavily against the pavement; she remembers hearing screams that aren't for her but still send a shoot of panic down her spine, remembers how it had suddenly been everyone's burden as well as their's… Maybe Zatanna's right. Maybe getting involved with someone on the team… It would be like getting involved with a coworker… And what if things went wrong? She would have to see Wally all the time… And what if one of them… What if something happened, what if it was her fault…

 _Wally's better off without her, it's safer for both of them…_

She pulls the conversation back into focus and is a little surprised that Zatanna's still ranting, and she gets the impression that the younger girl is trying to convince both of them that she's right. "... It's just irresponsible. Not only is it putting everyone else at risk it's just… It just seems like an unnecessary complication."

She's still a bit stuck in her own head, not quite paying attention. "Hm."

At once Zatanna reads her reaction incorrectly, and it takes a few seconds of her walking an extra couple paces before she realizes the raven haired girl has stopped, one palm pressed against her forehead and looking embarrassed. "Oh God. Please tell me I haven't just put my foot in my mouth. You and Wally aren't—"

Hearing it voiced outloud is more than embarrassing, especially after the conversation they've had; she can feel her cheeks heating, one hand waving dismissively though the air almost too casually. "No. Oh, god, no. No, no, no."

 _No, no no no no no. We can't._

Something written on her face make's Zatanna smile, and when she catches up to her she's back to teasing. "That's a lot of nos for one not even finished question."

"Shut up." She scoffs.

Zatanna's arm bends, elbow nudging her side. "… Good for you guys though. I think it's smart, not opening yourself up for more… Vulnerabilities." She can't think of anything to say in response to this, and is thankful that they're at the door to the debriefing room.

Wally catches her eye when she enters. There's an odd pang in her stomach _(it's not a pang of wanting, don't be an idiot)_ and she ignores the way he gestures to the empty chair beside him, instead moving to side beside Connor.

* * *

The first few weeks in January pass by without incident and before long the wind rolling off the beach is just as cold as it is in Gotham; the skin beneath her academy skirt seems to be permanently goose pimpled and to her horror draws more eyes than usual.

Despite the fact that there's very little going on she hardly has the time to talk to anyone; the Team seems to spend the first half of the month in relative silence as they're shuffled between various debriefings with their mentors and other members of the League. It's an endless stream of one sided discussions: analyzing their combat skills and victory, checking and double checking random logs in the search for the hours select League members lost during the raid. After all this they begin the discussion the person they've all taken to dubbing "the Real Roy Harper." The Roy she knows makes numerous appearances and each time he looks harder and increasingly miserable.

They're caught up in one of their rare moments now: 1 hour, one precious hour in between meetings. Unconsciously they all sit together in the living room, all crammed on the couch and the chairs and enjoying a silence that for once is comfortable and broken only by the sound of chewing as they devour M'gann's cookies. For some unknown reason Robin picks this moment to confront her, just as she's reaching towards the communal plate.

"I've been meaning to ask you," He starts, occupying the empty arm rest of her chair and leaning over her. "In light of everything that's happened, Kal and I just assumed you were still committed to the Team. You good with that?"

Almost immediately the silence around her thickens, and when she looks up from retrieving her cookie she's met with a room full of stares. Across from her Kaldur's eyes widen and immediately narrow, glaring at Dick. "Perhaps this is a matter we should discuss with Artemis alone, Robin—"

She can feel her cheeks reddening when Connor cuts across him, thick neck swiveling from his spot on the couch to glare between the two. "Why wouldn't she be committed?"

Kaldur is on his feet before she can answer, still glaring at Robin as he crosses the room, hand extended to grasp her free one and pulling her from her seat. "Come, we can discuss this privately."

She lets him set her upright but doesn't move, squeezing his hand and forcing him to slow. "It's okay." She mutters, nudging him back to his place in the chair opposite. "It's fine." She presses, settling back beside Robin.

The cookie is beginning to crumble slightly in her hand, chocolate melting and pressing to her digits and proving much easier to focus on than their stares, which are glaring at her from all angles. "Before everything went down I was thinking about taking a bit of a break from the Team. Just for a little bit, to get my head on straight."

Connor is the first to respond, his voice biting and sharp in the silence. "... Was this before or after Sportsmaster made you his offer?"

Her eyes narrow at the cookie and she can hear the sound of an elbow against ribs. "Connor!" M'gann hisses.

"After." She decides to be honest with them, or at least as honest as she can bare to be. She catches her teeth before they can escape her mouth and bite at her peeling lips. "But I wasn't thinking of… You know. Working for him again. When he made me the offer it was… I don't know how to explain it. It was more of an escape. Mom and I wouldn't have to run from him anymore. He just wanted to come back and be a family again."

She glances up in time to see Kaldur duck his head and press his palms together, fingers splayed and stiff. She nearly jumps when Wally speaks, voice hard. "… You agreed to the helicopter ride though."

There it is, as hard and fast as a slap in the face like it always feels when he speaks like that to her. Suddenly the silence is sharp, glances being exchanged too quickly for her to see. "I agreed to him protecting my mom. I didn't know what he had planned until it was too late, until he had me and Jade cornered. I didn't have a choice."

Wally shifts his weight on the floor, unfolding and refolding his legs and no longer bothering with the cookie he's replaced on the coffee table. "You had us."

"Did I?" She snaps at him. "I didn't have you when you were running around after Roy, giggling whenever he happened to fire an arrow remotely straight—"

"Is that what this is about? You're insecure _still_ —"

"Hey!" Robin cuts them both off, the rest of the Team beginning to look uncomfortable. "She's right KF. It's not like we were all exactly trusting each other, not after that whole thing with the mole—"

"But—"

"Enough." Kaldur's hands abruptly split apart, hands moving to brace his knees as he sits straighter in his seat, addressing them all with a firm look on his face. "We are finished questioning each other's loyalty. We are a Team, and we have all had our own indiscretions. It is time we forgave each other." The look he sends them all makes whatever snarky remark she had prepared die in her throat, her cheeks reddening when he locks eyes with her, Connor, and M'gann in turn. "All three of you are as welcome here as you have ever been."

There's another silence half beat of silence before everyone breaks off, splitting into muttered conversations, and once again Robin leans over her with a slightly sheepish grin on his face. "Listen, you'll want to talk to Bats the next time you see him. He wants you to take a tour of the arsenal of weaponry he's made up for—" Robin stutters slightly when Wally abruptly rises from the floor, whatever speech that's rekindled in the room dying when he stalks off, looking moody.

"God." She can't stop herself from saying, glaring at Wally's back. "What's his problem?"

"I think you mean _problems_." Dick corrects her, leaning back until he's taking up part of the back of her chair and speaking to her in an undertone. "Let's see… He's stubborn, he's a numb-skull despite having higher than average intelligence, his nose still bleeds whenever he tries to vibrate through stuff, the girl he has a crush on doesn't think any of their kisses count—"

At once her cheeks flare red. "Dick!"

Robin laughs, digging his phone out of his pocket and beginning to scroll aimlessly. "What? It's true. Still bleeds every time—"

"Don't be an idiot." She cuts him off, her crimson cheeks attracting the attention of M'gann, who looks at her across the room. No doubt the sudden influx of emotion has made her curious. "And don't talk about things you don't understand." She warns him, ignoring the Martian.

"Speaking of understanding," He teases, fingers still flexing across his phone screen. "Will you please _explain_ to him what counts and what doesn't? Kid keeps on picking my brain, the idiot's actually trying to compile data and create some sort of list—"

She throws her head back, staring in horror at the ceiling. "Oh, my god."

"No kidding." He agrees, smirking at her. "So please, for my sake, will you just talk to him? If I have to hear one more time about _kissing technique_ or _proper build up_ or have the words _'how much tongue is too much tongue'_ said in my presence I'm going to hurl."

"God, please stop." She moans, getting up from their chair. "I get it, I'm going."

She's just about made it out of the room when Robin calls after her, voice loud enough so the rest of the Team can hear. "By the way, I totally think the kiss on the Watchtower counts—I mean, sure you just saved the world and it was New Year's Eve, _blah blah blah_ , but you had a view of the _freaking planet—_ "

"Oh my god!" She nearly shrieks, stomping away as the rest of the Team bursts into snickers.

* * *

 **AN: The first chapter of anything is always a little slow so please bare with me for a bit!**

 **Please read and review, especially if you are a returning reader! I won't post again until I have at least 5 reviews.**


	2. Keep Running Out

**AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews I received! I wasn't expecting such an overwhelming response for just the first chapter.**

 **Picks from the playlist this week are: Putting the Dog to Sleep by The Antlers, Teassallate by Alt J and All Through the Night by Noah and the Whale.**

* * *

She's still blushing when she reaches his bedroom, the door predictably shut. She allows herself a few seconds of glaring at the stained white oak before she knocks once, not waiting for his answer before she lets herself in.

The smell of walnuts hits her, as it always does; nutty and fresh and too comforting to her to be an actual comfort, not now at least. Not when the person she associates it with the most is sitting cross-legged on his bed, looking up at her moodily. Not now, when what she wants to say and what she knows she _must_ say are so completely opposite of each other.

 _Not now, when she has try to break his heart._

 _Not now, when she has to talk the one person she actually wants in her life to get out of it, permanently._

 _Not now, when he's already looking at her with hurt in his eyes._

 _It's not comforting. Not now._

"… What?" Wally asks, expression caught between agitation and curiosity, ginger hair spiking oddly at the back of his head from running his hands through it. "I thought our next debriefing wasn't for another hour?" He asks her accusingly.

It takes her a second to figure out what she wants to say, her eyes taking a moment to scan the room and the muscles in her back tensing against the door, as if silently willing her to turn around and not bother. "You ran out of there pretty fast." She muses, forcing herself to take a half pace away from the door and fold her arms across her chest. "… Even for you."

It's not an answer to his question but she takes it as a good sign when he adjusts himself backwards into his bed, muscles unwinding and resting against his headboard. "Oh. Right…"

Neither of them look at each other, both picking random articles to stare at rather than each other; it's far easier to look to her right and address his pile of dirty laundry than look back at him and try to read whatever is written on his face. "… Are you going to tell me what's bothering you? Because that might make a few things easier." She suggests to a discarded button down after a few seconds.

For some reason Wally lets out a dry chuckle, so unexpected that it makes her head whip back and her eyes pull him into focus; he's got his head in his hands, the heel of his palms digging into his eyes and fingers scrubbing at his fringe. "Oh man. I guess so, huh?"

She waits for him to reply, and he doesn't. "… Is that a yes, or—"

"You were going to quit because of how I treated you." He cuts her off, head still in his hands. It's not a question.

She swallows again, her fingers flexing and relaxing around her elbows for a moment before she decides how to answer, feet automatically walking another few paces until she's at the edge of his bed. "… It wasn't just because of you. I mean… Dad had already made me the offer. I just hadn't—"

He cuts her off again, this time lifting his head; she hates the expression there, hates how upset he looks. "But I made the decision easier."

 _The honest answer is yes._

"… Wally—"

"I did, right?"

"God!" She bursts out, and now she's the one what has her head in her hands; there are stars bursting against the backs of her lids, nails on the verge of clawing at her eyes just so she won't have to see that awful expression on his face ever again. "Will you just _stop_! Just… stop being so dramatic. I can't think when you're like this, okay?"

For some reason she decides to sit down, elbows braced on her knees and a wrinkle popping over her nose, weight jostling the mattress. She doesn't like what he's doing to her, doesn't like that he's making her lose control; at once she has to keep her breathing in check, teeth clenching as she forces her lungs to move, forces air to get into her body and forces herself not to be bothered by the fact that he's still looking at her like that—

The bed shifts and she can feel the heat he always seems to radiate coming off his body; his quilt is rumpling between them, and just when she's wishing that it'll be enough to keep a barrier between them she feels a hand on her back. "I'm sorry, Artemis." He says quietly.

 _She doesn't know what he's sorry for; sorry for being so dramatic that it made her head spin, sorry for asking too many questions. Sorry for walking out before, sorry for bringing up her father- she's a walking ball of hurt, a wounded dog, someone put her out of her misery-_

She lets him keep touching her while she gets herself into order; it is comforting, she supposes, the way his hand fits so neatly into the small of her back. He's doing something funny with his thumb, dragging it in circles like he did once in her mother's kitchen, a comforting gesture she had thought was borrowed from one of his parents. She hates to admit it but it helps, and before long she sucks a deep breath in.

 _She can do this._

"… It wasn't just you." She begins, removing her hands from her face and letting them run down the length of her thighs, back and forth along the denim. "It was a lot of little things. I don't know how to… He's still my Dad. I've seen him kill people, Wally. I've seen him- he could have done that to me a thousand times over. And even if I had to beg and bleed for him to keep me alive... He never hurt me. At least not bad enough to kill me."

When she glances at him his brows are furrowed, lips pressed into a straight line. "Artemis, just because he never... That doesn't mean... " Wally lets out a breath through his nose and seems to decide to take the conversation in another direction, shaking his head slightly. "And that's why you went back? Because he never killed you?"

She nearly throws off his hand, which is creeping up towards her shoulder, but instead she sighs, fingers fiddling with a loose thread sticking out of the knee of her jeans. "I don't know how to explain it to someone who hasn't… He kept me safe for all those years, okay? And I guess I always knew he kind of did it because of how much he loved my mother. And when he talked about wanting to be a family again… It was like I was free. Because if we went willingly, he'd always keep us safe, and we wouldn't have to worry about running from him, you know?"

His hand is past her shoulder now, forefinger straying up behind her ear and sending waves of feathery light heat into her core as he brushes a few stray hairs back into place. "Well… I guess my next question is _now what_? Now that you've… You know. Placed your bet on our Team?"

It's a stupid way of putting it, and she can't stop her lips from quirking slightly and the nervous laugh that slips out between them. "I think I can say goodbye to ever feeling safe again." She admits.

 _Instantly there's a sour taste in her mouth, as if the weight of what she's just said has settled fully onto her tongue. She's never going to be safe, her and mom... It's a matter of time before he comes after her again, comes after Paula, maybe even comes after Jade... He'll come after anyone stupid enough to love her, stupid enough to get too close..._

There's a half beat of silence in which neither of them says anything, and it strikes her as almost odd; there it is, she's said it in the simplest terms: she's not safe to be around, not least of which for her own problems but almost for the fact that she'll be endlessly hunted now—Sportsmaster won't rest, won't stop until he's avenged, she's a liability to anyone... Wordlessly, Wally's fingers trace the line of her chin, turning her face towards his.

She freezes.

He gets as far as leaning in, his mouth opening and pursing as if to take her lower lips between his; at once she's whipped her head back to face the door way, glaring at the wall. There's a horrifying moment where his lips caress her cheek _(and despite herself and all her coldness she feels the heat flooding between her thighs and she suddenly can't help but want him to kiss her there a thousand times over)_ before he pulls back, his fingers dropping and puzzled by her reaction. "Artemis—"

 _He says her name and she feels fire, actual burning fire and it takes all her strength to curl her hands into fists and glare straight ahead; she can't do this, Sportsmaster will kill him. She needs Wally alive, she can't live without him, she needs him to be safe-_

"That wasn't an invitation, Wally." She says as stonily as she can, ignoring the startled look on his face and brushing past his hands, already standing.

He looks panicked. "Artemis—No, I'm sorry. I know, what was stupid—"

"No kidding!" She bursts out. "You can't just—You can't kiss me every time we're alone Wally, that's not how this is going to work."

They're both red in the face, no longer heroes who can talk about her father logically—they're just two dumb kids, raw and hormone driven, pretending to be adults. She's back to crossing her arms and glaring at the laundry pile, not looking at him when he speaks. "… How is this going to work, then?"

It's a dumb question and she wants to deck him for it. "We're friends, Wally. _Just friends._ Friends who _won't_ kiss each other, friends who are _just friends_!" She can't stop the frustrated sigh that escapes her lips, can't stop the way she shifts her posture to be more threatening, and non-verbal warning that he should stay away from her. "Didn't you hear anything I just said? I'm—I'm no good for you, okay? I'm going to put anyone who gets close to me in danger, and not just from my Dad—I can't even talk to you without nearly having a panic attack, how do you expect me to—"

"Artemis—"

 _Stay away from her, she's a kicked dog and she'll bite him, make him bleed, make him crazy in the same way she is-_

"I'm messed up, Wally!" She bursts out, full on shouting and not caring anymore if the others hear; she has to get this through his head by any means necessary. "Go read Black Canary's folder: anxiety issues, post-traumatic stress disorder, trust issues, a history with violence—I'm not the kind of girl someone like you should be with, I'm not like, someone who you can take to _prom_ or… Normal things with, okay? I'm bad for you!"

For some reason Wally's face goes dark, and when he speaks he's yelling too, rising from his spot on the bed until they're both standing three feet apart, bellowing. "God, and you were on my ass about being dramatic. How many times do I have to tell you, I don't care—"

" _I care,_ Wally!" She screams, throwing her arms backwards and gesturing wildly between them. "I care! I don't want my best friend wasting his time, okay?"

Wally laughs, hard and bitter and unlike him in the worst possible way. "How many clichés is this speech supposed to have? Because I think you've reached your limit, Blondie. How about you stop trying to play the hero—"

"I'm not playing anything, Wally, we're heroes, this is what we're supposed to do okay, we're supposed to protect the people we care about—"

"By what, stopping yourself from ever doing anything you want to do because it would mean taking a risk? By taking the easy way out?"

"—You think this is _easy_?" She's so furious she actually can't speak for a moment, and apparently Wally feels the same—he's crimson in the face, scowling at her with clenched fists. She has to breathe in hard through her nose and exhale loudly before she can find her voice, and when she speaks again it takes even more effort to keep her tone level and controlled. "This isn't easy Wally. You know that."

"Could have fooled me." He spits at her. She watches his hands burrow themselves in his pockets, as if he's restraining himself from grabbing or hitting her, she can't quite tell. "So what are you saying then? You're running away from all this?"

 _Artemis is a born runner_.

As he says it she hears her father inside her head, a stolen moment from all those years ago, and she has to forcibly grit her teeth to keep from lashing out at him. The better part of her wants to snarl in his face, wants to tell him she's not a child anymore; she doesn't run the way her father taught her, not away from things like this—she wants to meet this head on, deal with the consequences like an adult—

The better part of her is silenced as she stares at the carpet. "Yes."

She can feel the change in the air, can sense his feet shifting against the carpet. When she gets the courage to look up at him he's glaring at her, his fists clenched at his sides and his jaw sitting in a harsh line against his neck. "Fine." He says evenly, his tone as hurtful as it was the day he threw the sai at her feet. "I get it."

She doesn't know what else to say to him, the air as cold as ice between them as he turns his back on her.

"Just _leave_ , please."

She blinks at his back and then recognizes the dismissal.

* * *

Predictably, Wally stops talking to her and as usual she's left wondering how to make things right. Also as usual she comes up with almost no ideas despite staying up half the night over-thinking; by the end of January she's jumpy and on edge and incredibly tired.

Uncharacteristically she clings to Zatanna and M'gann rather than Kaldur or Dick; she's tired of men at the moment, even if she also tires quickly of relentless girl talk and repeated analyzations of what _exactly_ happened with Wally. January fades uneventfully and she suspects February will soon begin about the same.

 _Time goes on and she grows weary._

She wakes up one night on the couch in the Cave—she'd been watching some movie with M'gann hours ago—alone in the dim light with the television off. It takes her a moment of scrambling with the blanket someone had placed around her before she manages to sit up, messy haired and clothing askew.

There's a light on in the kitchen.

It's more out of habit than anything that makes her stalk towards the light switch—when she was younger she used to run around the apartment constantly, flicking switches and unplugging the refrigerator, anything to keep the bills down and her father out of one of his moods—when spots them. College applications, dozens of them, littering the island counter.

For some reason she stops, curious, one hand reaching out and moving the papers fractions apart so as to better see the university names bolded in fancy script at the top of the page. She's never given much thought, if any, to what she'll do after high school. Anything that remotely resembled higher education never seemed like an option to her, what with how scarce money is to begin with and how expensive student loans supposedly are. She's never really imagined a future of any kind… And now that she is, she can't imagine doing anything other than being a part of the Team…

 _Maybe that's what she's meant to do? She'll be like Black Canary, mentoring new recruits and teaching them how to be better heroes… Eventually her civilian identity will fade away, and she'll just be Artemis: the archer, instead of Artemis: the girl, the train wreck, the live wire of a person…_

She hears the sound of a sigh escape someone's lips and manages to remove her hand just in time, resuming her footsteps towards the refrigerator and nearly bumping into Rocket in the process.

It's been nearly a month since the ebony girl joined the team and yet she can't place a moment in which she's really been alone with her; they've spent time together yes, but always within the confines of debriefings or in the presence of others. She's long since come to terms with the fact that she's bad at making friends.

"Morning." She says, glancing at the clock on the stove to double check—yes, it's 12:30, it's technically morning _(since when does she feel the need to be technical)_ — the sound of her voice jarring Rocket slightly and pulling her eyes into focus as she settles into a stool she's obviously been occupying, her hands opening a laptop.

Rocket glances at her, short hair a little mused. "Hi." She says, sounding exhausted. There's an awkward silence that is only broken by the sound of the fridge opening and closing as she extracts an apple.

"… What are you doing?" She asks more to break the silence than anything, quickly biting into the apple when Rocket simply looks up at her, looking haggard.

"Oh, you know. Just questioning my entire sense of purpose. The usual." The darker girl sounds slightly stressed, one hand waving a little too carelessly around at the mess of paper before she explains. "I'm applying for college." She doesn't really know what to say to this and instead takes another hearty bite of apple, nodding her head and hoping whatever is written on her bulging cheeks is of some comfort to the older girl.

Apparently it is and Rocket nods her head back, looking soothed. "I know. Not fun. I don't know why I thought taking a year off after high school to fight crime would make my life any easier. It's not like I can put that on a resume." She pauses, rubbing her eyes, and Artemis seems to sense that she's gone as far as she can into this conversation without actually saying anything.

"What do you want to go to school for?"

To her surprise Rocket gets oddly sheepish, a small smile playing on her lips. "I always thought I would be a good writer."

She doesn't really know what to make of this information and catches herself nodding her head robotically. "Huh."

She pegged Rocket as smart almost the second she met her, even more so when she discovered that her powers weren't meta, but rather the result of her own engineering; she's had the exact mechanics explained to her multiple times and her only real take away is that it involves harnessing kinetic energy and something else equally nerdy sounding. All she knows is that it's alien tech and beyond her understanding.

Rocket watches her take a final bite of the apple, her chin resting on the fold of her hands. "What about you? Ever considered college?"

She shrugs and Rocket nods again, looking as if she's analyzing everything she says. "Not really." She says truthfully.

There's another awkward silence, Rocket's fingers playing with a few keys of her laptop. "… What about anyone else on the team? I mean, you're all smart kids…" To her surprise Rocket's cheeks suddenly redden. "I mean, look at Kaldur. He's really intelligent, good at critical thinking, level-headed…"

Something in the way she trails off quirks her interest, and before she can stop herself her lips twist up into a smirk. "Yeah, he is. Single too." She says casually. _She's trying to set the two of them up and suddenly it's official, she's been hanging out with Zatanna and M'gann too much._

Rocket blushes even redder and smiles sheepishly. "Ah."

For a moment she watches the other girl simply fiddle with applications, the sense that she's handed over some important information settling through the air. "Well, I'm going to head out. See you, Rocket."

"Call me Raquel."

She grins. "Right. Raquel."

* * *

On their last debriefing Roy joins them, looking rougher than she's ever seen him before; there's scruff about his chin and what she can see of his eyes behind his mask looks swollen. Bumpy. Uneven.

He fills the vacant spot beside her, the one that everyone had been leaving open with the hope that Wally would sit there _(it's been just as unbearable for the rest of the Team as it has been for her—she knows they can't enjoy the tense silences and the muttered bickering between the two of them but it's not her fault, she doesn't know how to fix it.)_ He doesn't greet her beyond a scowl and a pointed nod before he crosses his arms and glares opposite.

Everything about him looks jagged; from the stubble on the line of his jaw to the ruffled hair at the back of his neck, he hardly looks like the Roy she knows—he looks haggard, unsleeping, like she supposes she must look too. He catches her stare and switches to glaring at her. "What?" He barks out.

It hits her hard across the face: sweet grass and stale liquor and not the smell she'd once associated with Roy _(day old cologne, dried sweat and something woody, maybe cedar)_ but the smell of someone else, someone strong enough to twist his scent and turn it into her own. It's Jade, _Jade on his breathe_ , and Jade who had once kissed him—Roy's seen her sister, Roy's been close to her—and his lower lip is swollen ever so slightly like he's been—

"Alright." Black Canary calls them all to attention opposite the table they're all seated at, and Roy makes an annoyed noise at the back of his throat as he dismisses the look on her face—she's wide eyed, shocked, slightly furious—in favor of focusing on the older woman. "I know you're all sick of going over this, and I promise, this will be the last time…"

She's not paying attention anymore, her back rigid in her seat and her nostrils flaring, drinking in the smell that's radiating off of him. She hasn't seen Jade since they both betrayed their father, hasn't managed to find a way to relay a message of any kind of figure out a way to find out if she's still safe.

 _But Red Arrow has._

 _Which begs the question… Why? And How?_

"Artemis? Are you listening?" Black Canary calls to her, and at once several eyes snap towards her, including Wally's.

She blinks once at him despite herself and something shifts in his face; the corners of his apple eyes relax and he's reading something on her features that she's too slow to erase. "Yes. Sorry." She says blankly, pulling her eyes away from Wally and settling to look at Roy beside her, eyes still wide and probing his face.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Wally's ears redden, but she's not paying attention to him now—she leans back slightly, arms rising behind her to pretend to straighten the knot of her pony tail. It takes little effort to tilt her head as she does it, turning her face towards Roy.

He glances at her as she inhales quietly enough not to attract other's attention and at once she knows that he's aware of what she's doing; his spine tenses and suddenly he's leaning away, weight shifting in his chair until he's as far from her as he can be without being obvious to the rest of the group. The movement is as good as a confession; they both know that between the two of them she has the better sense of smell, all those years of being treated like an animal at least partially turning her into one. He knows that she can sense her sister, and he knows that she'll want answers.

The meeting ends and he gets up too quickly, and before she's even at the zeta tubes she can hear the disembodied voice announce his departure. Wally slams cabinets in the kitchen and ignores her when she tells him to shut up.

* * *

Luck doesn't favor her until nearly a week later.

She's walking the Cave hallways without a real sense of purpose when she hears it; the dull thunk of metal tips against cork, the sound of a pointed arrow colliding with processed, old fashioned wood making her stop in her footsteps without really knowing why. Automatically she turns her head towards the training room door, her mind taking a few seconds to catch up to what her body instinctively knows.

 _Someone is firing arrows at her targets._

It's a silly thing to be upset about; she had made the targets out of sheer boredom during one of her first weeks at the Cave. They're made of roughly chiseled cork, the kind that would normally be used at an amateur shooting range. They don't exactly offer much of a challenge now—they're unmoving, battered—but they're good to practice with if your mind is elsewhere. She slips into the training room almost silently.

Roy's either distracted or out of practice; he doesn't even look up when the door clicks shut behind her. She's always thought it odd that he chose to be an archer; by trade they need to be built smaller, more lithe, muscles more compact than that of an average fighter. He's simply too big, there's no way around it—she watches as he sets an arrow and fires, muscles rolling and popping over his shoulders and the joints in his elbows—his stance is all wrong, his has to over compensate for his size with an odd posture, string stretched too tightly between the ends of the bow.

The arrow wedges itself imperfectly in her old target; he's nearly two inches off, the force with which he fired burying the tip too deep—she'll never be able to get it out without damaging the cork. He finally looks up when she clicks her tongue impatiently, looking round at her with a surprised expression when she speaks. "You know, it's polite to _ask_ before you play with someone else's toys."

 _... She sounds so much like Jade without meaning to and she can tell he recognizes the familiar tone; she can see the shiver rolling up his spine and wonders what other words he's heard in that voice..._

 _Okay, never mind. That's kind of gross._

He looks mildly offended behind his mask when she sends a disdainful look towards his imperfect shot, even more so when she grabs her bow and quiver off the rack where it's been resting. "Been watching long?" He snarls, not quite sounding threatening the way he used to.

"Long enough to know you're out of practice." She quips back, slinging her quiver loosely on her shoulder and moving to stand beside him. Roy doesn't say anything when she notches an arrow against her finger, one eye closed to better calculate her aim. "… Which I can only assume means that you aren't exactly fighting Jade off when you see her."

He visibly stiffens the way she had been wanting him too, her stomach filling with a quirk of satisfaction when she releases her arrow, his eyes following it until it's twanging against the center mark. "… We aren't going to talk about that." He tells her, voice sharp as if reminding her of something they've already agreed upon.

"She's my sister, Roy—"

"Don't call me that." He bursts out, neck reddening and jaw snapping towards her, glaring. "… Don't."

She's not much in the mood to tolerate his whining, not up for counselling him with whatever emotional trauma he's going through. Instead she lowers her bow, eyes narrowing and hip cocked to the side. "Fine, _Red Arrow._ " She snarls, continuing to speak before he can cut her off without another outburst. "Where is she?"

"We aren't doing this, Artemis."

"Why not?"

" _Because we aren't._ "

She can't stop the frustrated noise that jumps past her lips—why did it have to be Roy, why couldn't it be anybody else, someone _reasonable_ —her annoyance only mounting at him when he turns his back on her, already squaring back to face the targets again. "Red!" She sighs, deciding to switch tactics, rounding on him and standing directly in his line of fire. "Just listen to me—"

"No, you listen to me, _Artemis_." He says her name with so much venom that she catches herself tensing up, as if waiting for a blow. "We aren't going to be discussing you sister—"

"Whatever she's promised you, whatever she's told you she can help you with—" She's talking fast, hoping to get everything she needs to say out of her mouth. "She's lying, okay? Don't trust Jade. I know, I know, she reels you in and makes you think she's changed but trust me, trust me Roy—"

She makes the mistake of reaching for his bow as if to fling it out of the way—suddenly his arrow is clattering back in his quiver and his bow is colliding with her shoulder, swung upwards and beating her like a club, so hard and sharp against her collar bone that it almost makes her knees gives out. Her own quiver swings off her arm with the force of the blow, her arrows scattering around them and clattering against the tile; he's breathing heavily in her face, cheeks red and towering over her like he did all those months ago, except this time she's actually afraid.

 _She suspects that maybe Roy has a part inside him that's feral in the same way she is; maybe it's a legacy of being a clone, maybe it's just a legacy of his bad attitude, but either way he's looking at her and he's wild... Wild and ready to strike again._

"Don't. Call. Me. That. Name." He grits out through his teeth, the shock of the pain and his sudden anger forcing her into stillness; suddenly he's pushing her so hard back that she stumbles, nearly falling against the floor. "I'm not Roy Harper!" He yells at her.

He steps back abruptly, as if the fact that he's just attacked a teammate is resonating fully in his mind; she waits until he turns his back on her, fingers clutching at his scalp, before she gets a grip on herself and speaks. "Is that what she's helping you with? Is she trying to help you find the Real Roy Harper?"

"Artemis—"

"Answer me!" She bursts out. "Why are you seeing her? Where is she? What's she promised—"

This time she's expecting him to lunge at her; he's sloppy in his movements and it's easy to side step the second swing of a bow he aims for her, her wrist flickering of its own accord to compress her own weapon until it's down to the size of a small bat. With a whack she's landed a clean blow into the back of his skull, her leg kicking out to trip him as he stumbles—there's barely a struggle before he falls, back slamming against the tile flooring.

She's too quick for him—she's always thought that between the two of them she has better reflexes—her muscles tense as she climbs on top of him, denim stretching across his chest. With the precision she's grown up knowing she shifts her weight as he thrashes out below her, one leg curled beneath her and locking his thighs against the ground, her other stamping on one of his hands and grinding the bones into the floor as he tries to throw her off.

 _She'll break all the fingers on his hand if she has to do, she'll see how much pain he can endure before he tells her what she needs to know-_

 _She'll find her sister, she'll save her sister, she doesn't need Speedy's help to do it-_

 _... Roy's not the only one with a dangerous side he can't control..._

Roy's groan is hoarse as she presses her compressed bow against his wind pipe, her other hand pinning his forearm to the ground as he keeps struggling, mask wrinkling against his eyes as he tries to cry out in pain. "Answer me!" She screams at him, mercilessly crushing his hand with the bottom of her boot— _He hit her first_ , she reminds herself _, this is self-defense—_

She eases off his throat just enough for him to gasp slightly, his mouth forming words so quiet she can barely hear him above the sound of his shoes squeaking against the floor. "She—doesn't want you to—to know."

She nearly snarls in frustrated, her half second of annoyance enough for him gain the advantage he needs; the toe of his shoe manages to hook around to the front of her shoulder and before she can do more than jump in surprise his foot has caught her full in the breast, thigh bending and shoving her backwards with a ridiculous amount of force. She cries out when she hits the floor, air knocking itself out of her lungs as he scrambles on top of her, pinning her in an almost text book manner—hands bracing against her forearms, seated on her stomach and feet hooked over her kneecaps, making it impossible to bend her legs.

Roy breathes once in her face, and again she smells a piece of Jade there, hidden in the back of his throat where she had smelt before. "She doesn't want you to know, Artemis." He repeats, voice still hoarse from her choking. "She's trying to keep you safe." It's ridiculous and childish but she actually tries to beat her fists against the floor, the edges of her feet maybe getting half an inch above the floor before she bangs her heels down in infuriation.

She hears the door knob turn and this time so does Roy; he makes a mistake of loosening his grip on her forearms and at once she's on him again, her compacted bow striking him against the shoulder and forcing him to shift back his weight; she hears voices just as she's kicked him backwards.

It's Wally and Robin and immediately as she gets to her feet she can hear their conversation break off, Robin's voice faltering and coming to a complete stop as they take in the scene: her and Roy both red in the face and out of breath, muscles tenses and eyes glaring at each other, arrows scattering around them. She decides to ignore the looks she's getting from her teammates and instead turns to face her sparring partner, still winded on the ground, blowing a loose piece of hair out of her face.

Roy looks at her and she looks at him and instantly even though no words are exchange she knows they're both thinking the same thing: _This isn't over._

She doesn't say anything to the men in the room, her lips spitting a piece of hair out of her mouth; instead she turns on her heel and stomps towards the exit, fully aware of Wally's eyes on her back.

* * *

The weather outside turns cloudy come the first week of February; they're back to the wet snow of the previous months and all the moisture in the air turns her hair limp and lifeless. It's harder to breathe somehow and she feels as if she's always drowning.

She's standing alone at their window, _her and Wally's window_ , something she's been doing a lot lately with her eyes out of focus and her breath fogging the glass. Roy hasn't made an appearance at the Cave since they fought...

Why would Jade and Roy be seeing each other… Vividly she remembers watching them kiss the one time, remembers how unnaturally their lips had pressed together in the heat of a fight. But that had been one of Jade's taunts, designed more to get inside her head than anything. And yet... No, Jade's helping him. It's the only real reason, the only possible reason they would team up; they're finding the Real Roy Harper, they're not... They're not sleeping together.

Something dark moves along the shoreline of the beach and vividly against the white of the damp, snow covered sand she can see Kaldur. Without thinking she grabs a random jacket off the back of a chair, already heading towards the beach hanger.

"Kal!" She calls for him a few minutes later, boots instantly freckled with sand as she jogs towards him. It's as if he's been waiting for her, turning to look over one shoulder and smile his mysterious smile at her. Connor's jacket slips slightly as she stops—she can only assume it's Connor's, it has the warm leathery smell he always seems to carry around with him and the fabric is so loose on her it hangs off of her like saggy folds of drapery—and he reaches for her, not to embrace her but to straighten the coat on her shoulders.

"Artemis." He says her name in greeting, replacing his hands at his sides. He's got an odd sort of look on his face, as if wondering why she's seeking him out of all people, as if he's really noticed her absence from his side in the recent weeks. The look makes her feel instantly guilty and not brave enough to look anywhere other than at their feet.

His feet are bare and dipped in the freezing ocean water—but, she supposes, it must feel cool to him, almost comfortable. "Thinking about going for a swim?" She asks teasingly.

Kaldur grins at her, one of his rare ones that actually shows his teeth—slightly yellow, canines more curved than that of a regular humans, and she wonders if he missed her. "No. I am simply thinking of home. It feels… comforting to be closer to the water."

He looks away from her, turning back to face the ocean. He hardly looks cold; in fact, he's got the zipper of his jacket undone almost halfway, the freezing bite of the air not bothering him. She takes a half step forward to stand beside him, wincing slightly when a wave washes up a little too far, icy water seeping in over her toes.

They're quiet for a while, the two of them just listening to the sound of the water and the noises of overhead gulls as they caw over the beach in search of scraps. For the first time in weeks she feels calm; not like with M'gann when the martian is projecting emotion onto her, or when Zatanna talks long enough for her to be soothed. It's real, organic comfort: just her, Kaldur, and the ocean.

She sighs, and as if he knows what she's thinking he looks at her, expectant and waiting for her to tell him why she's been avoiding him, why she's been acting so miserable and short tempered. Like it is with anyone else talking to Kaldur isn't easy, not when she's faced with the knowing look in his milky eyes; as usual she can't find the words she needs to say. "… Do you miss home, Kaldur?" She asks.

It's not the question he was expecting, his jaw dipping as he glances down at his feet and the waves that hit his toes. "Sometimes I do, very much. Yet the longer I am here the more I realize that it is not as much Atlantis I miss, but rather one person…"

The way he trails off quirks her interest, and immediately she's curious and wondering if she had been wrong to tell Raquel that Kaldur was available. "Oh? … Do I get to know who this one person is?"

She's never seen him blush before but suddenly his cheeks are darkening, not quite red but not quite anything else, a blotchy pattern that leaks down the edge of his face and colors his gills. "Her name is Tula—"

"Tula?" The name jogs her memory; at once she can recall the way he had looked when he had last spoken the name— _he had been heart broken_.

Kaldur seems to understand the confused look on her face, the corners of his mouth quirking. "You are remembering correctly. The last time I had visited Atlantis… She had chosen my best friend over me. But that does not stop me from caring for her deeply." Something on his face changes, and suddenly he looks light, carefree, and almost as young as he actually is. Unburdened. "Tula and I have been conversing; like many other Atlanteans her age she is growing curious about the surface world. I am hoping she will take time away from her studies to visit us."

She smirks, quirking a brow. "So you're trying to talk a girl into leaving her boyfriend for you? Bold move, Kal."

"No, not to leave him. Simply… visit. And perhaps see things from my point of view."

The way he says the last part makes her laugh, and even though he still looks a little offended by her presumptions he chuckles too. It feels good, laughing. Before long her lungs ache and her stomach is sore and she feels lighter than she has in a while.

It takes them a minute or so to calm down but after a while they're both beaming at each other, Kaldur reaching out once again to adjust Connor's jacket so it sits straight on her shoulders. "It is nice to see you laughing. You have seemed so… unlike yourself, these past few weeks."

She can't think of anything to say, her smile fading slightly from her mouth. "Yeah, I know."

Kaldur hesitates, then turns away from the ocean all together, focusing his gaze on her fully. "I have been hearing things... Artemis, I did not think I would ever have to remind you that attacking a teammate-"

"Roy isn't technically a teammate." She shrugs, only half kidding.

Kaldur doesn't look particularly soothed, still watching her carefully. "That is not all that concerns me." He pauses again, as if considering his words. "… Wally has seemed distraught as well. The two of you have also been bickering quite often."

"Kaldur." She says warningly.

He doesn't pay her any mind, instead narrowing his eyes and continuing to speak. "I will not pretend to understand what is going on in either of your minds or hearts; I am not that arrogant. But I have seen the two of you grow and come to care for each other. You have opened yourself up to him in ways you have not with anyone else on the Team, even with me who—forgive the assumption—you share a close bond with."

He pauses as if waiting for her to say something, not backing down from the glare she's sending him nor faultering under her quickly blushing cheeks. "… I know you think it is easier, to keep him at a distance. I know that is what feels safest for you. But speaking as someone who lost someone he loves because of distance… You should not let your past determine your future, Artemis. It is an awful feeling, watching someone you care about finally leave you. No one can wait forever—"

"I'm cold." She says mechanically, already turning on her heel and ignoring the way Kaldur's face falls slightly. "I'm going inside."

He doesn't chase after her when she leaves, doesn't apologize for meddling. She doesn't know what frightens her more: the fact that he knows her so well, or the fact that he may be right...

 _Nobody can wait forever._

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up and running! Please read and review and let me know what you think of the song selections for this chapter.**


	3. Over My Heart

**AN: Thanks so much for all your reviews! And a special shout out for those of you who put up with having a little chat with me in the PMs, it was nice talking to everyone! :)**

 **Picks from the playlist this week: Wasted Hours by Arcade Fire, Do What You Do by Noah and The Whale, and I Just Really Miss You by Miranda Lambert (this last one is a bit of a wild card as in my head I never picture Artemis as liking country music ((that's Wally's job!)) But I've been listening to it non-stop while editing and it would be a shame not to include it.)**

 **This chapter also features a shout out and a borrowed sentiment from the original Young Justice comics which obviously I don't own. Let's see if you guys can find it...**

* * *

She aches for Wally.

It's the same ache she felt when Jade left, when her mother went to jail, when her father beat her for the last time; it's an overwhelming sense of loss that drowns out all her other senses until all she can feel is loneliness. She hates it, hates that she misses him, and hates that she's too stubborn and thick-skulled to figure out a way to fix things.

They're spending more time together than they have in a while—it seems as if now that their briefings are finished the League is determined to erase whatever trauma is sticking to their skulls with doubly intense training sessions; to her chagrin she's constantly matched up with him, the two of them forced to spar in front of the rest of the Team. It's not the kind of time she wants though; she misses talking to him, laughing with him, being close to him even if she found it unbearable and difficult and _wrong_.

She spends a lot of time worrying about what Kaldur had said to her on the beach, her own frustration driving inward and forcing her to be as annoyed with Wally as she is with herself; during one particularly vicious sparring match he makes the mistake of trying to taunt her and she repays him with a bloody nose.

She feels the eyes of her teammates lingering on her for a bit too long in the days after this incident, their sympathies too overwhelming for her to meet their gaze; She decides to retreat further inside herself, the same sense of isolation filling her like it used to before she joined the Team; she's alone, she's lost, and as much it hurts her she supposes maybe it's for everyone's own good. _She ruins everyone she gets close to._

Even Roy, who she's decided to despise, looks at her with a bit too much understanding ( _as if he's worried)_ and it occurs to her for the first time that in some odd way her sister may be looking out for her after all. Before she can work up the nerve to ask him questions, even swallow her pride to _beg_ him to pass along a message, he leaves and doesn't look back.

This doesn't help things, and she grows bitter.

* * *

Roy flat out ignores her at the next session and the one after, pretending not to hear the questions she asks under her breath and avoiding the glares she sends him when he doesn't answer. He never lingers after training and doesn't say goodbye to anyone anymore.

Wally's mood worsens and she finds they can't even be in the same room together without practically clawing at each other's throats.

 _Just like old times._

The sixth of February finds her in her school uniform, arms aching under the weight of a massive pile of textbooks and notebooks she's been extracting from her bedroom in the Cave. She's been tasked with completing a massive project for her History class, one that requires frequent date checking and cross-referencing events and even before she's finished reading the outline for the assignment she's feeling exhausted.

She's in the hallway when a sudden breeze passes her and before she knows it sheets of paper are whirling around her and her skirt is flipping upwards; in a frenzy of embarrassment and blonde hair she's lost half her papers and dropped all of her books to the floor, cursing as she pins her skirt to her thighs.

"Wally!" She bursts out, annoyed and cheeks crimson. He doesn't reply, already on the other side of the building and no doubt snickering at both the mess he's left and the humiliation he's caused. As she bends to collect her fallen articles an alarm sounds.

For the first time in more than a month the Team is needed.

* * *

Her heart is pounding like it used to when she first joined the team, running at a full sprint to her bedroom in her excitement and not bothering to tidy the mess she's left in the hall. In a matter of minutes her fingers are slipping buttons through holes and tugging stockings off her calves; she hasn't worn the kevlar in a month, the suit feeling oddly tight on her skin like the way it did when she first put it on—as if its infrequent use has made it unfamiliar with her body.

They're all assembled in an oddly short amount of time, the energy in the room strange, off balance, all of them too unfocused and too excited for something, _anything_ to do. It's been a long month of debriefings and training and _nothing_ , all of them beaming as they stand, constantly jittering and waiting for someone to give them instructions.

After what feels like hours Batman arrives, sweeping and commanding as he always is, speaking so quickly that it takes several seconds too long for her to follow what he's saying: A missile threat in Metropolis City, potential for millions harmed; it's believed to be Ivoh's tech— "Superman and I are tracking Ivoh; The League is monitoring the atmosphere around Metropolis and will alert you should we notice any unusual activity. M'gann, that means keeping the Bioship close. We've already notified city officials who are evacuating the city as a precaution, but someone has to remain behind to monitor the situation on the ground and catch any stragglers left behind—that's where the Team comes in."

"So we're the cleanup crew?" Connor interrupts, looking sour as he always does whenever Superman is mentioned.

Something behind Batman's mask tightens, as if he were scowling. "You're whatever I tell you to be." He says sternly, looking around at them all. "I know you are all eager to get out in the field again but I want to warn you: I fully expect this to be a false alarm. Don't let your over-zealousness distract you from getting the job done." Before any of them can do more than straighten their spines he's turned to Kaldur. "Organize your Team." He says plainly, cape billowing behind him and disappearing into the zeta tubes without a backwards glance.

It takes several minutes before they can do just that—they're a bit out of practice—but once Robin pulls up a digital map of the city it becomes easier. Before long they've got the city divided up into four quadrants, enough so that they can split evenly into groups of two. "It is settled." Kaldur announces to the room as a whole. "Quadrant one: Superboy and Miss Martian. Quadrant two: Myself and Robin. Quadrant three: Rocket and Zatanna. Quadrant four: Kid Flash and Artemis."

 _Fuck._

As he says it Wally makes a small noise of disgust a few feet to her left, taking a step forward. "I don't need a partner, I can cover my whole quadrant in a minute flat."

She can feel her cheeks redden as several sets of eyes glance her way, her mouth twisting into a frown. "Whatever, Kid Idiot. I'll go with Zatanna and Rocket—"

"I assigned two to a quadrant for a reason." Kaldur cuts her off, glaring between the two of them and immediately quailing the rest of her snarky comment in her throat. "I need the two of you there, should any trouble arise and back up is needed before the rest of us can reach you."

"There's not going to be trouble." Wally starts arguing. "You heard Batman-"

Instead of allowing him to finish Kaldur's eyes narrow, looking uncharacteristically stern. "And you heard _me._ I am leader of this Team, Kid."

Wally looks sour before snorting slightly, turning away from Kaldur and stalking towards the zeta tubes as the rest of the Team begins their usual pre-mission chatter to cover the awkward moment. "Whatever. Try to keep up, Blondie." He mutters over his shoulder.

Before she can stop herself she's rising to his bait, her nose wrinkling and eyes glaring daggers at his back. "Don't worry about me, Kid. Worry about yourself." She spits at him.

She checks her arrows with a slightly careless hand as she follows him towards the zeta tubes, getting distracted and having to count the number of explosive arrows she has twice. Wally's already disappeared when Kaldur steps in front of her, blocking her path and nodding at M'gann, signaling her to go ahead towards the zeta tubes and not linger to overhear their conversation.

"I trust that you also heard Batman." Kaldur's voice is quiet enough for only her to hear, his eyes understanding but still a little hard as they always are before a mission. "The missile threat is most likely a false alarm—as far as we know, Ivoh is still in prison."

"Okay." She's not exactly sure what he means by this.

Kaldur reaches out to her, one hand on her shoulder as he leans in slightly. "I believe this is an opportunity for you and Wally to talk and bring an end to the… _unpleasantness_ we have all been enduring these past few weeks." The corners of his mouth flick upwards when she looks horrified, her cheeks flooding red. "Please do not misunderstand, I do not wish to meddle. I simply wish to have a functioning Team again."

"You can't just-" She cuts herself off, trying not to stutter into anger as her cheeks blush. She doesn't trust herself to open her mouth—she can't believe him, ordering her around like this, trying to force her to... _something_ —and simply nods, glaring at him before she stalks towards the zeta tubes.

* * *

Her cells reconstruct in an unfamiliar alley and it takes a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the unexpected light; it's oddly bright here. It's strange, she had been expecting it to be early evening, as it would be in Gotham only a few hours away— She blinks.

It's not natural brightness; for some reason Metropolis City has all its street lamps lit.

Wally's standing a few feet away, stretching and not bothering to greet her. "What kind of city lights its street lamps before seven o'clock?" She asks him, more to break the stiff silence between them than out of actual curiosity.

He scoffs. "One that isn't the crime capital of the nation." He says, as if knowing what she's thinking and knowing that she's already mentally comparing the city to her own. Her nose wrinkles.

"Shut up."

He makes an odd show of bending to touch his toes and then suddenly he's upright, posture changing and muscles popping against the Kevlar, as if he's seconds away from sprinting. "Alright. I'm heading out."

She can't stop her brows from raising. "Wally—

"No names on missions, Artemis."

It's such a stupid time to bring up such a technical thing that she immediately gets angry, wanting to snap his goggles off his face when he pulls them over his eyes. "Fine, _Kid Flash_. Didn't you hear anything Kaldur—"

"Aqualad—"

"—said to us back there? We're supposed to stick together."

Wally snorts. "I heard you tell me not to worry about you. So I'm not."

"Kid—" Before she can even finish the sentence he's running, a kick back of air flying off him and hitting her hard in the face; at once her nostrils are flooded with the smell of damp air and her pony tail is streaming out behind her. "Baywatch!" She calls for him, but he's too far to hear now. She actually snarls after the whirlwind he's left behind, her one foot itching to stamp the ground in frustration for a second before she forces herself into stillness.

 _She hates him_.

She doesn't know what she expected, thinking they could both handle being put in such close quarters while things are still so… _Raw_. Kaldur was wrong, thinking they could sort things out so quickly, force old feelings to die.

 _She was wrong for even indulging her feelings in the first place_.

There's a light dusting of snow here, now disturbed from his running; with an annoyed sigh she starts following the trails he's left in his wake. Everything is so bright here, much brighter than any neighborhood she's ever seen in Gotham—all the buildings are made of glass that isn't shattered or filthy, all the bricks are intact and undamaged. The street lights aren't the only thing illuminated; everywhere she looks there are old Christmas lights still shining on trees, wound around traffic lights and she feels as if she's walking through some sort of snow globe. When she looks to her left she sees light bouncing off the river water, a thousand sparkles half blinding her.

… She's still being bothered by Kaldur, bothered by what he had said to her on the beach the other day. She's so tired of overthinking her decision, so tired of hearing it analyzed from different points of view… First it had been Zatanna—who had a point, Team relationships are messy. Look at Connor and M'gann, _hell,_ look at her and Wally, who didn't even make it to that point and can't stand to be in the same room together. She had been right, to stop things before they started.

 _But that wasn't the only reason…_

 _It's for his own good._ She repeats the words in her head as her feet pound against the cobbled sidewalk, following the bend Wally had taken, tracing the path towards the bridge that crosses the West River—if she recalls their quadrant consists mostly of New Troy… Kaldur had wanted them to do a double check of the Hell's Gate Bridge, that's probably where Wally's running to— _He doesn't need someone like her, slowing him down._ She'll break his heart, she knows it, and she'll ruin the only friendship she's ever had that actually meant something and then she'll be alone again—

 _…_ _Didn't she already ruin that friendship by telling him no—_

Her hands automatically fly to her face, and without knowing it she stops walking, the heels of her palms pressing against her eyes. _Calm down_. She tells herself, teeth digging into the edge of her tongue deliberately hard, trying to get her mind to focus on pain rather than over thinking. _She made the right choice, being with Wally would only put him in danger, if not from her then from her family—look at them, ex-con mother, assassin sister, murderous father who will no doubt come after her the second he's out of prison, he's better off without all that—_ Resolutely she pulls her hands from her eyes, forcing her feet to keep moving and ignoring the way the her skin prickles despite the oddly warm February air rolling off the river. It's not cold here, the way it is in Gotham; the air is lighter, healthier, and warmer in her lungs somehow.

And yet Kaldur… What he had said to her. " _No one can wait forever."_

Kaldur was wrong when he said it was easy for her to close people off; it isn't easy, keeping her walls up. It isn't easy, forcing herself to keep the people she cares about at an arm's length. But what choice does she have? How can they expect her to open up when she's so used to being alone? For so long she's been stuck, waiting around for people to come back—her mother, Jade, her father—isn't it easier to push them away rather than to cling to them? Easier to just keep them at a distance rather than risk the pain of them getting close?

She's not asking Wally to wait forever. She doesn't want him to wait at all. She wants him to run from her, wants him to stay away; it's easier, watching him go, far easier than holding onto the false hope that he'll stay—

 _Her life is like a bus stop._ She thinks it as she walks past one; people come and stay a while but before she knows it they always leave, continue on their way and leave her behind… Nobody stays for her. Nobody comes back, not for her _(useless, pathetic, weak, worthless.)_ It's easier this way, not even giving him the chance to stay in the first place, not giving him a chance to ruin her more than she already is…

 _…_ _He already came back once. Remember?_

 _What's to say he won't stick around for good this time?_

 _... Don't be naïve._

It's been ghostly quiet on the street, not even a stray cat to disturb her, which is why she stills slightly when she sees movement on the bridge; almost immediately she's drawn her arrow, set it against the notch on her finger and aligned it with her bow, the muscles in her back stretching and popping over her shoulders as she rushes into position. She's been lost in thought, off her game, not paying attention— _Careless._

She's just about released her arrow when she notices the red and yellow and realizes that it's just Wally, a sudden rush of annoyance flooding through her; he's looking relaxed, downright leisurely and perching casually on the railing of the bridge, back against a support beam and leg dangled over the water, waiting for her to catch up. It's a testament to her reflexes that she manages to adjust her bow at the last second, hoping the extra inch or so she's raised it upwards is enough to avoid hitting him.

 _Even through her annoyance she's aware of a sudden fear that sounds in her stomach, her ears listening hard to the whisper of wind as her arrow flies through the air; that's the last thing she would need right now on top of everything, fatally injuring a teammate... And what a waste it would be, all this effort to protect him from her only to accidentally fire in arrow through his heart, she's so careless, so stupid..._

There's a half second of anxiety before she hears the sound of metal colliding with metal, Wally yelping in surprise as her arrow wedges against the edge of a steel beam. She can see him wobble in his spot, trying to get his balance back as he jerks his head up to glare at her. "What the _fuck_ was that for?" He swears at her, jumping from the bridge railing as if burnt, the metal still shaking and echoing from impact.

She forces herself to let out a mean sounding chuckle, rounding the last edge of the corner onto the bridge and looking him dead in the face. His ears are a startling red, whether from his own embarrassment or from the reflection of so many rose colored lights she can't quite tell. "Hm, I don't know." She says coyly, gesturing at him with her bow and pretending not to be slightly afraid for him still. "Maybe it was for the time you abandoned me in the middle of a mission."

"Don't be dramatic." He tells her, lifting his goggles to rub at his eyes before fixing them on his forehead. "It's not like you can't take care of yourself."

"That's beside the point." She snarls, stopping when she's a foot or so from him; her temper is catching up to her, all her annoyance for every rude comment he's made to her the past few weeks bubbling to the surface. "Aqualad gave us orders. We're supposed to stick together."

Wally looks at her, eyes glaring and mouth twisted into a snarl; for a second he looks as if he's about to start swearing at her or hit her or do something, then all at once he's turned on his heel and started walking towards the other side of the bridge. "Fine." He growls.

"Fine?" She repeats—for some reason she lets out some sort of odd yet dangerous sounding laugh as she does it, her feet racing of their own accord until she's one pace in front of him, her bow brandished out and pinning against his chest, stopping him. "That's it? Really Wally? That's all you're going to give me? _'Fine'_?"

She'd been expecting him to get riled up at the way she's speaking to him, at the very least throw the tip of her bow off of his chest; instead he goes very still, ears burning. "Don't use my real name on missions." He reminds her, voice low and eyes dangerous.

She lets her bow fall, her eyes wide and a little buggy as she laughs again, unravelling. "For _fuck's_ sake, Wally. I have news for you—" For some reason her voice gets very loud until she's yelling in his face, echoing off the steel beams around them. "There's nobody here! Its bullshit!"

It's inexcusable but she reaches out to push angrily him with one hand, her muscles jutting against him until she throws him a step back, breathing heavily all the while. She's acting crazy, completely unfocused on the mission; all the bickering and the loneliness and regret she's endured the past few weeks boiling up inside her and spilling over her edges.

Suddenly she doesn't even want to be near him; he disgusts her and she kind of disgusts herself at the moment, one hand running up the crown of her head and tugging at her hair as she takes a step backwards. Once she starts moving she finds it difficult to stop, the awkwardness of her backwards walk combined with the pulling at her scalp giving her something to focus on rather than her own uneven emotions.

Wally glares at her and lets her take a few paces backwards before he manages to speak; this time he sounds properly angry, his voice low and haggard as if he's annoyed at her for walking away from him. "Yeah, you would know all about that, _wouldn't you_?"

It's an odd thing to say and for some reason her feet slow. "All about _what_?" She snarls back.

Wally holds her gaze for about two seconds, his mouth opening and closing several times. "I..." He starts, cutting himself off, and to her fury his eyes actually fall to her breasts for a moment, watching as they rise and fall with her shuddering breaths. She hates that at once her stomach drops and her skin seems to heat up, and out of pure embarrassment at him making her feel these _things_ she has half a mind to deck him, to strangle him, to make like she almost did in Bialya and carve his retinas out with an arrow. But before she can do much other than clench her fingers into a tightly balled fist he's shaking his head, ears blazing and eyes looking past her to the river below them and looking as if he's determined never to speak to her again. "… Never mind. Let's just complete the mission."

A frustrated noise bubbles up and out of her throat. "No!" She half yells at him, side stepping and trying to catch his gaze. "God, Wally, will you please just talk to me? I hate this, I hate this—I hate not being friends and I hate not knowing what you're thinking—"

 _She hates that her voice breaks when she cries out; hates that all it takes is a look from him to stir up these feelings inside her, hates that he's the one thing she can't resist; she hates that he never tells her things anymore, that he doesn't touch her in moments of tenderness like he used to, hates that she lost all his comfort and his friendship because of her own damn insecurities and hates that now she's lost and she'll never get him back, never find her way back to him..._

"I can't talk to you!" He bursts out, finally meeting her eyes, his jaw tight under his mask. "I don't know how anymore, I don't even know how to do anything other than fighting—"

"Then fight with me!" She screams, reaching out to push him harder; this time he full on stumbles backwards, nearly losing his footing. "If that's the only way we can talk then let's just—please, Wally, I can't do this anymore. I can't—"

In an act of pure desperation she launches herself at him, not being kind in the way she touches him; she punches him in the shoulder not once but twice more before he seems to come to his senses, grabbing her hand and throwing her off of him; they're both breathing heavily and for the first time in her life she wants to hurt him, _really hurt him_ , for making her think these things and act this way...

"Just leave me alone, Artemis!" He bursts out, catching the hand holding her bow in midair as it reaches out to prod jaggedly at his shoulder; suddenly she no longer has a grip on it at all and it's clattering violently against the pavement a few feet away.

It's as if something's broken between them; for a few seconds they both stay completely still, both shaking with the effort of breathing and scowling thickly. She hates the boy in front of her, hates that he's confused her as much as he has; hates that she can't turn back time and stop this whole mess from happening. Because now there's no way to fix all the damage she's done, no way to mend the broken pieces of what they used to be.

 _She hates herself_ _too._

Wally looks away first, his eyes focusing again at the river over her shoulder. As he does it part of him seem to unwind, tense muscles along his chest loosening and relaxing; all at once his head turns to focus on her bow, and before she can do more that stare at the harsh line his jaw makes against his neck he's gone and come back.

"I'm sorry." He says, and for the first time in weeks there's no hostility in his voice, no hurt there, his right hand reaching out and offering her bow to her.

When she doesn't do anything other than blink at him, still caught between anger and confusion, he reaches for her and touches her gently for the first time in a long time—there's no hate here, no violence, just his fingers curling around her wrist and at once she can feel herself responding to him again, cheeks growing hot and pulse quickening, blood pounding so hard against her veins that she's sure he can feel it. Almost too slowly he raises her hand, just enough so he can place her bow back in it, his fingers working against hers until she's wrapped around the curve of her weapon, before releasing her.

"I'm sorry." He repeats, watching her hand fall back to her side. "That—that was out of line. I—"

"What did you mean before?" She interrupts him, wincing slightly as she hears her own voice—too soft, too broken sounding to really be her.

Something in Wally's face tightens and he glances down at his feet. "I don't—"

"Wally."

He hesitates, then rolls his head back up to her, ears red but refusing to look away. "Look. I—I know why you don't think this will work. I know. I just think… I just think its _bullshit_ , okay? And I know, _I know_ , Artemis, you've said it a thousand times, I know you think you're messed up and for some reason you think you're going to mess me up too, and… I just think you're over thinking it."

His hand is predictably at the back of his neck, his ears turning a startling red in the silence that unfolds while he waits for her to speak. "… Over thinking it?" She repeats, hating that she's whispering.

"Yeah." His hand falls, leaving his hair mused as he begins stumbling over his words. "Because you and me… We work well together, you know? Like, remember Bialya? I don't even know how to describe it, it was like… I-it was like finding someone... Look, that's just the way it's supposed to be, Artemis. I know it. _You and Me_."

"Wally—"

"You know…" He hesitates, his ears going off again before he's suddenly speaking so quickly that she can barely follow. "One of the basic principles of science states that progress can only be made by testing a hypothesis and pushing boundaries…" For a second she actually wants to punch him, to smack the nerdiness out of him and the way his eyes are suddenly lighting up hopefully, reflecting all the lights in the city and looking as if he's suddenly made a break through. "And I just—look, can you just let me test one of mine? Can you just… Can you just not think for a second?" It's worded badly but the way he asks her breaks her, his eyes wide and earnest, so pleading that she actually bites the inside of her cheek, watching him warily. "… Just let me—" He breaks off abruptly, reaching for her.

She can't stop herself from jerking back when his fingers brush her chin; he's switching paces too quickly for her like he always is, changing tactics before she has enough time to process the plan, and _she had just been fighting with this boy, she had just wanted to kill him, and now he's advancing on her and looking at her like she's worth the world and she isn't, she isn't, he needs to stay away from her-_

"Artemis." He breathes her name and looks hurt by her reaction, the walnut smell she so adores splashing her hard across her face. " _Please._ "

She can sense a part of him bubbling to the surface, can sense that in the face of her cruelty she's getting close to breaking him, and that alone kills her- if there's one thing in the world she never wants to hurt, at least in this way, it's Wally West. "O-okay." She stutters out, all of her muscles clenching together and forcing her into stillness.

 _Don't think. Don't think._ She repeats the words inside her skull until they numb her, allowing herself nearly a minute of painful stillness and stiffness before she nods at him, clenching her fists to avoid striking him in terror when he starts moving closer.

Wally watches her carefully as he shifts himself towards her, long lines of muscled legs and perfect joints jutting against his suit as he takes a half step closer. He's grown maybe another quarter inch since she was last this close to him; she suspects that by summer's end in August he'll have grown nearly two inches, maybe three. She swallows thickly as he ducks his jaw, square and thick against the flesh of his neck, her eyelids drooping slightly to watch his hands; she can feel her heart hammering against her ribs as he steps forward slightly, fingers grazing the exposed flesh of her stomach.

 _His fingers are warm, too warm, and as if she's been burnt she feels that fire inside her, pulsing and pounding against veins and tendons and heart strings—_

That feeling, whatever it is, scares her again—before she can stop herself she's taken a step backwards, eyes wide and hesitant. "It's _me_ , Artemis." He says quietly, as if she were some sort of animal he stumbled upon in the forest that he's talking out of running back to the safety of the trees. "Don't think, remember?"

 _Don't think. Don't think._

He waits until she clears her throat and swallows the bitter taste of fear from her mouth once more, chin dropped and eyes surveying unblinkingly before he tries for the third time; now he moves forward even more slowly, a snail's pace compared to before. Vaguely she remembers a game Jade and her used to play when they were kids, a game of Jade's own creation: they would corner rabbits in the school yard, pen them in against edges of the building and frighten them, advancing so close and terrorizing the poor things until they would succumb to fear and die right in front of their eyes; now she's the rabbit and she can feel her heart pounding, can feel her own terror creeping up inside her chest and—

She blinks, exhaling so sharply that Wally blinks at the air she's blown in his face _. She's not supposed to be thinking._

His fingers find hers, and for a moment he pauses to squeeze her hand, as if sensing how hard this is for her – he knows her too well, she's always said as much. He doesn't linger long, just resting there long enough so she can commit the sensation of his hand in hers to memory, before his index finger trails upwards, tracing the pattern her veins have popped through the flesh beneath her gauntlets.

His touch disappears at her elbow and she glances down to watch again, his hand leaving her arm and hesitating before taking her waist. She can hear herself suck in a breath, can see his eyes shift their gaze from her stomach to her eyes. He drops his head slightly. "It's okay." He reminds her, his breath warming her lips. Oddly, she believes him.

She feels his other hand press against her side, his grip growing surer and fingers pressing against her muscles—maybe it's easier not to be afraid anymore, not now, not when he exhales and warms her again with the scent of walnuts, not when his thumbs run down the length of her abdomen and settle inside the jutting of her hip bones; not when she can feel the _pulsing_ back between her legs. Not when he steps closer and she fells the strange heat he always radiates off of him. Not when his nose grazes hers and she lets out a whimper so small that he pulls back slightly, treating her as if she were more fragile than glass.

He waits until she has enough nerve to close her eyes ( _dulls one of her senses and gives him the pleasure of a weakness)_ before he kisses her.

It's like how she remembers: his lips are warm, burning hot and wet around the edges in his wanting. He's being so careful with her, not kissing her with the reckless abandon he always does—his movements are careful, calculated, his jaw tilting slowly and breathing measured as his mouth prods hers open. All at once he exhales into her, and as the walnut smell floods through her throat she can't stop herself from sighing against him, muscles unwinding at last and pressing against him.

It takes a few seconds of maneuvering before it feels as it did all those other times before; he shudders when she presses her tongue into his mouth, lips moving and suckling against him until her canines have left indentations on his lip. He makes a noise in the back of his throat that feels as if it's coming inside her rather than him, and for once every second thought of wariness or alarm inside her is silent as she reaches towards the back of his neck, her bow slipping between her fingers and clattering to the ground as she pulls him closer.

 _Wally groans when she pulls at his hair, and when she hears that noise something inside her stirs; it's not feral or violent or animalistic; it's soft and delicate and afraid but most of all excited. It's that part of her that's always wanted him, that's always believed in the best of him and maybe even in herself; the part she's been trying to silence for so long is bubbling up and out of her throat and before she can stop herself she's moaning back, her lips quirking into a smile that he can't see, only feel..._

Something crackles in her ear, and when she opens her eyes she sees nothing but black.

All the lights in the city have gone out.

Wally doesn't understand why she pulls back, at least not at first; for a half second he's a mess of clouded eyes and flushed cheeks and he actually ducks his head against as if to reclaim her. Then suddenly the static comes in louder, screeching and shrill in both their ears before suddenly dying.

 _Radios are dead._

"What's going on?" He asks her, voice no longer low and inviting but sharp in the darkness that's fallen around them. It's deathly quiet around them, no sound except that of ripples of river water crashing against the base of the bridge. In the silence he shifts closer, hands leaving her hips and circling her back, bumping her quiver and pulling her closer, forcing her to turn her face into his neck as if to shield her eyes from something indecent. "What's happening?"

"I don't know." She tells him, positioning her neck so as to peer over his shoulder. For the first time in her life she's afraid to leave his side, as if breaking apart from him is a mistake, a dangerous one; ignoring this instinct, she unwind her limbs, pulling away from him and licking her swollen lips. She doesn't like how quickly all the lights have disappeared, how slow her eyes are to adjust. It's as if it's just the two of them, alone in the city and confined in darkness. "Stay close to me." She adds as an afterthought as she bends to pick up her bow, taking one pace away before reaching out for him, one hand finding his.

Wally chuckles, his laugh a little higher and more anxious than she's used to as he helps her straighten up to a standing position. "Yes ma'am—"

 _"_ _Team? Is everyone okay?"_

M'gann sounds through her head, and instantly she's flooded with reaffirmations from her teammates, the sound of seven voices bouncing between the bones of her skull. _"Power is out across the city."_ Robin tells them, and in the half beat of silence she can imagine him checking and double checking the hardwiring of sensors in his gauntlet. _"Wait… It's not out. It's being diverted to another source—_ "

As he says it she hears something; it's like a dull humming noise from above them, like the sound of a vacuum straining against the fibers of a carpet but much quieter, more deadly somehow… Like a plane, but not quite… Wally's fingers fight hers as she releases him and without thinking she bounds across the pavement of the bridge, feet jumping the guard rail, past the pedestrian side walk and not stopping until she's clambered over the railing that Wally had been sitting on before, limbs climbing and feet bracing against metal beams and steadying her knees against the cross-bar. "Artemis?" Wally calls for her, and she hears him start moving faster when he sees her muscles tense, wrist flexing and popping and getting her bow into position.

 _"_ _We have company guys."_ She tells them grimly. She can barely see it in the dark, save for four tiny flashing lights—it's a small plane, maybe a tiny jet—

 _Maybe a missile?_

 _No..._

Her hair whips forwards just as she draws an arrow, Wally appearing at her side as she notches it against her finger. _"Something's flying over the Hell's Gate Bridge,"_ He tells the Team. _"I can't tell what it is, it's so dark. Artemis—"_

She doesn't need him to tell her what to do, and they both follow the arrow she fires into the darkness—She won't down whatever it is but there's a mild explosive on her arrow tip, it'll be what they need to light up the sky just enough— Wally's breath is loud beside her, anxious.

It hits, the sound of metal on metal ringing through the silent city. It's so much louder than she expected, way louder than her arrow on the bridge beam before, but it's not the vibrations of noise that send her knees quaking—it's what she sees when her arrow explodes…

It's not a missile.

It's not even a plane.

It's something bigger, scarier, _robotic_ ; whatever it is, there are dozens of them, strapped crudely to whatever it is that's propelling closer.

She has enough time to feel her knees quiver in a childish fright, Wally's hand in the small of her back guiding her back towards the ground. "Wally." She turns towards him, a thousand questions at the front of her mind as other voices rage inside her head, making it impossible for her to focus. "What the _hell_ —How come nobody warned us? What happened to the League?" She starts to say to him before she stops herself. He's tugging his goggles back down over his eyes, squinting at something behind her.

She whips her head to look over her shoulder and now that she knows what she's looking for she can see them: there's are dozens, maybe one hundred more of the strange holding rockets flying towards the city skyline. Those odd humanoid creatures are beginning to light up the closer they get, and before she can do more than feel the slackness in her jaw and the dead weight in her stomach she watches a sea of thousands of demonic red eyes light up in the darkness.

 _… Whatever they are, they've stolen a massive grid of power…_

"Artemis—" Wally starts to say, the voices of the rest of the Team beginning to flood louder through their heads, shouting directions and observations and making it nearly impossible to do anything other than look at each other, confused.

There's a huge quaking at the other end of the bridge, the sound of a collision into a building and city streets being ripped from the ground banging against her ears. Wally is thrown away from her on impact, yelling in shock, as whatever has come to claim the city finds the pavement.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! Please read and review, and remember that the more reviews I get the faster I post updates :)**


	4. We Both Went Mad

**AN: Wow, another round of awesome reviews. As promised thanks to such a great response I'm updating a little quicker than I normally would have! You guys are great.**

 **Picks from the playlist this week are a bit of a shit mix just to go with the nature of this chapter. I recommend listening in this order: "Shuck" by Purity Ring; "Wonderland" by Taylor Swift; and "Hold My Hand As I'm Lowered" by Noah and The Whale.**

 **Just a bit of a heads up, this chapter contains low level gore...**

* * *

It's like an earth quake but worse; the whole of the bridge is positively shaking, metal beams bending and quaking and vibrating so hard that they're both instantly thrown off balance; she hears Wally cry out as he's jolted behind her, and before she can even spit her pony tail out of the back of her throat she's being rocked forwards as the pavement around them starts splitting open with pressure. She nearly chokes on her own hair as a metal beam collides with her breasts, her eyes watering as her weight is thrust forward, the river below swimming in front of her eyes.

 _Even if she won't admit it aloud she's developed a slight fear of water over the past months; yes she can swim, and yes she can hold her breath but something about nearly drowning three missions in the row has given her no desire to repeat the experience ever again, and resolutely she grips hard against the railing until she's sure there are two horizontal bruises etched into her breasts, one hand fumbling with her bow , her precious bow, until it's compressed and clipped safely to her belt._

Her whole body is shaking with the railing, which is vibrating and collapsing and twisting beneath her. It's impossibly loud, the sound of those odd propelling mechanisms crashing against the pavement all around them—she can hear cement being unearthed and buildings being blown through, and even as she tears her eyes away from the river she's watching another one of them landing clumsily, the bottom of the pod catching against the top of the bridge and sending the whole thing positively quaking again. _They're going to down the bridge._

She allows herself one hope: that whatever is raining down on them will destroy itself in the landing. She knows it's pointless, especially as the things that glow like comets and sound like gun fire create massive potholes in the earth around her, but she allows herself the one idiotic thought before she pushes anything other than the mission to the back of her mind.

There's the sound of more metal on metal again, the shaking of the bridge intensifying- there's a huge quake on the opposite side as the misjudged pod meets the ground; suddenly the pavement under their feet is cracking, the joint securing the beams beneath them beginning to pop apart under pressure. Another of whatever is falling from the sky has hit the bridge, collided with one side, and suddenly both her feet have left the ground—her railing is beginning to come loose, her weight is going to propel her up and over and into the water—

 _If she's going to die doing anything it's going to be important. Crock women bleed out on the pavement, in the heat of battle; they don't drown like pathetic little-_

"We have to get off the bridge!" She screams, looking over her shoulder wildly before she finds Wally. He's managed to get a grip on one of the supports, but he's wincing painfully—his back is flush against an edge of a metal beam, neck snapped back as if the impact as just thrown it there, metal on spine on skull. _Keep it together_. "Wally, come on, we have to run!" She yells at him, somehow managing to maneuver like some sort of wild animal, her feet ducking up and pushing her off the guard rail, ankles rolling on uneven ground as she tries to run towards him.

The noise of the impact is still sounding all around them—more and more of those things are landing, it's an invasion, it's _something awful_ —and at first he doesn't understand what she's telling him, not hearing her words, a little stunned from pain of his skull against metal. He blinks at her when she gestures towards the humanoid looking pods, shaking his head weakly. His eyes aren't in focus.

 _Don't be an idiot, Baywatch._

She could throttle him, and instead settles for screaming at him, arms reaching out to shake his shoulders in the hopes of pulling him together. " _Run_ , Wally. We need to _get off_ the bridge!" She screams, and as if to make the point more clear she wraps her arms around his shoulders, jumping at him and yelling in his ear until he understands, one arm hooking behind her knees and holding her like he did in Bialya.

(Before they even move another ridiculous thought enters her head, the kind of thought only a dying woman thinks: _W_ _hat she wouldn't give for one more day back in the sun with him.)_

In an instant they're flying through the air—all around them dust is falling, pieces are cracking and breaking—she had forgotten how quickly he moves, how the air whips through her lungs when she breathes, making it nearly impossible to give her blood the oxygen it needs. It's exhilarating, terrifying, even more so when Wally comes to his senses slightly, speeding up and gripping her thigh in an iron fist.

They jerk to a stop abruptly, the sensation sending her stomach twisting—Wally replaces her on her feet but doesn't let go of her, his hand stiff on her waist and keeping her close, his nails digging through his gloves and keeping an almost painful grip on her skin. The longer she looks on, the more scared she gets.

If she didn't know better she would say it was a tank, would say it was meant to hold something; that much is clear by the opened doors, by the pod like structures etched into the sides that have been emptied. Whatever has crashed, whatever had the glowing red eyes, has abandoned the chunky metallic container it came in, leaving nothing more than a twisted and smoking heap of metal in the middle of the chaotic state of the street—all around them buildings are crumbling, sidewalks are torn up, only the moon lighting what they can see.

 _And it's quiet, too quiet, only the sound of more of those things in the distance, nothing scuttling or slithering close by—_

"Artemis—" Wally says her name when she steps forward, fingers pinching the fabric of her kevlar top and trying to hold her in place as she draws an arrow.

"We have to, Wally." She tells him, glancing at him only once as she twists her bow back into its full form, not giving him a second look when she notches her arrow. "Watch my back."

It takes too long to pick her way closer to the metal structure; there's no clear path, nothing left undamaged by the attack, leaving her to tread over upturned cement and loose cobblestones, boots slipping on broken glass. Occasionally she can hear another low rumble, can feel the shaking of another pod as it crashes somewhere else in the city, can hear the creaking of the bridge as pieces of it begin crumbling, falling into the water; it's a reminder that despite the relative quiet that something, whatever it is, is happening and they're caught in the storm of it. She can hear Wally moving a few feet behind her, being purposely slow so as to watch her advances.

The pod reminds her of seats in a roller coaster, the kind that spins rather than rides on tracks—she can see some sort of belting mechanism that's been detached, crudely ripped from seam to seam, the structure of whatever held the humanoids in place bent and almost indistinguishable. "So the real question…" Wally comes up behind her, looking down at the wreckage with furrowed brows. "Is where did this thing's cargo go?"

"I don't know." She tells him, looking around warily. She's almost expecting something to jump out at them and attack. "Come on."

By the time they pick their way back onto somewhat flat ground they're about a block away from the wreck itself, the buildings no longer damaged and seemingly normal looking despite what's happened. Other members of the Team are sounding in their heads, all repeating the same experience: large seismic activity, wreckage, no cargo on whatever it is that's landed.

 _"_ _If I didn't know better I'd say it was some sort of weird, metallic meteor shower."_ Wally sounds in her head. _"Or space junk reentering the earth's orbit."_ Remaining stationary is beginning to get to both of them—his feet are twitching and she's gotten goose bumps on her arm, the air rolling off the water beginning to bother her when she's this anxious.

 _"_ _So do you think we can rule out some sort of alien attack?"_ Zatanna asks.

 _"_ _Have to. Our atmosphere would have eaten anything this size up in a heartbeat. Whatever these are they're earth based."_

She turns to Wally as he says it; it's odd, hearing him in her head and not seeing his lips move. _"So we're dealing with Ivoh then?"_ She asks.

 _"_ _Ivoh's still in Belle Reve, confirmed ninety seconds before the crash."_ Robin tells her. _"I'm tried passing along intel to Batman but I'm not getting a response anymore. Doesn't matter though, nothing I say will mean much if we don't know what these things are carrying."_

Connor snorts. _"Yeah, yeah. Would have been nice if the League had given us a heads up that these things, whatever they are, were coming."_

 _"Now is not the time to argue. Let us continue the search."_ Kaldur says, and instantly they all go silent. He sounds worried. _"_ _Robin, keep attempting contact every sixty seconds_ _."_

* * *

She watches Wally as he looks back towards the crash, jaw tight and brows pursed. "We should fan out, start looking." She tells him, fiddling with the communicator in her ear and lowering her gaze when turns back towards her, eyes narrowed. "Coms are jammed still, we're going to have to try and stay within shouting distance, maybe a one or two block radius—"

"No offense, but that sounds like a stupid idea." He tells her, smirking, and despite the fact that they've just kissed and have about a thousand different emotions raging between them the one that jumps to the front of her mind is annoyance.

"You know, just because you begin a sentence with 'no offense' doesn't mean it's automatically _inoffensive_ , Wally—"

"Yeah, yeah." He waves his hand nonchalantly. "Come on, it might make sense for the others to split up, but you're forgetting who you're working with Babe. Super speed, remember? We can cover our whole quadrant in a matter of minutes if I carry you."

She doesn't like the idea of simply being cargo for him to lug around— _she wants action, she wants to be part of this, she's missed fighting_ —and very nearly tells him so before settling for jutting out a hip, glaring. "I can't see anything when you're moving that fast, Wally. I'll be useless."

"Then I won't go my fastest. Come on, I'll be practically jogging by your standards."

The way he says it bothers her—there's some sort of implication there, he's meta, he has super powers, _she's just some kid who's good with a bow and arrow_ —but she doesn't have time to say anything of the matter. There will be time for bickering later, will be time for her to confront him or ask him what he meant. Now they have a mission to complete.

"Okay, just—" She sighs, rolling her eyes before half raising her arms.

At the same time Wally moves, and for a moment they're both awkwardly bobbing and trying to position themselves—it's as if they've bumped into each other in a door frame and are trying to avoid each other rather than touch. It's awkward, terrible, and leaves both their cheeks blushing crimson—she doesn't understand, it had been so easy in the heat of the battle…

After several seconds of this Wally let's out an annoyed huff, and before she can brace herself he's moving too quickly for her eyes to even see, elbow hitting the back of her legs and forcing them to give, arm ready as she falls against him. It's cleaner than anything they would have done naturally but it still embarasses her, her cheeks blotching with red and eyes glaring at him as he adjusts her weight in his arms. "Relax Blondie." He tells her, chuckling slightly at the annoyed look on her face and raising a cheeky brow. "We've been _a lot_ closer than this before."

This only sets her off even more _(she can't believe him, flirting and one-liners in the middle of a mission, in the middle of what she's starting to think is a goddamn invasion)_ and before she can think of a quick response her mouth is sputtering for her, a connection of not-pronounced syllables flowing past her lips that only sends him laughing. It's humiliating, annoying, she wants to throttle him—

Something moves behind them, back towards the wreckage, and it's enough to quail the noises coming from her lips. Before he can stop laughing and read the look on her face she's shifting, sitting up straighter and pulling an arrow from her quiver, no longer embarrassed by the position or even the fact that her breasts, now bruised and sore, are pressing flush against his shoulder. "Move!" She screams, pulling her string backwards, tucking her legs in tight against him.

It takes him a half second and then he's off, the jolt of his movement forcing her arrow to misfire as he bursts into speed in the wrong direction; there's something back there, something that they've left behind and now her stupid arrow has revealed their last position without eliminating the target—she hasn't given him any instruction and he's already taken them several blocks away from their quarry, running too fast for her to see anything other than the blurring of shapes as they whirl around them. "Stop!" She screams, and even though she feels his muscles slowing it doesn't do her vision any good, air whipping her in the face so hard that she has to close her eyes to prevent dust from kicking into them. "Shit, Wally, slow down!"

"What's going on?" He asks her, finally slowing and momentarily jostling her with a bumpy jog before he fully stops. "What did you see?"

"I don't know!" She tells him, frustrated and oddly out of breath considering she wasn't the one running. "I couldn't see, I told you, not when you're going that fast—" There's a halfhearted struggle between them, consisting of him holding her tighter and her trying to get back to the ground where she's useful; predictably she wins, her feet on the pavement for half a second before she's running back towards where they came from before he can even get his bearings. "Come on, we have to go back, see whatever that thing was." She shouts behind her.

She breaks into a sprint and hears Wally let out an annoyed sigh, catching up to her in a matter of seconds despite her lead. "Artemis, it's safer if we work together—"

She cuts him off, snarling. "Wally, there is no working together if I'm being carried around! I can't fire my arrows if I can't see my target!" She can see him opening his mouth to argue but she beats him to the punch, already looking back towards the wreckage they're approaching. "Look, that's something we need to practice, okay? Let's just—you know—like we always do."

"Fine." He barks back, making a motion as if to rush on ahead—then at once, both their muscles seize up, slowing to a stop.

Their quarry is massive, mechanical, and much more threatening out of its pod than in it; almost double her height and nearly five times her weight at least. She's never seen anything like it before, never seen anything that's not quite human yet not quite machine; she can see two arms that look less like arms and more like thick barrels of a gun, two legs, an barely identifiable torso coated in chest plates and an armored helmet for a head. She can see the two demonic eyes she saw before—which she now realizes aren't really eyes, perhaps cameras of some sort. The thing in front of them shifts, its weight leaving indents in the crushed pavement surrounding its abandoned pod and supposedly looking at them curiously, could it be capable of looking.

 _It's like a human if a human were encased in metal, encased in armor and ready to go to war-_

Wally shifts beside her, eyes narrowing. "This isn't Ivoh's signature style." He tells her quietly, as if worrying about startling the thing they've come across. "He always models his robots after humans, always gives them proper facial features, similar joints… This…" He trails off, his hands tugging his goggles down over his eyes. "... It almost looks like one of Lex Luthor's war suits, except... huge."

 _Lex Luthor._

 _What's Lex Luthor doing attacking his own city?_

They both turn back to glance at the thing, watching it as it goes back to ignoring them in favor of examining the street around them. She can hear the mechanic beeping of machinery, hear metallic joints clicking into place as it toddles around the street—this tech, while expensive looking, is borderline crude, its ability to move compromised by its top heaviness. It takes a half second to process information around it before it turns back to them, metal plates on its arms clicking and mashing together and seeming to whir to life, red eyes surveying them again.

She knows what's going to happen before it does, raw instinct taking over; with a quick movement of her wrist she snaps the jutting edge of her bow against Wally's shoulder. Predictably he yelps and takes a few paces back, enough to get out of the way. The machine is slow, too slow, and they're both long out of range before it fires, low level missiles firing out of cannons attached where shoulder sockets should be, bursting behind them into fire and explosives, easily taking out the base of an apartment building a block away.

It happens several more times: the machine fires and misses and buildings start blasting apart around them, the movements so clumsy and unpolished that soon it becomes more of a matter of avoiding the anarchy of fallen debris around them than avoiding the robot all together. Around them the air turns into less oxygen and more smoke, and before long the two of them are covered in ash and dust.

Wally skids up to her—the humanoid is in the process of turning to face them, heavy feet trudging over debris and giving them more than enough time to come together, confused. "Something's off." She tells him, hardly out of breath from running. "This thing isn't even actively pursuing us; if we aren't careful it'll destroy the whole block."

Wally's eyes narrow, watching the robot as it finally begins to close in on them. "How do we know that isn't the whole point? We know its earth based, what if this is some sort of… Really slow terror attack?"

As he says it she hears the others inside her head communicating the same sentiment; The cannon fires again, and this time they don't even rush to get out of the way, simply dodging back a few feet and moving to a different position on the battle field. "I thought the whole point of terror attacks were that they were sudden? You know, they _terrify_ you?" She yells, struggling to be heard about the cannon's impact as it fires at them and misses, the crumbling of another building sending dust through the air.

 _"Rob, any luck with the League?"_

 _"I'm trying, Artemis."_

"Regardless!" Wally yells as they round back to the road leading to the bridge. "I'm getting tired of this. Take out its cannons, I'm going to move in closer!"

"And do what, exactly?" She asks him, a small spasm of fear sounding her stomach when he tugs his goggles back over his eyes, already moving.

He doesn't answer but she can see him sprinting, a blur across the battle field and suddenly it clicks in her head: he's providing a distraction, trying to get the humanoid to turn towards them though she doesn't need him to—this thing is moving so slowly she could make the shot and be on the train home before it would even know what was happening. She pulls an arrow from her quiver, thinking all the while and hoping someone on the Team isn't too distracted to hear. _"I'm going to try taking our boy's cannons."_ She tells them.

 _"Us with ours as well_ _."_ Kaldur replies.

It takes her less than a half second to lock her joints into position, one explosive arrow braced against her string and another singled out in her quiver, ready to be grabbed and used in short succession. "Out of the way, Wallman!" She yells, blinking as dust whirls towards her. She hears the shifting of metallic feet against the pavement, has enough time to mentally picture the mess of bolts and beams turning towards her. She waits until she feels a breeze before she opens her eyes, sensing and trusting that Wally is behind her, safe; her shoulders strain and she lets her arrow fly.

 _She won't miss._

Her movement is quick, precise; the other arrow hasn't even met its mark before she lets the other one go. There's a half second where she hears the quick procession of metal tips against metal joints, a half second where the red cameras across the odd torso seem to examine her, scanning parts of her even she can't see.

The explosion is small. Too small, considering the strength of her arrows and the amount of metal she's supposed to be blowing apart.

It's bright though—she can see wires bursting and circuits frying, her own explosives coloring the scene an odd green before fizzing out and fading into an acidic black smoke. The thing, the robot, the humanoid whatever is was, is lying, armless and defenseless in the dirt.

Wally moves to stand beside her, eyes narrowing at the scene and his thoughts streaming into both their heads. _"Alright… That felt too easy."_

 _"_ _We got ours too."_ Rocket tells them, in the exact same skeptical voice _. "Definitely too easy."_

She narrows her eyes, looking between the dismantled parts of the machine and it's whole. It made an excellent show of dying, being defeated, and yet… And yet she can still see the bright glow of the camera attached to its torso, still blinking red at them in the darkness.

She draws one arrow and sets it against her bow defensively, silencing Wally's question in his throat before he can properly ask it with a warning look. _"Watch my back."_ She tells him, flexing her fingers around her bow and setting her arrow in the notch of her finger.

She keeps her eyes fixed on the camera as she walks, stumbling twice on the uneven ground. She can hear Wally twitching behind her, nervous, as she watches the camera pull her into focus as she stops, less than a foot away.

"I have a bad feeling about this." Wally calls to her, and she makes the mistake of glancing at him over her shoulder.

It's fast; suddenly the helmet of the mechanism is bursting forward and the chest cavity of the humanoid is ripping itself open as if this was what it was meant to do. She has enough time to turn her head back and see the colors of the Bialyan flag before the heel of a machine gun is kicked up, shoving itself mercilessly into her jaw.

She hears Wally scream her name, feels all her teeth smash together and blood bursting from her mouth as the strength of the impact nearly flips her head over heels. She can hear voices calling to each other in a language she doesn't speak and hears guns clicking into place before she feels a breeze whirling past her, her bow clattering somewhere she can't see as she collides against the uneven pavement; she can feel parts of her back being torn into, can feel blood bursting through the seams of her skin...

Suddenly Robin's voice is loud in her head, sounding sharp and seconds away from death, and she knows that whatever she's just done was a grave mistake. _"_ _These things aren't just robots—"_ Robin screams, his own voice immediately cutting off and the sharp feeling of pain and impact sounding in her head. She hears the dull thunk of fists colliding with skulls and feels her own hurt at the front of her mind; spitting blood down her front as she looks around dazedly, trying to find Wally in the yellow and red blur of his movement, weaving between bullets.

The machine has started clunking away internally, and suddenly something is slithering out of the shoulder joints she's just blown apart… It's metallic, unfolding plate by plate, and in front of her beneath the moving and rolling and not stopping of the machine she sees more men being birthed by the mechanism, which isn't humanoid but designed to _hold humans_ -

 _"We have five goons in ours. Multiply that by about a hundred pods-"_ Wally grunts, cutting himself off as he switches targets, seizing weapons and sending her an impatient glance as if hoping she'll come back to her senses soon.

A machine gun is carelessly thrown beside her and suddenly she can feel Wally's anger and desperation and panic at the front of her mind; unthinkingly she grabs the gun off the ground, bracing it against her shoulder as she stands.

 _(She's only used a gun once before, but she knows the basic method; trigger behind her index finger, thumb against handle. Heel fixed against her shoulder and both hands braced exactly three inches apart. Because even though she's more skilled with her bow she can't reach it now; because she'll never have the same speed as bullets, because she won't have the sheer power that's instilled in the mechanics of a gun, because she won't be able to save them like they need to be saved...)_

And because this isn't a random terror attack. This is five hundred Quarac soldiers invading a city for God knows what reason.

This is war. And there's eight of them to defend Metropolis.

 _Any maybe the jolt to the head is what she needed; maybe she needed something to shock her back into the instinct Wally's numbed inside her- the one that thirsts for blood and knows how to fight, knows how to think without getting blocked by emotion..._

"Wally!" She screams for him, following the blur that is his body as it whirls behind her, looking down at her in shock.

"What are you doing?" He screams, looking at the way she's expertly holding the gun. "Artemis, you aren't-" She watches one more Bialyan soldier emerge from the machine, metal clicking and barrel aiming square at their faces.

The gun kicks back when she fires it, the whole of her weight colliding with his chest just as the soldier makes to shoot. A little ridiculously she catches him in the knee, blowing cartilage and blood all around them as misfired bullets stream into the air, the soldiers screams and sobs still sounding long after he falls beside his comrades.

"Holy fuck." Wally swears instead of thanking her. She drops the gun to the ground and spits blood, looking for her bow.

* * *

It's a mess, immediately—there's a thousand voices in her head, a thousand directions being yelled— _where's the_ _Justice League, has anyone tried calling them again?_

 _A_ _nd they need to all somehow get together because they work better as a group, they need to figure out why the hell the Bialyan government would launch an attack on one of the biggest cities while it's completely empty, why they're using Lex Tech to do it—_ and just as quickly as they all come together she loses track of Wally.

The way they're fighting is a complete blur, eight teenagers against an army—and okay, it's a tiny army, but still. It's madness, it's like New Year's Eve all over again; before long her shoulders are aching and her muscles have long since been pulled, and suddenly her quiver is rattling with emptiness where arrows used to be. Dick shouts something at her, and she thinks she hears the words, "They're heading towards S.T.A.R Labs, they're diverting us" before she's forced to look away to defend herself. When she looks back she's lost him; she doesn't know what he means, and there's no way to ask him—M'gann went down a while ago, she had heard the scream and felt the pain.

She's in the process of clearing several goons aside for Zatanna—the girl's been shouting something about needing space to work for nearly a minute now; everyone else is too busy with their own pursuers to help her—when Wally skids by her. "What's going on?" She screams at him, foolishly reaching out to grab him and stop him; he's going so fast that it's like he's slapped her whole arm away, the pain of her muscles being knocked back by him sounding through her whole arm; before she can even properly gasp out in pain he's rounded back beside her, grabbing her by the forearms to steady her.

"Are you okay?" He screams back, and instantly his hands are running all over her, checking her pulse and feeling the muscles of her arm to make sure nothing's been seriously dislocated.

"I'm fine." She yells back; it's growing quiet around them, the majority of the soldiers are migrating towards S.T.A.R labs and forcing Zatanna to follow. Despite her saying so Wally's hands are still roaming all over her _(arms, shoulders, waist, her jugular, cheek, temple, examining the quickly blossoming bruise on her chin)_ and suddenly she's having problems keeping focused, her hands reaching out to grip his wrist. "Wally, _not now_. What's going on?"

His eyes are still darting all over her body, trying to read the blood she's covered in and decide if it's hers or not, silently willing the bruises on her skin to tell him what happened. "What's going on?" She repeats when he doesn't answer her, and out of pure impatience she squeezes his wrist harder than she would allow herself to in normal circumstances, hoping the pain shocks him into paying attention to the mission at hand rather than her.

He winces, but his eyes pull her face into focus, his muscles no longer twitching and wanting him to keep moving. "They're heading to S.T.A.R labs, Robin thinks they're after some sort of tech—we need all hands on deck over there, I don't know what they're about to take but they aren't stopping until they get it. M'gann's down, she's still alive but—Artemis, I don't know what happened to the League before but they're coming."

The way he says the last part scares her slightly—there's an edge of hope there but there's also something else… "Are you okay?" He repeats, his wrist finally escaping hers and reaching up to press against her cheek once more.

"I-" She doesn't have time to answer—her senses are sharper than his, and for that reason alone she has the split second advantage of hearing footsteps approaching, the sound of metal bumping against a belt buckle signaling to her that her quarry has found her again. Without thinking she kicks him, _actually kicks him,_ her foot colliding with the center of his chest and shoving him backwards. She hears the air being forced out of his lungs, sees the shocked look he sends her when he goes flying a few feet, but she doesn't have time to fuss over him; she notches an arrow from her quiver against her bow string and fires without thinking.

Even with the split second advantage she's too slow; her arrow meets her target but not before the soldier's finger presses against his trigger; the impact of her arrow into his chest forces him to fall backwards, his bullets colliding against the ground and flying at odd angles.

 _(and when she thinks about it later she wonders if she actually saw the bullet that came to claim her)_

She screams, low and guttural and more animal sounding than human; instantly she can feel the skin of her thigh splitting open, her own blood spurting out and beginning to pour out of her. _Oh god, Oh god, Oh god._ Instinctively she presses her hands against her trembling muscle, tries to force the lifeline that's leaking between her fingers back inside her, don't let her die _don't let her die_ , her muscles beginning to quiver and shake like the fallen bridge a few blocks away.

She doesn't collapse, won't allow her muscles to give out on her—instead she blinks back the tears blossoming in her eyes and clutches the wound, and even though her own muscles start bending against her will she pushes herself into a lopsided stance, pushes herself to remain upright, pushes herself to stand and fight even though this is it, this pain she's feeling (sharp and hot and deadly) _this might be it..._

 _She forces herself not to think of the worst case scenario; she's going to bleed out alone on the pavement, just like she wanted before—_

But she's not alone: Wally's there. "Artemis!" He screams her name, his voice raw and ragged and breathless from the air her kick forced out of him, one hand clutching her forearm and the other her waist, screaming her name and helping her stay upright. She tries to say something, anything, to calm him and catches herself sobbing, clutching her leg like a child.

"It's okay, it's okay. Babe, it's okay, I've got you." He pants out, trying and failing to be soothing; for the first time in her life she registers that he's afraid, one hand leaving its position as he reaches out to prod her shaking hand off her wound, knees bending to examine her. "Shit. Shit shit shit." He swears at her, hand flexing so tight at her waist that she almost cries out as he clenches her ribs, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

She tries to open her mouth to tell him what he needs to know: he needs to help her get the bullet out of her leg, he needs to help her unclench her fingers and do it or he'll have to, he'll have to pry her muscles apart and dig inside her, _dig until he reaches bone_ , but her mouth is refusing to co-operate; hissing through her teeth she places a bloody palm on his forehead, slicked fingers slipping through his hair and trying to tug his head up towards her. He ignores her, frantically mutters something about an artery that she doesn't have time to listen for; there are more voices—someone's yelling into the street that the majority of the troops are taking S.T.A.R labs, they need back up…

Wally's distracted by her pain, distracted by what he feels, and that's why she's the one who spots another straggler like the one that shot her, coming up the slight hill and following the path his fellow made before she shot him. She's not sure of her aim _(she can feel the last of her strength pouring out of her, dribbling in warm waves down her knee and into Wally's hands)_ but there's nobody else to help—Zatanna's long since taken off the main battle, it's just Wally and her and she needs to get them both out of here safely—

"Wally, go to the lab." She hisses; she doesn't think about how badly her leg hurts, tries not to feel the heat of her own blood spilling out of her or hear the sound of Wally's voice as he keeps cursing at her; instead she reaches for another arrow, one of her last, and readies it. "Run, Kid." She tells him, knocking him in the head with her bow when she doesn't immediately start moving. "Wally, go, the Team, needs you! _Go_! For fuck's sake, get out of here!" She hisses again, knocking him again until he's on his feet, apple eyes looking on in horror as she tries and fails to lock her muscles into a proper stance.

 _If she has to die she wants it to be here, now, in the defense of her Team and the only boy she's ever felt this way about-_

Wally hesitates just as the solider comes up the hill. "Hold on." He bursts out, and to her fury he grabs her, his one hand is still pressing against her thigh, trying to staunch her bleeding, forcing both her legs to wrap around his waist. Her left breast is pressing against the side of his face but she doesn't give herself enough time to be embarrassed, doesn't have enough time to do anything other than focus on her grip—the Bialyan soldier is raises his rifle and she fires.

The same thing happens again—she lets the arrow fly and immediately she ducks down to safety; she can't tell if it's her or Wally pulling her flush against him, forcing her back to bend painfully and the top of her head to wedge beneath his chin, his muscles arms encircling her like a cage—regardless she's beginning to feel light headed, feeling like a coward now as she's (forced into) hiding. She hears her own arrow's impact just as bullets fire, hears the sound of metal sinking into the unknown man's throat.

 _She's a murder again._

Unexpectedly Wally's muscles falter and at once his running stutters, muscles jerking and collapsing and arms no longer holding her tight to his chest; she feels another bullet enter her calve, hitting bone and leaving her feeling like she's been shattered.

She goes flying, her own blood streaming out like a flag behind her.

* * *

She lands several feet away; she hears the sound of cracking wood and metal and her father's only gift shatters beneath her.

 _Gone._

She can't stop the scream that rips out of her throat, not as the force of the movement drags her over uneven ground, the wounds in her legs ripping open and sending blood and muscle dripping over the pavement. It takes too long for her to finally stop moving, the top of her head finally hitting an uprooted stop sign; it takes even longer for her to be aware of her eyes screwed shut, even longer for the air in her lungs to die out, cutting off her panicked sobs.

 _Breathe, Artemis._

 _Inhale, Exhale._

She lifts her head warily and rolls onto her side, sparing her broken bow one glance; it's shattered beyond repair, all that's leaving it recognizable is the largest piece she still holds in her hand: the top half of the arced wood and one long end of her string. Looking at it sends a dull pounding through her stomach, and whether from grief or from banging her head one too many times she ducks her bruised jaw, vomiting bile and blood down her front.

It's quiet; when she finally brings her head up she can actually hear her own sick dribbling off her chin and dripping against the ground. There's no movement, nobody left on the street but her—and then, with a pang, she remembers Wally—

 _Selfish, self-absorbed, and here she is, claiming to care for him..._

"Wally?" She tries to call, throat burning and mouth hardly getting out more than a whisper. She's weak, beyond weak, half dead, eyes black around the edges as she scans the street.

She spots him immediately, the red and yellow that she's always hated bright against the pavement and snow. "Wally!" She calls again, this time louder despite her voice dry from being sick, bitter taste still in her mouth as she tosses aside the broken bow, trying to make a sound for him to follow, to find her.

 _... The bow clatters on the ground, and for some reason she remembers the sound of a sai on kitchen tile..._

He doesn't move and she calls his name again, struggling to shift into a working position from the ground. Her leg throbs again when she tries to brace herself on her elbows; she's bleeding in two places now, and when she's stupid enough to try to move she catches herself crying out, fresh sobs raking through her at the sensation of rubble scraping against exposed muscle. "Wally!" She chokes out childishly, annoyed at him for not getting up to help her, nose dribbling a mixture of sick and mucus over her mouth.

She makes it as far as glancing down at her leg and almost getting sick again at the thought of trying to take the bullet out herself; before she can even raise a hand to probe the injury something clicks in the back of her mind, her eyes instantly switching from herself to Wally. _He wouldn't keep her waiting_. He never keeps her waiting, not like this. _Not when the stakes are this high_. Her stomach drops again and this time when her own vomit burns at the back of her throat she swallows it down, ignoring the tiny cries that escape her lips as she forces herself to inhale sharply, blowing out the darkness clouding her vision. Then she braces herself for the worst and tries to move.

It's excruciating, ten fold worse than when her father tortured her with his javelin; she's sobbing again before she even finishes rolling onto her stomach, muscles aching and exposed bone hissing as she grits her teeth. It takes almost half a minute to reach him, her leg useless and her finger tips bleeding as she drags herself though the upturned earth, shattered glass digging into her knees and blooding dripping down her thigh so hot and fast that she's sure that within an hour she'll be completely drained of it all together. She can't stop herself from crying, can't stop herself from acknowledging the pain that seems to have no beginning and no ending.

 _She's not strong enough._

 _Yes, she is. Wally needs her._

She manages to crawl beside him, groaning and sobbing and biting her tongue to keep from screaming; if she didn't know better, didn't feel the pain, it would almost be like they were lying side by side in bed together, the way lovers would. Wally's lying on his side, arms still half out stretched as if reaching for her, and in some sort of odd act of emotion she grips his wrist first, searching for a pulse.

 _There it is. Soft._

 _... And ridiculously in the front of her mind she remembers wet eyes and him in her bedroom; and even worse she remembers him in a hospital bed, how hot his skin had been on hers... And he's not burning now, why isn't he burning..._

He's skidded for a bit too, the side of his face bleeding and crusted with dirt and sharper pieces of upturned pavement. For a second she simply leans over him, weeping and looking around confusedly. Carelessly, she unwinds their hands and places hers on the ground, wincing as she props herself up to better look at him.

 _It's wet._

 _Why is the ground so fucking wet?_

It's horrible, so horrible that she actually feels her heart stop, feels her world stop turning entirely—it's wet all around her; the snow has melted and it's hot and wet in the way that only blood can be. It's as if someone has flicked a switch in her brain, and suddenly she can physically feel the heat of adrenaline flowing through her, can feel her heart rate increasing and the blood tripling its flow from her leg in her panic... She ignores her own pain, leaning further until she can see his back—until she can see bullet holes, too many for her to count, like a canvas of ripped uniform and freckled skin and blood and muscles and the very essence of Wally flowing from his back, dragging out of the pavement and painting her eye sockets red—

"No!" She can't stop herself from screaming. "No, Wally. _No, no, Wally!_ " The sound rouses him slightly; at once his apple eyes flicker open, unfocused before he finds her face.

His tries to roll onto his back, far enough for her to see another bullet hole; this one is sitting on his chest and looking as if it was the exit point for one of the ones that collided with his other side. Something inside him stops him, muscles pulling and dripping and halting the movement as he winces, _the same animal noise she heard all those months ago in the Gotham Academy gymnasium sounding from his lips_ before he collapses back onto his side, eyes bugging and wincing and as terrified as she is.

 _No. No. No._

She tries and fails to keep the hysteria out of her voice, one hand running through his hair, still wet with his blood, and gently tugging his face back so she can look him in the eye. "Wally? Listen to me okay? It's Artemis. It's- it's gonna be okay. I'm here."

He tries to mutter something, maybe her name, blood blossoming at the corner of his mouth and dribbling down his bloodied cheek, and she looses it; suddenly tears, real tears, are running down her cheeks, cutting clean trails in the dirt on her face as Wally inhales a shuddering breath.

 _No. No no no no no no—_

"I'm here." She repeats, stroking his hair. "I'll figure this out, okay? Wally?"

She sobs when she sees tears, Wally's tears, blossoming at the corners of his eyes—and now more than ever she can feel the raw panic she always keeps at bay bubbling up inside her. She can't afford to lose focus now, not when both their lives are at stake—but she allows herself half a second to inhale and exhale sharply, willing herself to keep breathing rather than slip into unconsciousness like she's bee threatening to do for a while. "Wally." She says his name, ignoring the way her voice breaks, watching Wally shut his eyes when she pushes his hair back. "Wally?"

It takes him a second to open his eyes again, the holes of his mask shoved awkwardly against the pavement; out of pity she pulls the Kevlar back, trying not to flat out burst into tears when she sees the bright red palm print she leaves on his forehead, a mixture of her blood and his decorating the freckled skin and disappearing into the redness of his hair "Wally, I need you to focus okay? You're gonna be okay. Wally? Blink if you can hear me."

Wally shudders, the blood in his throat spilling out of side of his mouth some more before he blinks, eyes slipping in and out of focus. His back is shuddering, his lungs making strange gurgling sounds as he tries to breathe— _he's drowning, she can't save him_ —

She lets out a sob, allows herself a momentary amount of weakness as he shuts his eyes again, head tilting back to press against her hand. She's praying, actually praying— _someone, anyone, even god (who she has never believed in but she will, for Wally) please come and help her._ She can't do anything, he's going to die, _she's going to lose him—_ "Wally." She shouts again, hand reaching out to tap too hard against his cheek, forcing him to be alert and not follow whatever animal impulse is pulling him away from her. "Wally, look at me. Wally? Baywatch!"

He opens his eyes and immediately coughs, blood splattering against the tops of her breasts as he draws another long and rattling breath. He looks at her again, this time more focused than before, tears streaming out of the corners of his eyes and dripping off the end of his nose. Because he knows it, just as well as she does—he's going to die here, he's never going to be able to say goodbye to his parents, to Dick, to her. "Arrr..." He gurgles at her, loosing focus half way through her name.

She keeps her grip tight on his cheek, finger nails breaking his skin, talking at a break neck speed to distract him. "Wally, _please_ , please don't do this—"

 _... Please don't leave her..._

He shudders again, impervious to the urgency to her voice and the feeling of her tears as they drip down her cheeks and land on his forehead. She's beginning to fall off the deep end, whatever sanity she has leaving her and forcing her to rely on the sharpness of her own panic to keep her going, her breath coming out in her pants that ruffle even his blood soaked hair. "Come on, Wally! Come on!" She screams, shaking him against her better judgment as his eyes trace the lines of her face one last time before drifting shut.

"Help!" She screams to the street as a whole, not caring who finds either of them—Wally's dead or almost there and she doesn't care anymore, she wants to die too—one of her hands is flying to her ear, pressing random buttons and speaking rapidly as sobs start dripping out her throat. "Team, help! Dick, Kaldur—" She screams.

 _... And again she remembers, her last resort before and her last resort again..._

She has one wild impulse left; grabbing Wally's face she kisses him, her lips mashing against his still ones and hoping in her fervor that he'll respond to her like he always does. It's nothing like the last time she did this, nothing like that time in her bedroom, and unrelentingly his lips remain still, his blood pouring into her mouth and forcing her to taste him.

She pulls back, only one sob leaving her throat before vomit immediately follows, her blood and his blood and more bile forcing itself from her mouth and splattering on Wally's hair. She can't breathe anymore, she's lost so much blood, her muscles seizing up and panicking and forcing her into stillness. Dazedly she locks her arms around Wally's form, the elbow keeping her upright collapsing... She's light headed, so light headed, Wally's face buried into her neck.

 _... She sees the lights around the bridge, sees the glow of the planet through the window the Watch tower; she sees the Bialyan sun shining down on her and sees the reflection of the sand in his eyes, the feeling of his hand in hers and their backs pressed against their window. In her dying breaths and she sees him, always him, all of him in the best ways..._

She can't force her lungs to move, can't force the last comfort of his lingering walnut smell inside her. Instead she feels his hair and her sick beneath her palms, feels the mixing of their blood beneath her finger nails. She feels the wetness underneath them, the warmth of their fluids sticking to the snow, and it occurs to her that at least some part of them, some _small_ part is together.

She's dying, _she's dying_ , and maybe, somewhere, that small piece of their togetherness is enough.

* * *

 **AN: Oh boy, let's see how many upset reviewers I get who are angry at me using all these clichés. Hey guys, they work for a reason! ;)**

 **Same rule as last chapter, the more reviews I get the quicker I update!**


	5. Lonely, Lonely Heart

**AN: I originally didn't plan on posting this chapter until after Halloween. But seeing as so many of you reviewed (and even more of you are mad at me!) I've decided to post early!**

 **Picks from the playlist: Drive by Pollimer, Feels Like We Only Go Backwards by Tame Impala, and Second Lover by Noah and the Whale.**

* * *

She dreams for a while.

Or at least she thinks she does. She dreams of her mother's legs supporting her weight; dreams of daisies pressed to her nose in childhood. She dreams of Wally; a Wally who is smiling at her and pulling her closer, a Wally who presses his lips against her hair in a way he never did when they were living.

She hears the sound of ripping fabric, feels the icy air sending goose pimples all over her blood soaked leg as it's exposed to the freezing rain that's falling. She winces when she feels a weight over top of her, everything aching when she jerks away from a scrubby moustache and the lips trying to breathe life back into her. Someone screams her name in her face, shaking her, and she doesn't even feel scared when she realizes she can't open her mouth to respond.

 _... She wants to die, just let her go..._

She feels someone make the mistake of trying to unclamp her hands from around Wally; something awful awakens inside her and the forces her eyes to open.

* * *

She dreams some more.

This time she sees rolling hills, the beaches of oceans she's never visited. She dreams of Kaldur teaching her to swim; her heart stalling when suddenly his fists press her arms to her sides... Something slices through her legs, severing them from her body; she's being dragged below the surface, water and blood filling her lungs, and now she's drowning, _drowning like Wally-_

She inhales so hard it she things she can feel her lungs bursting, eyes opening and blurry and not seeing anything other than white.

"Artemis!" She hears Kaldur screaming when she starts jerking around, unknown hands grabbing at her like she's a wild animal being dragged towards the slaughter house, muscles aching and popping as she thrashes against blankets. There's wires everywhere, metal pressing her into sheets, her own skin bursting open as she rolls over, leg not supporting her as she tumbles to the floor; her injured jaw strikes against the white tile and now she's the one screaming, teeth biting down on fingers as they press into her mouth to silence her.

Someone yanks her hair back and she catches her reflection on a metal surface; sallow, unhealthy skin. Bruises blossoming like flowers all over her face, blood trickling from her nose. Blood shot eyes and scraggly, brittle blonde hair.

 _She's no longer Artemis Crock; she's whatever she calls that dark park inside her. She's madness, she's feral in nature, she is less a girl and more a dead body reanimated._

 _Artemis Crock is as she knows herself is dead._

* * *

Someone taps once, hesitantly, at her cheek. She feels callouses that match the notch she has in her finger from firing arrows, feels a jagged edge of a nail as it drags across her chin; she hears her own mouth open to release a breath that turns into a dry sounding groan. Her jaw hurts.

But she hears her own breathing, shallow and quiet, in the silence of the room. _This is good,_ she tells herself. _She's breathing._

 _Tap, tap, the fingers tells her in response. Tap, tap. Time to get up. Tap, tap, get out of bed._

 _Bed._ She's in a bed. For some reason this comforts her; if she's in a bed that means she has a body, or at least enough of a body to save. She's in a bed, with pillows and blankets; she's not in a cage, not in a shallow grave, not in her own coffin. _She's in a bed._

She forces her muscles to jerk to life as she mentally does inventory of her body. It's not like how it was before, the pain is more isolated; she feels it, the lump on the back of her head, the bruises on her jaw and aching in her arms and chest. One leg fine and the other mangled but still responding as she bends her knee, what she knows to be old wounds stretching under the tightness of dried blood.

"You awake yet, kid?" A voice she knows whispers, warm breath hitting her cheek and sounding afraid of her.

She hears a whir of beeping around her _(she can hear things, she's alive, and it makes her way happier than it should)_ and it takes her a second of not really seeing and instead inhaling the familiar scent _(moist dirt, washing detergent, leather)_ before she realizes whose finger is rubbing tenderly at her cheek—she winces as Oliver Queen lets out a loud chuckle, red rimmed eyes staring at her like she holds all the mystery and wonder of a newborn. "I'll be damned." He swears. "I think that's the first time you've actually listened to me."

His chuckle dies out quickly when she finally fully opens her eyes, blinking around blearily—she's right, she's in a bed, there's an IV in her arm—and almost immediately she realizes he's looking worse for wear too; his hair is rumpled with lack of sleep, moustache bristling at odd angles and there's three deep scratches running down the length of his face, the third running dangerously close to his eye which is so swollen that he's forced into a squint. It takes her another half second of looking around and not really registering anything before everything comes rushing back to her—the Bialyan soldiers, the attack on S.T.A.R labs, Wally, _Wally Wally Wally Wally—_

"Whoa, slow down." He tells her, jumping up from the chair he's been occupying and raising his hands defensively, as if ready to push her back into bed should she get up. She can hear the machines around her that are monitoring her vitals begin to beep wildly again, her heart pounding along too quickly to get any sort of silence in the room- _Wally, she needs to find Wally..._

 _(If the feral part inside her looks at Oliver and considers hurting him, really hurting him should he be hiding Wally from her, she manages to keep it at bay for a moment)_

There's a television on above her; she sees important looking men shaking hands, sees the American flag and men in military colors... And there he is, _Luthor, Lex Luthor-_

And then she sees it, running in bold letters across the bottom of the screen: _America at War, America at War-_

 _... The country is at war..._

 _This... this doesn't make any sense..._

"What's going on? Where's Wally?" She snarls, not sounding at all like herself—Huntress is speaking, that part of her mother inside her, and for a second she loses control, already looking around the room for weapons to torture the information out of him _(She sees a framed photo on the wall, she'll smash it, grind the glass into his skin... She could choke him with her bed sheets, wind them around his throat., stuff an edge into his mouth to stifle the noise...)_ She's feeling desperate, murderous, until she tries to sit up and instead feels immediately light headed. "What happened?" She gasps out, eyes blurring and not allowing her to see him, to plan her attack...

She thinks Oliver looks properly wary as he leans over her, sitting on the edge of her bed and pressing one hand against her shoulder to get her to lie down again, ignoring her fingers as they try to claw at his wrist in her panic _(someone has cut her nails, who has cut her nails and why?)_ "You need to calm down, Artemis. They're going to kick me out of here if you get too excited."

 _She doesn't give a damn if he wants her to calm down, doesn't care about him- she needs to find Wally, she needs to make sure he's okay..._

"Artemis." He says sternly, ignoring the way she winces when he pins her harder against the mattress. "Stop looking at me like that. I can't tell you anything if I'm dead."

She hates the frankness in his voice, hates the way he can tell what she's thinking with just a look; childishly she glares at him, the wrinkle on her nose popping up as she bares her teeth; it's never worked before but for some reason something shifts on Oliver's face, something she can't quite identify. Whatever it is it's off putting, so much so that she actually quails slightly as if she's being yelled at, eyes searching his. "I..." She says, voice cracking with lack of use. "Okay, I'm sorry." She blurts out, making a show of forcing her shoulders to relax into the pile of pillows someone has put behind her, fingers releasing his wrist.

Oliver relaxes, his hands going back to rest in his lap and eyes flickering between hers, still reading her and looking for the danger that lurks inside her. "Alright." He says after a while. "Ask away. Just for the love of god, Artemis... _Don't pretend you're going to kill me again_ , okay? I've had enough of that."

She ignores his tone, even if it is half teasing, trying to force her anxious heart beat to slow. "Where's Wally?"

"He's here, in the hospital." He hesitates, the corners of his lips quirking. " _He's alive_ , Artemis. He's going to make it. I don't even... It's that fast metabolism. It was already healing him before we even got him through the doors."

She hears herself sigh with relief, eyes leaving Oliver's as she stares at the ceiling, _(she doesn't tell anyone, not even months after, that in this moment she thanks whatever God answered her prayers and allowed Wally to survive what she put him through)_ her mind struggling to think of another question now that her most important one is answered. "... Is anyone else here?" She asks, keeping her voice level.

"M'gann is... Or was. I think she checked out early this morning. Second degree burns; the streets were so ripped up, I'm not surprised something broke into a gas line during the fight... and with all the gun power and explosives... Everyone else is fine too. Mostly minor injuries all around, a few flesh wounds and broken bones that needed to be set, Robin has a cast all the way up to his elbow but other than that..."

"So no one else is hurt?"

"No."

Immediately she exhales again, her body seeming to unwind and lungs aching with breathing so heavily. Everything suddenly doubles in pain despite the relief she feels, as if her own worry had been distracting her, blurring the sharp lines of her aching. She glances back to Green Arrow, her eyes tracing the unfamiliar injury and trying to decide what to ask next. "Why us?" She asks, her voice wary and too quiet, as if she's afraid of his answer. "Why Metropolis?"

For some reason Oliver sighs, chin dropping and eyes glancing towards the door, as if half expecting someone to burst in and stop him from speaking. "I'm not exactly sure." He pauses, going back to looking at her. "… You've been under a while kiddo. A lot has happened. A lot has been happening..."

She swallows, her throat slightly dry. _She's been out a while?_ "What?"

"The attack was on the sixth. It's… it's the fifteenth now." Oliver pauses again, finally reaching out for her the way she was expecting him to and grabbing her hand, fingers stitching between hers and holding her against the top of her sheets and refusing to let go, even when she twitches uncomfortably at his closeness. "How about... Tell me the last thing you remember?"

She exhales again, eyes leaving his face and staring at their intertwined hands, her fingers curling around his in a death grip. She can hear the machines around her whirring to life again, the pronounced beeping around them warning her mentor that she's in a panic. _Nine days… She lost nine days._ "I…" The memory comes rushing back to her, the machines beginning to buzz even faster as she screws her eyes shut, fighting the tears she hates. "I remember getting shot at by a soldier. A-and Wally…" She forces herself to stop for a moment, not trusting herself not to cry. "And I think I remember someone trying to pull me off of him, I don't..."

Oliver nods, looking troubled. When he speaks he sounds as if he's trying to lighten the mood. "It's okay, Artemis. You know it's going to be okay, right?"

He waits until she nods, eyes still shut, before he starts talking low and fast, as if afraid of being overheard. "We never should have sent you kids in there, it was so... But we thought we knew what we were dealing with. The guards at Belle Rev told us Ivoh had been bragging to some other prisoners, talking about bombing the city. But he was in prison. We thought we had him. Superman and Batman were going to check in on him, just to double check, maybe scare him a bit, I don't know... We only sent the Team out for something to do, you all had been so jumpy, so ready for action...

"We knew the second the radios went down that something was wrong, something really wrong... It took us way too long to group together, nobody was taking it seriously... I can't tell you how I felt, when I zeta'd into the city. It was the worst feeling I've ever had in my whole life... I hadn't even been there five minutes and it was all over, the Bialyans had won, S.T.A.R labs was burning to the ground and then I saw you..." Oliver's voice waves before he clears his throat, and when he speaks against he forces himself to chuckle. "You wouldn't let me touch you, either of you. It wasn't until Aqualad and Zatanna came back for us that we managed to separate the two of you."

He stops speaking again, the soothing voice he's been putting on trailing off and being replaced with something she can't quite identify. She wonders what that must have been like for him, finding her covered in blood. "... Go on." She whispers, voice breaking. " _What happened next?_ "

"Superboy met up with us with M'gann. The rest of them Team was down, Rocket was helping Robin... We rushed you to the hospital, naturally, half the city was destroyed, there wasn't anything left to save... And… You woke up for a bit." He says this last bit oddly, his lips quirking up slightly at the confused look on her face. "You don't remember? How do you think I got these?" He chuckles bitterly, gesturing to the scratches on his face.

Her heart stalls. "Oh."

She can feel her cheeks redden and Oliver grins, seeming to get some of his nerve back as if her embarrassment at her ferocity is a good sign, as if the fact that she's ashamed of it means that part of her is being kept at bay; for a moment it seems like they're almost normal, a few minutes passing where he seems to enjoy showing off his injuries, which consist not only of the scratches on his cheek but of cuts on his arms and the indentations of her canines on his fingers. After a few minutes his face falls and he grabs her hand again, looking serious again. "It was like something out of a horror movie… You were like an animal. You wouldn't let anyone nearly Wally. I—I had to get someone else to knock you out so we could treat you both."

 _She wonders why he didn't do it himself._

She's ashamed, humiliated, can't believe that she behaved like that towards him despite the fact that she had been considering it only a few minutes before; at last something sobers in Oliver's face, and she tries not to flinch when his free hand reaches for her, still wincing as he gently cups her cheek. "You scared me, Artemis… Don't do it again, okay?"

 _She wonders what he means... Don't get shot again? Don't try to fight him again? Don't almost die again? ... How had he had felt when he found her, unconscious and bloody and covered in her own sick… Oliver Queen's never mentioned any family. He never mentions parents or siblings or even Black Canary, who she knows well enough now is a big part of his life. The whole thing strikes her as odd, and for a moment she simply looks at him, wondering just how scared she had made him…_

She doesn't know what to say but she nods, allowing him a few moments of touching her face before she frowns and jerks away, wanting to continue talking. "… I don't get it, though. Why the Bialyan soldiers? Why S.T.A.R labs? How did they even get that kind of tech? If the League still believes it was Ivoh—"

"We know it wasn't Ivoh." Oliver cuts her off, his hand falling from her face and onto her bedsheets. "That wasn't anything like what he's capable of. We've been analyzing fragments of what we found at the scene and almost every sign points to Lex Luthor's signature style. "

"That's what we thought to." She says, running her hands through her hair and ignoring the machines as they whirl to life around her. "But—But Luthor's an American, what's he doing— And what's that, on the television?" She gestures wildly to the screen, wincing with pain as her muscles stutter and halt the movement.

"Artemis, _calm down_." He warns her, gripping her hand a refusing to answer the questions she fires at him until she takes several deep breaths and the monitors slow. "I don't know the specifics. But I do know that is Luthor's working with Bialyan soldiers it means he's working with Queen Bee. He wanted to start a war Artemis, and the United States government is playing right into his hands... Look, I don't really know how to explain this. But for a man like Luthor, wars mean money, they mean an exchange of resources... We can only assume he's trying to generate a massive amount of profit, especially if he's selling to the Bialyan government."

"Isn't anyone at the League warning, oh, I don't know, the President? The CIA? Somebody?" She bursts out, ignoring him when he gestured for her to relax. "Why does Luthor want a start a war? What about the attack on S.T.A.R labs?"

Oliver sighs, finally succeeding in pinning both her arms against the mattress again. "I told you, Artemis, I don't know. I've barely seen anyone with the League since I found you. Your mother and I have been here day and night, she's just stepped out for a shift at work—"

She ignores the hurt imbedded in her body as she forces herself to fight him off, wrists slipping from his grasp and yanking back her bed sheets. "I don't care. Let's go, we need to tell someone—" She cuts herself off with a grunt, muscles jerking painfully and stopping her as she sits up.

It barely looks like her leg sticking out of her hospital gown, more like a mess of bandages with warbled skin poking between slats of gauze. Her muscles feel bothered by the movement, the sharp sensation dulling was she still until nothing more than a twinge remains, feeling older, duller. More permanent.

She feels the shock lingering at the front of her mind and allows Oliver to push her back in her pillows, his grin not quite reaching his eyes when he tosses the blanket back over her leg, hiding it from view but doing nothing to stop the numbing sensation she's beginning to feel, as if her own blood is avoiding the ugliness of the new scars she's procured."You're a lucky kid. We managed to stitch you up okay, no broken bones or anything. We had to use some skin grafts on your thigh though." He pauses, clutching at her hands. "You looked like you had been dragged through hell."

 _She had been. She made a stupid mistake that got her and Wally, stupid Wally, almost killed…_

She blinks quickly before she answers, the memory still pricking at the back of her mind but matching words not finding their way out of her mouth. "... I was stupid, Oliver." She tells him, ignoring his wince at how harsh her tone is. "I had been shot and Wally came over to—I don't even know, there wasn't anything he could do. And I saw a soldier about to fire, I didn't even think, I just knew that if we stood a chance of stopping whatever the Bialyans were doing at S.T.A.R labs I had to stall him, Wally would have to be the one to keep going… Oliver, I could have kicked him out of the way. Pushed him or something, I had been doing that all night. But instead I told him to run."

 _... She told him to run and was stupid enough to think Wally would know that she wanted him to leave her behind... Stupid enough to think that he would know that running with her, running slow enough for her to take the shot, was a fatal mistake..._

Oliver doesn't ask for clarification, instead listening intently as she pulls her hands away from his, her palms pressing against her eyes and forcing stars to pop against her lids. "I was so stupid, I don't—I had just told him an hour before that I couldn't shoot while he ran, he moves too fast... He grabbed me and I _still_ tried to take the fucking shot. He was _trying_ to be slow for me, I should have just told him to go, I should have been more clear, I shouldn't have tried..."

Oliver hesitates before answering. "But you didn't miss sweetie." Oliver tells her, busting out a random pet name as if to comfort her, voice breaking slightly. "... You hit your target, dead in the throat."

 _She can tell he wants to say something, can tell that he knows she killed more than just the one person that night; she knows he wants to call her a murderer, wants to tell her that what she did was wrong, wants to tell her a thousand things but he's blinded by his emotions, too thankful that she's still breathing to condemn her for all the throats she's slit..._

"I didn't hit it _in time_!" She bursts out, throwing her hands off her face. The monitors are going crazy again and she actually raises her voice to shout over them. " _Don't_ tell me I hit it, Oliver, I didn't—don't give me that shit when he's sitting in a hospital bed with bullets inside him." For some reason her voice breaks and she drops her eyes back to her bed sheet. "… He tried to run and I ended up flying. I should have just— _and I had to watch him bleed out, Oliver, I had to watch him think he was going to die._ " For the first time she allows herself to cry in front of him, tears running down her cheeks so quickly she can't conceal them. Without seeming to give it a second though Oliver reaches for her, pulling her over a pile of blankets and sheets and into his lap.

She's a mess—the movement makes her injured leg ache and suddenly she's crying out in a mixture of grief and pain; Oliver ignores her hands as she pushes at him, thrashing against him and trying to keep him at an arms distance, her dulled nails scraping over his face and doing no damage. There's a struggle that she loses, Oliver ignoring her screaming and her fighting him off until he's got both her wrists pinned in an over large palm, the rest of her cradled against his chest. "Don't _fucking_ touch me!" She screams, wanting to kill him for thinking he can hold her, for thinking he has the right to comfort her...

She can't remember once being held like this, can't remember anyone fighting her in order to comforting her, as if they were a parent; without her permission her fingers fist in his sweater and pull him closer as he shifts his weight to rock her, muttering words she can't distinguish over her sobs.

"It's alright, sweetie. Happens to the best of us." He tells her, a free hand smoothing the hair that's falling out of her pony tail off her face. "Everyone feels like this, doing this kind of job. It happens, it's alright."

 _He tells her that this is what every hero goes through, that it happens to everyone. Everyone second guesses themselves, especially when people they love get hurt._

 _He tells her not to over think._

 _She privately thinks he's wrong. It's not that it happens to everyone, it's that this time it happened to her._

He holds her tighter when she screams again, and even though she doesn't say anything on the matter she thinks he understands.

* * *

It takes long, too long, for her to pull herself together; finally when she's on the verge of hiccups she pulls away, already off-put by the closeness. She's expecting Green Arrow to tease her, to make some sort of funny comment about her tears or the mucus that's been dripping down her chin; instead he looks away politely while she wipes her nose loudly on the back of her hand, mouth quirked up when he looks back as if nothing unusual has happened and as if he can't feel the massive wet spot her tears have left on the shoulder of his sweater. "Well, we've got all the bad news out of the way. You ready for the good stuff?"

She nods like a child, wet nose still dragging across her wrist as he bounds off her bed, already looking substantially more chipper as if hoping his good mood will rub off on her. She has enough time to drag her knuckles once more over her lashes before she feels an unfamiliar weight being dropped in her lap, forcing her to wince.

Ridiculously when she opens her eyes she feels her mouth fall into an "o" shape, for once not bothered when Oliver chuckles at her.

It's the most beautiful bow she's even seen in her whole life. It's not just the deep green coloring or the ornate golden detailing about the edges, it's the weight of the thing itself as she holds it in her hands; she can tell just by touching it that it's perfectly balanced, not just one but two strings already set and tightened the way she likes them, already adjusted individually for longer and shorter ranged attacks. It's sturdy, it's perfect, the ultimate weapon, highly polished titanium, a little heavier than her father's old bow but much more powerful— She flexes her wrist, watching as it snaps down and compresses tighter than her old one ever did, back into position only seconds after she repeats the movement.

 _What did she do to deserve it?_

She shakes her head, looking confused. "I don't... What?"

"Custom-made by Queen Industries." Oliver tells her proudly, looking pleased when she lifts it up, ignoring the way her arms ache as she mocks the position she would normally use to fire. "I couldn't help but notice that your other one didn't make it out of the battle. This one's sturdier, a bit heavier than what you're used to working with but I figured you're a big girl now, a little extra weight will help take down those tougher guys—" He cuts himself off slightly, trying to read the expression on her face. "I went back too, gathered up the fragments of your old bow too. You know… I could probably have it rebuilt if you want me to. Might need a little tweaking here or there but…?"

 _She hates herself for hesitating as he trails off, not quite knowing what to say. It's odd, the knowledge that she can leave her father's final gift without a goodbye. She's been lugging it around all these years: first growing into it and then growing out of it, holding onto it for sentimentality's sake…_

But it's not really the bow she's been holding onto. It's been her father all along and the hope that he'll come back, change his ways. But Lawrence has already proven time after time that he won't; he won't ever hold her in his arms the way Oliver just did. He won't worry for her, won't give her life a second thought. He's no more a father to her than he ever was—now more than ever he's just another threat.

"No, I want this one." She blurts out, voice high pitched and congested. She looks away as Oliver's face cracks into a smile.

"That's my girl." He grins, _and it occurs to her that maybe, after Dinah, she is his girl_. "Excellent. I'll have it boxed up and sent home with you when you check out. Unless…" He trails off, a brow raising and signaling that she's about to endure some teasing. "I know someone in room 46-B who wouldn't mind taking a peak."

"Ugh!" She snarls, and despite the angry look on her face she seems to get the impression that her mentor knows how fond of him she is; how much she treasures the small amount of time they spent together.

He laughs at her again, raising his hands in defense. "Relax, kiddo. I'm just saying... Your little boyfriend is doing well, really well."

"Oliver!"

 _Ridiculously she can see herself now; walking into Wally's room like she did all those months ago on his birthday except this time... This time she can taste the kiss she's going to plant on his mouth when she sees him, can already feel his hands as they tangle into her hair; it's going to be the start of better things to come, and despite all the guilt she's feeling she knows it will be okay if they can just talk, if she can just apologize, just laugh together..._

In answer Green Arrow shrugs, looking as if he already knows where her head is going. "Alright, alright." He chuckles. "I'm calling your mother, she'll be _delighted_ to hear you're back to your usual sneering self."

He waves her out as if nothing emotional has passed between them, leaving the new bow on her lap.

* * *

Her mother visits and predictably cries; in the face of someone else's tears she manages to keep her own eyes dry. Together they watch as a nurse removes her bandages, and silently she thinks the flesh of her thigh looks less like a leg and more like the rough terrain of the battlefield she scared it on.

Paula looks long and hard at the speckles of uneven and torn skin, eyes roaming the grafts that have been placed on exposed muscle to help it heal and still, _relentlessly_ , calls her beautiful. She thinks her mother is being stupid but doesn't have the energy to disagree and therefore shrugs against her pillows. The nurse tells her she can go home in the morning.

* * *

It takes the better part of the day to work up the courage, but she decides to go and find Wally.

 _She doesn't know why but she's afraid... Afraid of the boy in the hospital bed. Because it's one thing to think about it in the privacy of her head, to acknowledge that almost losing him was perhaps worst moment of her life, to admit that she wants to be with him, to admit that she needs him in her life to be complete... But it's another thing altogether to stand before him, as vulnerable as she is naked beneath her hospital gown, for him to see all her flaws, all the pain she's endured and inflicted on others and still want her... It's another thing completely to see him smiling smugly in front of her, opening his arms and inviting her to lie beside him..._

She waits until it's after midnight, long after she's stopped receiving visitors and the lights in the hospital hallway have gone out. She wants to see him when she knows there will be no interruptions, when she'll have the time to say what she needs to say without being cut off or forced to quicken her words—whatever they'll be, she'll decide when she sees him.

She forces herself to move and it feels like it takes her decades to get out of bed; she's used to being quick, or at very least somewhat agile. It takes too long for the muscles in her leg to respond to the movement she wants to produce, her heel slipping off her bed clumsily and landing too hard against the tile—the jolt of the impact seems to radiate up her leg and through her spin, reworking tissues and nerves that aren't willing to be worked yet. Gritting her teeth she ignores the numbing sensation and the sharpness of the pain that follows, already adjusting her weight.

She already knows this is the kind of injury that will never heal, at least not fully; she'll always have the scar, maybe always have the stiffness she's encountering now or else have it at odd moments, like during rain or when the seasons shift. But she's never been one to stop, slow down, let things heal; when things heal they settle, they solidify, and if there's one thing her life has never been it's solid—by nature she's precarious, on the edge. Of sanity, of forgiving herself. _Of allowing herself to let go._

She doesn't blink when she rips the IV out of her arm, nor does she flinch when she unhooks the machines monitoring her. She ignores the stinging of the medical tape as it lifts from her skin, leaving small sticky spots that will fade to dirty splotches as they collect fluff and dust over the next few hours—it's a step, a step in getting out of the door and finding Wally, another step that must be completed before her nurse—the only one on duty tonight— notices her lack of heart beat and comes to investigate.

It takes her a bit too long to think of checking the door behind her—she has a concussion, Oliver had told her, her thinking is a little slow—in reference to where she knows Wally is. She's 21-B. Wally is 46. Walking is hard, but not impossible.

 _Impossible is the fact that both of them are alive._

She doesn't hesitate when she sees his door, not the same way she might have done months ago, not the same way she did when she visited him in the hospital on his birthday. She can't decide if that's a good thing or not; it means there are no barriers between them anymore, it means that she's allowed him to penetrate the confines she keeps herself in, it means they have no secrets... It means that as much as he has the potential to be the greatest thing that ever happened to her he also has the chance to be the thing that finally mentally undoes her completely. In a last act of girlishness she checks her reflection on the glass window pane on his door; creaky finger tips pushing her hair off her face, twisting the tangled locks over her shoulders to cover the perking of her nipples through her hospital gown, index finger and thumb pinching her cheeks and attempting to revive the dull skin stretched too tightly across her skull.

She twists the handle and braces her arms against the doorframe, not so much walking in as dragging herself, voice breaking as she calls for him. "Wally?"

She hears the buzzing of machines, the whirring of air through tubes. And in the dim light she sees him, heart soaring up into her throat for less than a second before it plunges back to her knees.

 _He's not sitting up._

She's never seen anyone lying on their stomach in a hospital bed before, but this is how the nurses and doctors have chosen to place him: face down, back exposed, head turned to the side and tubes sticking out his nose and mouth, softly humming as they force his lungs to accept the oxygen they won't have. There's too many scents for her to process in the small space, the whole room reeking and telling her one thing: beneath the scent of bleach she can taste the sweat, the metallic scent of blood, the sourness of her own sick still caked in his hair... They haven't properly washed him yet.

 _They've been too busy, trying to keep him alive, to take care of him..._

Her hands clench so hard against the door frame that the scabs on her finger tips break open; too quickly there's blood pouring down her palms and dripping off her wrists... More to staunch the bleeding than anything she forces them without thinking into her mouth.

 _And suddenly she's back in the battle field, back to holding Wally as he dies... Back to pressing her lips against his mouth and tasting his blood as it drips off his lips-_

She gags, and her empty stomach forces a blackened bile into her mouth; without thinking she leans forward as if to spit it away, the imbalance of weight sending her knees collapsing and crashing to the floor on her hands and knees, her own vomit dribbling from her chin.

Wally doesn't move when she cries out, doesn't sit up to investigate as she chokes on sick, mouth spitting and tongue bitter and lungs straining and aching as she coughs it out of her system. She's disgusting, a mess of a human, and he can't help her... Nobody can help her, nobody will help her, nobody cares about the girl lying in her own vomit on the hospital floor... It had been naïve, another stupid mistake to think that he'd be okay, awake even—he had taken bullets for her, bullets that could have killed him, of course he's not awake. She feels like an idiot for getting her hopes up, for expecting him to be sitting there, grinning at her, scooting aside to make room for her... She feels herself cough out another shuddering breath. _Why did Oliver think she would want to see this? In what universe is this defined as "doing well"?_

 _He's nearly dead, he's been nearly dead for a weak, and it's all because of her._

She's been thinking of him all this time as invincible, ever-enduring—to her he'd always be there, always be annoying, always be the itch she's been unable to scratch since the moment she first met him. Maybe this is the fault of the cloak of superpowers, of his fast-metabolism… Her Wally isn't immortal. He isn't anything special. He's a kid in a hospital bed.

 _He's going to die, he's going to leave her, just like everyone else, one day—_

He doesn't stir when she forces herself to crawl towards him, doesn't stir when her bloody hands claw up the edge of his mattress, a low moan escaping her lips when her shoulders strain to pull her upright, her whole weight collapsing on the edge of his bed and shaking the entire flimsy bed frame. She feels herself panting, feels her ribs bruised and straining as she forces them to move, injured leg hanging off the mattress as she drapes herself like a dead body over Wally's calves, the only part of him she knows isn't hurt, the thick muscle that lurks there pressing into the lines of bruises the bridge has left against her breasts.

She sobs as she clings to him, not trusting herself to pound her fists against the mattress in her frustration should she accidentally hit him.

 _She did this_.

It was her, her and her lack of focus, as always... Disgusted with herself she stares at the layers and layers of bandages and medical tape holding the muscles of his back to his body and tries to imagine what he looks like beneath the hospital gown and gauze... It sickens her, her curiosity at his body. The body she almost destroyed...

It wasn't firing that arrow that sealed his fate, it wasn't even telling him to run. She's brought nothing but pain for the boy beside her since she met him, she always has—the snarky remarks, the keeping him at an arm's length, the rejection of his advances, it's all been her fault. She's already killed this boy a thousand times over, and it's taken seeing the evidence of his battered and broken body for her to come to her senses.

And it's not just him. She's a danger to everyone, she's too reckless, too dangerous, and too hot-headed to think through the consequences of her presence in other's lives. It was almost her mother once, now its Wally… Who next? M'gann? Dick? Kaldur? Oliver? Her sister? Who else is she going to make suffer? Doesn't this just prove that she's better off alone?

"I'm so sorry, Wally." She bursts out, and when she sobs he stays still beneath her, machines pumping oxygen inside him and ignoring her tears as they roll down her cheeks, disappearing into her hair and finding their way to his bed sheets.

 _But she's knows too much to run away, know that they can always find her. She can't stop them from chasing her._

 _She doesn't know what to do anymore and the more her thoughts race onwards the more she wishes she had just let that Bialyan soldier kill her when she had the chance._

Her head jerks up as there's an odd sort of gurgling sound coming from the tube, and before she can will her leg to support her weight so she can run away in terror _(she's still afraid of the boy in the hospital bed, she'll always be afraid of him and what he means to her)_ Wally's eyes crack open, unfocused in the dim light of the room. He's not looking at her, not exactly, more so staring unknowingly at a blank wall of the room.

 _It's enough to break her heart, and enough to seal her resolution: she's no good for him._

 _She'll actually kill him if she doesn't stay away from him._

Her whole body protests as she forces herself to get unsteadily to her feet, ignoring the gurgling coming from Wally and his eye as he looks past her, unseeing. She gasps out when she gets to her feet again, the bed quaking beneath her and his covers sliding down his back... Despite her new found resolution she pauses to look back at him, for what she knows is the last time... It's the last time she'll allow herself to be alone with him, the last time she'll admit that she could have fallen in love with him, if things were different. She gives herself this moment, the moment of his unfocused eyes and her wet ones, the sound of machine whirring around them and the radiator buzzing to life in the corner... One moment, in all the moments that have made up her entire existence, to admit the truth to herself. She could have had this boy and he could have had her. They could have completed each other. Maybe they almost did.

 _Maybe a lot of their time together is based on the word almost... Almost together. She almost saved him. She almost allowed herself to make the mistake of letting him in..._

She's tired of mourning the loss of something she's never had. She's tired of considering the fact that she's back to forcing her feelings back inside herself; she's back to watching Wally run past her, back to watching him live his life without her, like he used to. She's back to closing him off, for his own good...

 _She's back to eliminating the vulnerability he brings out in her._

Because he does make her vulnerable... _Her one weakness_ , she admits, looking at him once more. Before she can stop herself she's reaching out a hand, allowing herself one last moment of caring for him, one last moment to touch him, her crusted finger tips tugging the blanket back above his waist, straying to touch the tender flesh of his lower back, milky and freckled in the blue light glowing off the machines.

He doesn't react much more than the twitching of his eyelashes, the gurgling coming from his tub ceasing; when she forces her eyes from his face she can see his skin prickling, the freckles on his back bursting into goose pimples when she runs the scabbed edges of her fingers over his body, carefully keeping her distance from his wounds as she traces more than an inch clear of the medical tape, up his ribs. She skims the flesh of his shoulder, running her hands down the tendons of his arm in a way she would have called lovingly, should she allow herself to love him. Pausing a movement almost eerily familiar of all the months before she hesitates, almost pulling away before she skims his wrist, palm encircling around the bones that rest before his hand, squeezing.

 _A heartbeat._

It's pounding along to the beat of the monitors around them, like some sort of odd tribal music that does little to comfort her. His eyes, still unfocused on the wall, drift shut again, and she almost tricks herself into thinking that his finger twitches.

"Okay." She whispers, voice breaking in the darkness. She doesn't know what she's confirming, what she's allowing herself to do, what she's allowing herself to feel or not feel. "... I'm going to go now."

He doesn't say anything back, and she wonders what he would say if his mouth wasn't occupied with tubes and wires. She wonders if he would call her back, stop her... He probably would. And that's why she has to leave.

When she talks herself out of lingering she can almost feel her newly resurrected battle arena, the one she plans on encasing herself in; from now on she's in constant combat with herself, a constant watch to make sure nothing, _nothing_ , like this happens again.

One her way out she hears the strange gurgling sound again, and in some sort of sick-half wish she wonders if he knows that she was there.

* * *

She leaves the hospital in the morning, flanked by Oliver (who insists on wrapping an arm around her shoulder and helping her even though she doesn't need it) and her mother rolling beside them. It's humiliating.

Everyone is quiet when they ride the elevator up the apartment, her mother immune to her sour mood in a way that Oliver isn't; he glances at her repeatedly, eyes narrowed when she responds to his questions with short sentences and narrowed eyes.

In a way that's borderline fatherly he stops moving once they reach her floor, refusing to release her but also refusing to help her move closer to her front door. "She'll be inside in a minute Paula, I need to update her on official Team business."

"What?" She asks him, tone cold. "Is it Luthor?"

Oliver winces at the fact that she's mentioned something supposedly confidential, but still has the good grace to wait until her mother is inside and out of ear shot before he turns to her, eyes crinkling unsmilingly in the corners. "You're acting more bad-mannered than usual. What's going on?"

She tries glaring at him the same way she did the night before, wrinkle popping up over her nose and canines bared, but this time it doesn't have the same effect; Oliver keeps looking at her dryly until she's forced to puff an annoyed breath out her nose, scowl lowering to the floor. "… Why would you tell me to see him? Was that some sort of sick joke you were trying to pull?"

There's a pause. "What? Who?"

"Wally!" She bursts out, frowning when she looks up at him. "The way you were talking about it, you made it seem like—I went to see him last night, Oliver. He's… I've seen him in the hospital before, he's never looked like _that_."

There's another pause in which the darkness of her tone seems to fill the tiny hallway they're occupying, and then suddenly Oliver lets out a disbelieving chuckle. "You're kidding, right? Artemis, the kid took over a dozen bullets in the back, not to mention his punctured lung and concussion. And that's just the big stuff. Were you really expecting him to be up and _ripe for the picking_?"

She can feel her cheeks reddening at the way he says the last part. "No—I just thought—you made it sound like—"

Something in her voice shifts, the very real panic and anger at herself slipping until it's exposed. Oliver's smile drops slightly as she goes back to glaring at the floor. "Okay, okay, that was my mistake. I'm sorry." He says, unhooking her arm from around his shoulder and holding her at an arms length to better look her in the face. "But you shouldn't be as worried as you are. Artemis, that kid's metabolism is what saved his life—it's what's saving him now. Most people wouldn't be able to survive something like that but, like I said before, his system started healing him before anyone in the hospital could even get their hands on him. He's already rehabilitated to the level that a normal patient would be at in four weeks. In _nine_ days, Artemis. Wait, ten. He's probably going to be up on his feet and walking, _if not running_ , around in another week, maybe two tops."

"A machine was helping him breathe." She tells the floor.

"As they would do with any patient who just had lung surgery a little over a week ago. It's a precaution." He reminds her. She isn't comforted. "He's Meta, Artemis, you don't have to worry."

"I'm _not_ worried." She snarls childishly, remembering her new resolve from the previous evening. "Whatever, I don't care. Did you bring my new bow?"

* * *

She takes three days to rest before she heads back to The Cave, and when she arrives she nearly topples her newly built walls herself when she's bombarded by the Team. It's horrifying, downright humiliating, when she catches herself biting back tears when M'gann, skin blotched and unhealthy pink in many places, embraces her so tightly the air is forced out of her lungs. She excuses herself quickly, ignoring Dick as he insists on her signing his cast.

Her rehabilitation is immediately demanding, not just physically—Black Canary gives her exercises to build up her strength in her leg again, to help the newly grafted skin adjust to her body, but what deems itself most challenging is the quiet moments of her training, when she's prompted to talk about her feelings and relive the more violent moments on the battle field. Stubbornly she retreats into her shell and remains silent, and Canary decides to dub these moments quiet meditation.

It's more difficult than she had thought it would be, remaining silent during these sessions; it's difficult the same way it's difficult for her to keep to herself, to hide in her room and be alone with her thoughts rather than find distraction in others. Slowly, she feels an old part of her she thought she buried awaken again, and suddenly she's the same girl she was before she joined the Team: cold, bitter, and perpetually lonely. Her own self-loathing thoughts turn inward and start attacking her in the form of dreams—always the same, always a mix of Bialyan soldiers and the exercise, always Wally getting shot and always reasons for why M'gann looks burnt— and more than once she wakes from nightmares to run to the bathroom, vomit in her throat.

 _She doesn't hear a word about what's happening with Luthor and the League and the world as a whole, and she can't find the courage to ask._

She seems to get it into her head that if she can just avoid seeing them, any of them but _especially_ Wally, she'll be okay... As long as he stays in the hospital he's safe from her, as long as she stays inside her bedroom and puts up and cold front she won't be able to hurt anyone...

Zatanna bursts out in frustration nearly a week after she returns, stamping her foot and looking ill-tempered. "God, Artemis, will you just talk to us? You can't stay hidden in your room all the time, brooding. We all fought in that fight together, we're going to _heal_ together too."

Against her better judgment she peeks out from behind her book, glaring at the other girl as she taps impatiently at her door frame. "Look who's talking. Didn't you do the same thing when... You know." She trails off, losing her nerve towards the end of her sentence.

Zatanna seems to know what she was about to say, her eyes narrowing and chin wobbling before she releases the door frame. "That was different." She scowls, vanishing from sight without another word. She hears her teammates whispering to each other more often after this, always falling silent and looking worried when she enters the room. Kaldur knocks on her door once but seems to understand her silence, his desire not to push her outweighing any insistence he has at getting an apology out of her for Zatanna's benefit.

She decides it's better for everyone if she doesn't join them when they visit Wally, and instead she presses her ear up against her own door when they arrive back at the Cave after these occasions, quietly desperate to any news she can get from eavesdropping.

She starts reading instead of sleeping, working her way through the bookshelves in the Team library; she reads anything she can get her hands on: books about the ocean, on Atlantis and its sister city New Venice, all about ancient Greece and the goddess she's named for; she reads about architecture, criminal organizations, advances in internet technology, children's psychology... Before long her newly healed finger tips are covered in paper cuts and the underside of her eyes become bruised and puffy.

 _She's becoming the person she hates again, and she doesn't know how to fix it._

* * *

She goes straight to the Cave from school nearly two weeks after the incident in Metropolis, still in her school uniform and intent on grabbing another book; she's read her way through over eleven shelves in the library, so close now to making it an even dozen that she can taste it. Unconsciously she stalks towards the kitchen, tender fingers reaching up to loosen her tie when she hears the unexpectedly cheerful tone of M'gann's voice. Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembers she hasn't eaten anything in a while, maybe a day or so, and absentmindedly she wonders if the Martian has found the time to make cookies yet.

She rounds the corner and freezes, index finger still caught in the fabric about her neck.

It's like a dream, a nightmare all over again—it's like nothing even happened, yet her heart beat is still stalling and restarting and redoubling its thudding— _Wally_ , in the kitchen. _Wally_ , looking normal. _Wally_ , looking round at her from where he's been leaning on the counter, breaking eye contact with M'gann to look at her, full on in the face.

Her fingers tighten their grip and without knowing it she yanks the fabric from her neck all together, her tie falling from her hand and landing on the floor.

 _Oh, god. Oh go oh god oh god. No no no no no no no..._

 _... He needs to go back to the hospital, he was safe in the hospital, he was safe without her..._

"Artemis!" M'gann squeals, so happy at her arrival that her feet leave the ground, levitating nearly a foot high before returning to standing against the tile. "Wally's out of the hospital! Isn't that great?"

She can feel herself breaking out into a cold sweat, the cheap cotton of her school uniform sticking to the dampness that's beginning to pool at her lower back. There's a ringing in her ears, she can feel blood pounding at the front of her forehead— Wally, standing in the kitchen. Wally, looking normal, maybe a little paler than usual but still, ridiculously and improbably normal.

 _Wally, back in the Cave and back in the battle field; back just in time to die again._

He shifts his weight a little unsteadily, standing up straighter to better look her in the face. Out of the corner of her eye she can see M'gann's smile falter, can tell that she's tasted the energy in the room and is being caught off guard by the palette—she's reeking of fear, of pure terror.

Wally half smiles at her, brows pursing slightly at the shocked expression on her face. "Artemis." He says her name as if it's like a breath of fresh air, his chest stuttering slightly as he pushes it out of his mouth, sounding hoarse. "Hi." He breathes, taking a half step towards her, arms raising as if to reach for her, as if to embrace her, as if after watching him almost die she's ready to pick up exactly where they left off... She has only moments to feel the sweat on her upper lip, to feel her mouth as it salivates.

Then she pushes past him, ignoring the ache in her leg as she runs, colliding with the edge of the counter and immediately vomiting in the sink.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! Same rules as always, the more reviews I get the quicker I post again.**

 **Let me know what you think, and Happy Halloween!**


	6. Sweetest Downfall

_**[NOTE: This is a reposting of the original chapter 6 to correct a spelling error that actually bothered the hell out of me for nearly 24 hours before I had time to actually fix it. Sorry for getting all your hopes up for another update!]**_

 **AN: I owe you guys such an apology! I should have actually had this up on Thursday but I've been so swamped with University exams that it wasn't possible to sit down and edit which, unfortunately, this chapter needed quite a bit of. I have a bit of housekeeping and some questions that I'll answer but I'll post those at the end of the chapter.**

 **Picks from the playlist this week: Girl Like Me by Miranda Lambert, Samson by Regina Spektor, and Rock and Daggers by Noah and the Whale.**

* * *

Her being sick raises what can only be considered her own personal hell in the kitchen: suddenly there's too many hands fussing over her, too many voices speaking into her ear in soothing tones and one set of warm hands trying to flick her hair over her shoulder so it doesn't pool in her sick. She vomits twice more and registers Wally _yelling_ , actually yelling at M'gann when she insists that he shouldn't try to carry her to her bedroom, and she hears cabinets being slammed and the sound of someone storming as violently as they can out of the kitchen.

 _She's been around them five minutes and she's already making their lives worse._

She jerks back violently when the Martian wraps an arm around her shoulders and tries to pull her from the sink, stumbling so hard onto her injured leg that she feels the spike of pain run up her heel and all the way to the base of her skull. She feels as if she's some sort of disgusting sight they're all trying to hide, the dirt on the floor they're all trying desperately to hide under the carpet, and _she's going to hurt them all, she is she is she is._ "Don't touch me." She snarls, sounding like a wounded animal and looking almost feral before she chokes on what's left of the bitter saliva in her throat, leaning forward to spit into the sink again.

There's a moment of silence in which she can feel M'gann looking at her, probably too afraid now to touch her; she can feel brown eyes boring into her with concern as she stares at her own vomit as it sits caked against the sink... It's not even real vomit, it's the same blackened bile she's been coughing up for weeks, yet another reminder at the end of her rope, that she's not eating, _she's hardly existing anymore_...

She winces but doesn't have the strength to jerk away when M'gann finally gets the courage to touch her, green palm pressing against the cold sweat on her forehead and pushing stay hairs back towards the crown of her head. "... You don't talk to me anymore." She says quietly, gently, as if not wanting to prod her too much for conversation. "About the stuff that's bothering you... You don't talk to any of us anymore."

She can't think of much to say and instead glares harder at her sick, listening as M'gann voice increase with pitch as she starts getting emotional. "... That's fine, though. I mean, I understand... Some things you can't put in to words. But I want you to know... We were all there, Artemis. We all know what you're going through. And if you think talking will help... We want to help, okay? We're your Team. We're supposed to... You know. Take care of each other. We're a family."

 _"You're not your family. You're one of us."_ Dick's voice is at the front of her mind so suddenly she can hardly stand it, and too quickly she's blinking rapidly, trying to force back tears.

 _(... Because she wasn't her family in that moment; she wasn't all bad like she is now, she was one of them; she had still managed to make things right in a way that she can't now, she can't, she can't fix herself, she can't fix what her father made her into...)_

She doesn't know why but she closes her eyes _(she's not sure if she's trying to block out the happy memory out of her own self hatred or simply drown in it for a moment, to leave the kitchen and remember better, easier times, before they were all so broken)_ and before she can allow herself a second thought she presses her cheek into M'gann's palm when it passes over her face again. She doesn't know what she means by it, all she knows it that she's still nauseas and doesn't trust herself to open up her mouth, not yet, not when she's so trapped in her own head; the Martian seems to take it as a good sign though, and keeps speaking to her in quiet, soothing tones. "... I know what you've been feeling, Artemis." She whispers, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "I know you think you're alone, I know you've been doing it on purpose but... I've felt everything you've been feeling, I can't help it, all the sadness, the guilt... Connor says that I shouldn't pry. But I hate that you've been putting yourself through that. I hate that you're trying to carry this burden alone, I hate that you feel like-" For some reason M'gann's voice breaks and she withdraws her hand, clamping it tightly over her mouth as her breath starts coming out in pathetic little pants. "I hate that you won't let us help you, Artemis. We _want_ to help you."

She registers the sudden stuttering in breath, and when she finally wrenches open her eyes she realizes that the other girl is crying; there's two trails of thick, wet tears pouring over the green in her cheeks, her fingers still pressing against her mouth and struggling to keep the tiny sobs that are raking through her chest inside her. She can hardly stand to look at her, _because there it is right there, more evidence of another person she's hurt,_ and even though her own eyes are suddenly stinging with unshed tears again she forces herself to glare back at the sink, as if showing emotion is something indecent.

"... I'm sorry, M'gann." She croaks out,, and she's not sure what she's sorry for. _She just wishes the words were enough to actually do something, enough to actually fix things..._

They stand in silence for a few minutes, M'gann's sobs finally escaping her mouth and echoing in the dim of the kitchen. She doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to say what the Martian wants to hear; how is she supposed to sort out everything inside her head to form enough to have a conversation? How is she supposed to sift through guilt and depression and her own self-hatred and even find a starting point? How is she supposed to explain that the thing she's feeling most guilty about didn't even happen, _Wally didn't even die, he's up and slamming cabinets and she's too much of an idiot to run after him and tell him how she feels because she's disgusting-_

She opens and closes her mouth several times, trying to speak. Then Wally's voice slaps her across the front of her mind.

 _Don't overthink._

"I almost killed him, M'gann." She forces the words out of her throat, voice raspy and broken. She hears the sound of tears as they dribble off the edge of M'gann's jaw and onto the tiled floor.

She turns her head almost defiantly towards the Martian, as if waiting for her to make excuses for her or analyze her actions like every other person has done so far; this is how it always goes, with everyone who manages to talk about it with her... _They'll tell her how she hit her target, how she killed a man, how Wally lived anyway so why does it matter?_ She glares as M'gann drops her fingers, hands intertwining under her chin, one green thumb pressing against her lower lip as she bites it. "... It wasn't your fault, Artemis." She whispers back, voice shaking. "You weren't the one who shot him."

 _It wasn't her fault._

She actually hears the puff of breath she releases as she processes what's just been said; it's the first time anyone has told her this in so many words, the first time in the past few weeks that someone, anyone, has bothered to counter all the raging words inside her head. _She didn't shoot him._ She failed in half a dozen ways, she put his life at risk, but if M'gann, sweet M'gann, can look at the situation, can look at all her mistakes as still see the good in her, can still look at her and realize she wasn't the one who dealt the almost deadly blow, can still love her so much that she's stupid enough to think _she's not at fault_...

The tightness in her throat seems to bubble up and burst inside her, and before she can stop herself she sobs.

At least it feels like a sob; it sounds more like some sort of unearthly, guttural scream, less human and more the sound a dying animal would make. But there are tears running down her cheeks and her muscles are aching out in protest as she bangs her fists against the counter and for some reason M'gann, sweet M'gann who she's always thought of as _weak_ and _naïve_ for looking at her and _seeing a sister, one of her best friends, someone worthwhile..._

M'gann takes it all in stride; she doesn't hesitate the way anyone else would, doesn't bother looking horrified as she wraps her fingers around her forearms when she starts looking around for things to throw. Suddenly there are arms winding around her shoulders and another body that she's not strong enough to fight off and before she can remind herself that she's supposed to be keeping everyone at a distance she's pulled flush against the other girl, limbs intertwining and tears dribbling down their cheeks and her face is being pressed against a neck until her screams are less screams and _more the cries for help that she needs to get out..._

She feels ridiculous, like an idiot, but for the first time in so long she no longer feels like she's worthless.

 _Because she's not worthless, not to M'gann._

"It wasn't your fault." The Martian repeats, pulling back and cupping her cheeks. There's an odd sort of feeling washing over her, a inorganic calm that she knows isn't real but doesn't fight, not when the only other alternative is to be trapped inside her own head again. "It wasn't, Artemis." She insists, cool lips reaching out to press against her forehead.

She doesn't agree, doesn't disagree either; instead of speaking she unwinds one of her hands from where it's tangled in auburn hair and fiddles for a moment with the tap, running the water until she's sure that all her vomit is washed away.

* * *

They cry together for far too long, all the trauma and pain from the past few weeks seeming to pour out of them in waves as they cling to each other, and when they pull apart her leg is aching and her lungs seem to burn from all her screaming and sobbing. For nearly twenty seconds after M'gann simply holds her at an arm's length, smiling weakly and sniffling. Then, as if it's been decided, she drags an arm around her shoulders and helps her limp to her bedroom.

She gets the impression that M'gann is attempting to put the pieces of her back together; for a few minutes they sit in silence on the edge of her bed, the Martian scrubbing the vomit from her chin with a cool cloth and wiping hopefully at the dark circles under her eyes, as if politely asking the mascara that's stained her cheeks to remove itself. As if it's some sort of ritual they've long since established M'gann yanks the pony tail from her hair and attempts to retie it, fingers combing her locks from where they're sticking to the sweat on her face until they're back to sitting at the base of her neck, albeit lopsidedly.

 _She no longer tries to hide the fact that she's crying, no longer bothering to pretend she's not broken._

She feels fingers dividing her pony tail into three sections, feels hands as they start to twist her hair into the beginnings of a braid. "... Can I make a suggestion?" M'gann asks, so quietly that she could pretend not to hear.

In answer she hiccups, one knuckle dragging across her lashes like a child. "What?"

M'gann hesitates, fingers actually pausing their process in her hair for a moment as she thinks. "... I think you need to talk to Wally."

"Meg." She says warningly.

"This hasn't been easy on him either, Artemis." The other girl's fingers start working again, her voice caught between imploring and being stern. "... Don't you think it's kind of... You know. Selfish? Don't you think he deserves an explanation?"

Almost immediately she can feel her temper flaring up, can feel all the craziness being kept caged by M'gann's powers suddenly surging to life inside her again. "Selfish?" She repeats, voice breaking. "You don't- _Selfish_? You think I'm-you think I'm being selfish?" She's actually so angry she can't speak; _Selfish. Driving herself crazy to protect everyone else? On what planet is self sacrifice selfish?_

"Artemis, no, I didn't mean it like that!" M'gann bursts out, looking hurt when she jerks away, fingers ripping through her hair and undoing the Martian's process with the braid. "I just- Artemis, he's been worried sick about you. And none of us have been able to tell him anything other than that you've been in your room constantly and won't speak to us! Don't you think he at least deserves to know that you're, you know." She glares when M'gann hesitates again, biting her lip. "Okay?"

 _She knows immediately what M'gann wants to happen: she wants her to go and talk about her feelings, wants things to work out exactly like they do in her television shows. She's supposed to find Wally and they're supposed to kiss and make up, they're supposed to fall all over each other and everything is supposed to magically work out on it's own... It's a stupid idea, it won't work for her... She's not programmed for it._

After a few seconds of silence she scowls, untying her pony tail and redoing it so it's no longer crooked. "No, M'gann. I wouldn't know what to say. I'm not... You know." She sighs. "Stuff like that doesn't work out for me."

"It doesn't have to be _that_ kind of conversation." M'gann prods. "I just think... I think it would be good for both of you. To get some closure."

She glares. "No, M'gann."

* * *

M'gann gets tired of her bad attitude shortly after and leaves, taking the inorganic calm with her; suddenly her anxiety is clawing back at her with almost tripled strength, so overwhelming that she can hardly think of much else.

 _She can't talk to Wally, she can't talk to Wally because if she talks to him she'll lose her mind completely. She can't be around him because she knows she'll hurt him again, she'll say the wrong thing or she'll do something stupid and he'll end up hurt, he'll end up in the hospital and he'll almost die again... But he was safe in the hospital, he was safe and away from her, so maybe she should hurt him... But she can't, she can't, that's bad, she doesn't do stuff like that anymore..._

She lies in bed for what feels like hours, wrinkling her school uniform with her tossing and turning but not caring enough to get up and change. She's thinking herself in circles, quietly working herself into a full blown panic the likes of which she hasn't been in in years— It doesn't matter what M'gann thinks, doesn't matter what the rest of the Team knows... She knows herself, she knows that if Wally's back that means he'll get hurt again, it means that he's in danger again, she's going to get him hurt again, she has to protect him, has to find a way— Her breath alternates between coming out in pants and stopping all together, her lungs unwilling to allow her to take in the oxygen she needs; in the same way she switches between attempting to rock herself and attempting to stay so still she could pass for dead. _She doesn't know what to do, she doesn't know what to do— He had been safe in the hospital, he's not safe—_

 _... She screams into her pillow, screams so loud she swears her lungs are bursting, and then she's back to thinking about Wally and his burst lung and it was all her fault, no matter what M'gann says it was all her fault..._

Finally, outstandingly, her resolution to avoid him and keep him at arm's length falls; sock clad in her rumpled and untucked uniform, she decides to listen to M'gann.

She needs to talk to Wally.

* * *

 _She just has to talk to him. Just the once, just to get it over with, and then maybe she'll stop being so afraid..._

She can hear his voice when she arrives outside his bedroom. It sounds as it always does, light and friendly to her ear, his words muffled through the door but still sounding _happy, safe, comfortable_ ; it sounds as if he's talking to someone, or maybe to himself, and for a moment she actually debates leaving him, turning on her heel and going back to the intensity of the silence in her room _(he's happy without her, he's doing fine, this is stupid, M'gann was wrong.)_ Then before she can backtrack on the decision she curls her toes into the carpet, inhaling and exhaling hard though her nose, the extra air forcing her pupils to dilate and pull her vision into a sharp focus, knuckles rapping against the painted oak once.

 _Fuck. Fuck. This was a mistake. Fuck._

She can hear his voice falter on the other side of the door, and there are two seconds of absolute silence in which she can hear her own heart beating loudly inside her head, her knock seeming to echo in the hallway. Ridiculously she stumbles backwards and forwards on her own feet, trying to decide if it's too late to take off at a break neck speed down the hallway _(she can't run, not yet, she'd get maybe as far as three paces away, Fuck Fuck Fuck...)_ The door opens just as she's turned back to face it, her mouth for some reason stretching into an obviously fake smile.

Then she makes direct eye contact with a bullet hole and her heart seems to crash through her ribs and splatter against the floor.

 _... Oh god. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god..._

It's the scar of a bullet hole, actually, sitting on the right side of Wally's bare chest; a mess of warbled skin sitting almost exactly one inch below and one inch to the right of where his heart would be, and even as she stares at it she can see a line of freckles trailing a wobbly line from his nipple to where the metal left his body. It looks years old, not weeks, hardly a blemish any worse than the rest of his freckles. She stares at it for a good half second, cheeks turning a deep maroon and thoughts exploding inside her head _(Wally is shirtless, Wally is shirtless and she is literally looking at the exit point for all the blood that was on the ground, all the blood that she was lying in, and even as she thinks it she half convinces herself that she can still feel all the wet beneath her finger nails, and suddenly she's clawing at her cuticles and wishing she could skin herself alive rather than imagine this sensation, oh god, oh god oh god)_ before she blinks, watching Wally's head emerge from the neck hole of a sweater, shoulder hunched awkwardly as he pins his cellphone to his ear.

 _... Breathe breathe breathe breathe._

 _Don't be a baby._

 _Keep it together._

She lets out some sort of stupid sounding gagging noise, eyes watering and cheeks blushing as she coughs a mixture of bile and air into her lungs. Wally's pupils blow out and quickly pop back in, mouth opening and closing quickly as he reads the fake smile she's still trying to wear and figures out what she saw _and why she's suddenly looking less like a human and more like a shrunken wax model of herself_ , throat tight as she swallows down sick. "Mom," He says into the phone, and she can hear the scrambled voice through the speaker stop speaking as he moves aside, letting her into his bedroom and shutting the door quickly behind her. "Mom—"

She forces her lungs to work, forces herself to take breaths so deep they make her ribs ache, forces herself to absorb his walnut scent, so familiar and comforting and exactly what she needs after seeing the scar—it bites that nauseous sensation down the back of her mouth, convinces her to remain calm, _convinces her that she can do this._ She listens to the voice on the other end of his line continue speaking as she advances to the center of his room, and in the quick glance she sends over her shoulder at him she can see him struggling to keep his phone pinned to his hear as he forces his arms through their respective holes in his sweater.

 _She can do this. She just needs to act like everything is normal and that she's not half crazy, not hating herself, not like she's going to puke at any given moment-_

"I'm fine here Mom, I swear." He says, gesturing for her to sit down. In some sort of weird act of restraint she decides on his desk chair rather than the edge of his bed, her fingers winding together before she pinches them between her knees to keep her from tugging anxiously at her hair or clawing her own skin off; he's been working on missed homework, the surface of the desk covered in dozens of loose papers and textbooks, and _(she looks twice, her stomach twisting)_ her tie, her school tie that she had dropped on the floor of the kitchen _(and she hates herself, hates that she can actually hear Wally's voice, can actually picture him smirking at her and saying "souvenir.")_ "I will. Mom I have to go—Tell Dad I said hi, okay? … No. No. Okay. Yes." He pauses, sending her an uneasy smile as if she hasn't just seen evidence of him almost dying and rolling his eyes as if she too can relate to having an over bearing mother. She can't. "Love you too. Bye."

She hears the sound of a button being clicked, hears the thud his phone makes when he tosses it absently in the direction towards the bed beside her _—Wally's been through the most phones of anyone on the Team, her memory tells her, he always drops them or breaks them or misplaces them and then has to sheepishly ask Bats for a replacement—_ and then there's silence, the kind of silence so loud that it scares her, forcing her to break it so she can hear something other than the thudding of her own heartbeat in her ears. "Your mom's worried?" She asks his chemistry textbook, wincing slightly when her voice sounds squeaky rather than casual.

"No more than usual." He says, and she's not sure what that means.

She swivels the desk chair to face him, eyes watching him carefully and forcing herself to unwind her muscles, the same fake smile on her face. Predictably his hand falls from where it's been scrubbing the back of his neck, fingers musing his hair once before he contains them in his jeans pocket. "How are you feeling?" He asks her, looking wary of getting close to her should she be sick again.

"Fine." She lies. "... I've had a nervous stomach the last few weeks. You don't have to worry about, you know. Catching anything." She forces herself to unclench her hands and rest them almost too causally on the arms of his chair; unthinkingly she crosses her legs and is immediately rewarded with a painful twinge of the muscles in her legs, forcing the fake smile from her lips as she lets out a low hiss of pain, nails suddenly digging so hard into that wood that she wouldn't be surprised if she left little crescent moon shaped indents.

Wally watches her adjust her posture with wary brows; most of her bandages are hidden in plain sight beneath the height of her school stockings but she suspects her sudden movement has just show a little too much of her thigh, just enough for him to see the white gauze that's there, holding pieces of her together. He clears his throat, ears reddening as if he's a child who's just been caught peeking between his fingers during a game of hide and seek. "Ah." He coughs, and in his usual fashion he sudden switches pace, mouth bursting into a warm smile and seeming to take the cue she's been trying to send her with her fake one. "You know, I think that's the first time I've actually made a girl puke with just my _presence_ alone."

She knows immediately that he's intentionally setting himself up, as if her teasing him will somehow make things better, more normal. Less horrible. "Don't flatter yourself. I'm sure there were other times." She says mechanically, trying to grin back.

He's making it too easy to pretend she's okay, too easy to get lost in their banter and the comfort of the walnut smell. And for a moment she almost convinces herself that she can do _easy_ , she can do _this_ , she can _allow it to be easy_ ; at least until the grin on his face falters slightly and he starts speaking again, voice suddenly too gentle for her to handle. "… Are you going to tell me why you're here?"

The way he says it causes something in her stomach to settle, all the pain and terror and panic that she's been hiding in the tightness of her throat suddenly dropping somewhere about her knees. In a last ditch effort she blinks, trying to force herself to grin manically and somehow tell him without speaking that this is just a obligatory visit: _all business, no feelings_. "What makes you think I have a reason?"

Whatever she's trying to do is lost on him, and almost immediately he's back to the same pensive look he was wearing when she walked in the room, heels rocking backwards and forwards as he looks away, mind no doubt buzzing. "Well, if I was one for forming a hypothesis and testing it against data, which, _incidentally_ , I am…" He pauses, flashing her that stupid smile and almost fooling her into thinking what he's about to say will be easy to hear. "I would say there is definitely a reason. And if I compare old data to what I see in front of me right now… I'd say that you only come to my room if you're upset or I'm upset or if we're both upset... And I'm not upset, Artemis."

He pauses, looking at her full on the face, so calculating that she blushes and glares at the floor, lower lip quivering; _He knows her too well, can see through to many of her tricks that that scares the shit out of her._ "I'd also say that I've been up and about in the hospital for a little less than a week, and you didn't come visit me with everybody else even _once_ , which means in the—" He pauses, checking his watch. "—eight or so hours I've been here I've already done something that would make you upset. I'd also say that I can tell, for sure, that it's the kind of upset that kind of scares me because your eyes are red, which if I had to guess would mean you've been crying which—obviously—I don't like. And you have that look on your face that you always get just before you get really spacey and freak out at me. So…" He trails off at the end of his rant and she ignores the look he sends her until he speaks again. "I took, like, a dozen bullets for you, Artemis, the least you can do is talk me—"

" _Don't_." She cuts him off, eyes shutting and fingers clenching against the arms of his desk chair again, muscles all tensing and trying to force her into remaining seated and not getting up with the purpose of ripping his throat out. She can't believe he has the _audacity_ , the _gall_ to stand in front of her after everything and throw that in her face so casually, _as if it means nothing to him when it means the world to her_. "Don't bring that up like that. Like it's easy for me to hear. You don't get to use that against me."

"I'm not using anything against you!" He says, exasperated at the fact that out of all the words he's uttered at her these are the only ones she's responding to. "I'm not trying to- Artemis, we haven't spoken in weeks, the last thing I remember is you being shot and suddenly I'm the one waking up in the hospital without you, nobody can tell me anything about where you are or how you've been doing, and then-" He pauses for breath, earing flaming and seeming to inflate. "And _then_ , I see you for less than a second and suddenly you're puking everywhere, like just being around me makes you sick, like I'm intolerable now and I don't know _why_ or _what I did_ or how to _make it better_ , and then I'm being thrown out of the kitchen and M'gann won't let me help and..." He hesitates, fingers ruffling his hair. "I'm just trying to figure this out, okay? Can you just _talk to me_?"

"Not if you're going to be like this." She hisses, all the anger she's been feeling at herself switching targets faster than she can and suddenly all she feels for the boy in front of her is contempt; _she can't believe him_ , can't believe that she thought she could just look at him and have a regular conversation, can't believe she expected the both of them to be able to handle this like adults. "Look, I know I screwed up, okay? I know this is my fault. But I don't need your stupid little comments, I don't need you being an asshole to me-"

"What?" Wally shakes his head, looking a mixture of annoyed and confused. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"' _I took, like, a dozen bullets for you'._ " She repeats, her voice high pitched and mocking and sounding nothing like him. "I know, Wally, _I know you got shot_ , and I know it was my fault! I get it, I shouldn't have told you to slow down!" She bursts out, palms pressing against her forehead and scrubbing angrily at her face, as if to block him out and keep her from feeling guilt. "I know, okay? I know that's why you got hit, I know that's why you almost died... I think about it every second, I'm already feeling guilty enough. I don't need some condescending little comment on top of everything else, got it _Baywatch_?"

"I didn't mean it like that!" He snarls back, getting properly annoyed at her temper. "What's your problem, anyway? I'm fine!"

She can feel the wrinkle on her nose popping up as she stands, losing the last of her control; she doesn't care how badly her muscles ache from all the standing, how sore her ribs are from sobbing so loudly before, suddenly she's flinging his chair so hard behind her that it collides with his desk, sending stacks of well-organized papers scattering to the floor. "You didn't before!" She snarls at him, so off put by her own outburst that she's slightly stunned into silence, nails digging into her palms as she clenches her fists. "You didn't- in the hospital, you don't know..." She can feel some of her nerve failing her, and suddenly she's blushing crimson, looking anywhere but at his face.

Wally inhales and she can't help but narrow her eyes at his chest as it stutters slightly, as if trying to provoke her into sympathy or ashamed again; she ignores his eyes as rake over her face, scowling. "When didn't I look fine?" He asks, sounding a little out of breath as he forces his voice into steadiness.

At once her cheeks go almost maroon, eyes moving to scowl at his door."Just—" She begins, all her resolve to engage in this conversation cracking as she lets out a pathetic sounding half sob, making her wish she was still alone and afraid in her bedroom and that she'd never listened to M'gann at all. "… Never mind. This was a dumb idea."

Wally is in front of her as she turns towards his door, wincing slightly at the too-fast movement but not letting her continue towards her exit point. "Artemis, talk to me." He sighs, still looking confused as he grips her by the shoulders, almost shaking her. "You can't come in here screaming and half crying after not talking to me for weeks and then not explain anything to me, that's... _That's not okay_."

"I—" She cuts herself off, hissing in frustration when her voice cracks, her head too busy whirring about with emotion to help her pull a sentence together and not being helped by the fact that he's suddenly close to her, breathing the sharp scent of walnuts against her cheeks. "I don't know how to say it, okay? This was M'gann's idea, I shouldn't have listened. I don't... I don't know how to do this stuff without blowing up in your face, just-" She cuts herself off, jerking back from his grasp until he's forced to let go.

"Then blow up at me." He looks at her insistently, face hard and jaw popping a thick line against his neck. "Let's fight, if that's what it takes." He pauses, and as if trying to make a point he actually raises his fists, as if they were two boxers set to face each other in a ring, grinning slightly when she looks confused. "I'm serious. Let's just... You know. Like the bridge."

 _The words send a rush of memories to the front of her mind: egging him on, the feeling of his fingers on her hip bones, how warm he felt on her lips—the crash landing, the machines, the cannons, the bullets—bullets in his back, blood and vomit, blood and vomit—_

He reaches out to punch her lightly in the shoulder, and whether from the memory or from her own weight rocking back a little too heavily onto her leg she hisses, shaking her head at him. Suddenly it's all she can do to keep herself from gagging, to keep herself from breaking down completely, and before Wally can do much more than look a little off put by her reaction her eyes are screwing shut to block him out, nose wrinkling. "... I can't do this." She chokes out, and she hates herself so fully in that moment, hates that her voice is squeaky and pathetic _like how it was when she cried as a child_ , hates that suddenly she can't breathe and that she's sobbing again, looking as pathetic as she feels.

"A-Artemis?" Wally's voices sounds stunned as she suddenly starts dragging her knuckles across her cheeks, trying desperately to stop her tears at the source. "Artemis? Whoa, hey, look at me."

She's shaking, panting, and the full blown panic she's been scarcely keeping at bay is bursting out of her in rattling breaths; she can feel her eyes slipping out of focus, and even though she knows it's all inside her head she feels as if she's shrinking, shriveling up, all the anxiety and self-hatred consuming her inside out, clawing out of her eye sockets and peeling back the skin on her face, exposing her skeleton to the world and leaving her vulnerable-

She can hardly feel Wally when he starts grabbing at her, arms digging at her sides and trying to get her to come out of her own head; somewhere she thinks she registers the sensation of his thumb as it rubs anxious circles into her biceps and suddenly it's another memory and _they're alone in her kitchen and her mother is missing and she's scared she's so scared..._ "Artemis? Artemis, calm down. It's okay, Babe, it's okay, just... Artemis, you have to breathe. You can't not breathe, okay?" She feels him grab her hand and drag it towards the pulse point in his neck, his fingers on hers forcing her to feel the anxious pounding of his blood against his veins. "Artemis, just focus on my heart beat, okay? Can you do that?"

 _It's hot and fast underneath her fingers; he's scared for her, she's hurting him._

She opens her eyes just in time to see him reaching for her face; in an instant he's dragging her lips to hers, trying to shock herself out of her panic attack. _It kills her, it kills her that he doesn't know that she tried to do this when he was dying, tried to shock him back into his body the same way he's trying to shock her out of her head right now; suddenly all she can taste again is blood and vomit and dirt and sweat on his lips, and with a gasp she's pushing him back, but she's breathing she's breathing she's breathing-_

"… I'm sorry." She pulls the words out of herself, teeth grinding together as she forces herself to stop hyper-ventilating and pull oxygen into her system. Wally looks half panicked, fingers trying to push her hair off her face as it clings to her tear soaked cheeks. "I made a mistake and it got you hurt and—" She pauses, gasping for breath and sobbing and refusing to speak until she has it under control. " _I can't stop seeing it, Wally_. I keep remembering seeing you lying there, and seeing all your blood—I had to watch you cry, _had to watch you think you were dying_ , and—"

This time she doesn't fight him when he gets close to her but he doesn't try to kiss her again; this time he wraps his arms around her, tugging her flush against him even though she's sobbing and pathetic and sweating and probably gross looking. "I'm so confused." She practically screams into his shoulder, almost pounding on his back with a fist before she remembers that she should try to be gentle. "I don't know what to do. I—I just always thought it would be easier, not getting close to people. And then you came along, and I don't know how but it's like— _if you're not here I don't know how to be me anymore_. And that scares me, almost as much as it scared me when I thought you were dead." Her voice is beginning to pick up speed, increasing in pitch as her breath comes out in gasps, pulling back enough to bury her face in his chest, the heel of her palm digging into her eyelids. "I just know it, either way I'll lose, either way I'll lose you; either way I'm going to spend the rest of my life feeling the way I do now and _I can't do it. I'm not strong enough."_

"Artemis." Wally says quietly, pulling her tighter. "You have to calm down, okay? Please?" He asks her, and without asking her permission he drags her hand back up to his neck until she can feel his pulse again. "Just try to breathe when I do, okay? In and out together? Okay? Artemis?"

 _She doesn't know why she listens to him, doesn't know why she keeps her hand pressed against his neck, doesn't know why she lets him hold her as tightly as he does. In and out together, in and out together... Because that's how it's always been with them. They were allies before they even knew each other, best friends before they even stopped their arguments long enough to have a conversation; the fact of the matter is that whether or not she wants to be she's been bound to this boy for far too long, they've been attached at the hip long before they awoke beneath the Bialyan sky. He is her greatest comfort, her greatest weakness, and wherever she goes, in or out, he'll follow whether she wants him to or not._

 _She's going to be the death of him._

Wally's trying to get her to breath in time with him, trying to get her to stop hyperventilating, one hand ducking under her chin and forcing her face up to his so he can better look her in the eye.

 _In and out together._

* * *

Wally won't let her leave to get a glass of water, even though she's desperately dehydrated from all the crying. He won't let her do much of anything, actually, even though it's been nearly a half hour since she's come down from her panic. He doesn't let her pull back, doesn't allow her fix her own hair, doesn't allow her to do anything other than remove her hand from his neck and snake her arms around his middle to better balance her weight on her good leg.

"... I'm sorry." She says after a while, pulling back just enough so she can look him in the eye. "I don't really... I didn't come here, expecting to, you know. Be crazy."

Wally shrugs. "I don't mind a little crazy." Then for some reason he hesitates, as if trying to figure out what to say. "... Do you... Do you want to talk about some stuff?"

"With you?" She blurts out, immediately back tracking when she sees the slightly offended look on his face. "I mean- you know. Wouldn't that be weird?"

Wally surveys her for a moment before immediately unwrapping his arms from around her waist, swallowing thickly as he takes a step back. "Maybe. But I just... You're upset, Artemis, and it's kind of because of me. And I want to help. Just... Just tell me the problem. And I'll try to be as neutral as possible about it as I can."

She sighs. "Wally-"

"Artemis." For a moment they glare at each other, Wally taking another firm pace backwards as if his distance from her as if this somehow settles something. "Come on."

She hesitates before dropping his eyes, hand unconsciously smoothing her skirt over her legs as she struggles to find the right words. She's never been very good at emotional confrontation, at sorting out her feelings, and this is the very thing Wally is asking her to do... To look him in the eye and tell him that he's making her miserable, either being in her life or not, and she doesn't know what to do, _she's so tired of fighting with herself and with him_... Swallowing thickly, she addresses her toes. "... I guess I... I kind of developed feelings for a teammate." She blurts out badly. "And I allowed that to blur my judgment, and he ended up getting hurt because of me. And I thought it would be easier to cut him out, to eliminate the vulnerability... But not having him in my life is kind of killing me."

She's expecting him to be mocking her when she glances up, expects him to be pretending to be writing on a therapist's clip board or another one of his stupid expressions; she's a little caught off guard by the fact that he's looking at her stonily, jaw clenched tight as he struggles to keep his face neutral. "Did it ever occur to you that he got hurt because of the situation, not because of you?"

She sighs. "Regardless. I was too distracted and I didn't do everything I could-"

"And did it ever occur to you how much that would hurt him, if you just cut him out?" He asks her raggedly, tone almost accusing.

"Wally." She says his name plainly, eyes narrowing. "What happened to being neutral?"

He's already waving his hand dismissively, scowling. "Yeah, yeah."

There's another silence between them, this one thicker and more tense than the others before, and suddenly she's sighing, a frustrated hand rubbing at her face. "I don't know what to do anymore. No matter what I do someone gets hurts, no matter what I do I end up unhappy, and I just-"

"… Tell me the options."

"What?"

"Tell me the options." He repeats, over pronouncing his words as he always does whenever she asks him to say things twice, an old nerve she thought she had given up on suddenly popping up the surface, irritated as she narrows her eyes at him. "Tell me everything that you've worked out as the _be-all end-all_ , and I'll—I'll narrow it down for you."

It's a ridiculous request, so ridiculous that she actually feels her chin drop, a wry smirk crossing her face. "You're kidding." She snarls.

"No." He shrugs. "Hey, neutral observer here, remember?"

"Yeah, because we've already established you're _great_ at that." She sighs, glaring around the room and caught between not wanting to tell him anything and wanting to say something to scare him out of her head, out of this weird analytical façade he's donning for her benefit. "… I could kill you." She hears herself say wryly, voicing the worst suggestion that's only popped up in the more vile parts of her mind. "It would be like swatting a fly... It would be awful, and I would hate it. But then at least I could move on."

She half expects Wally to be looking horrified when she glances back at him; instead he's looking at her dryly, brows raised and sending her a look at clearly says he expected something better of her should she be trying to scare him out of talking to her about her feelings. "No go, Blondie. You'd be booted from the Team, thrown in jail if you were sloppy enough and, if you couldn't tell from the phone call earlier, my mom would miss me way too much. Next." He shrugs, crossing his arms.

She shifts her weight, glancing around the room aimlessly a she takes her weight off her bad leg, now truly beginning to hurt; he's sending her some sort of cocky look, as if he thinks he has her all figured out. "... I could kill myself." She suggest half heartedly.

For a fraction of a moment Wally is quiet, and in that half second the air in the room seems to grow thicker, harder to breath in. "No." He says plainly without offering an explanation, cutting her off as she opens her mouth again. "For future reference, let's just cut any scenarios that involve either of us killing ourselves or each other or anyone else, okay? Come on, serious suggestions only please."

It's odd but it makes the corner of her mouth twitch upwards, as if she hasn't just spent the last hour in his bedroom crying her eyes out. "Fine." She tells him, forcing her face to settle back into the blank slate she's keeping it in as she falls back into simply voicing all her thoughts, not over thinking. "… You could quit the Team. Or I could."

This is by far the most serious suggestion she's made so far yet it's the one Wally laughs at; she jerks her head around to stare at him wide eyed as he chuckles, low and sharp. "Absolutely not."

"Why?"

"Because." He shrugs, shaking his head as if it's obvious. "Artemis, what we do isn't a hobby. It's saving people, it's making a difference, it's..." He trails off suddenly, shaking his head again, cutting off a speech that sounds almost rehearsed, as if he's said it dozens of times before. "Okay, _fuck_ neutrality. I'm offended that before being with me you're rather _commit suicide, homicide_ , and _take yourself off the Team_." He sighs, and even though his tone is teasing his eyes are suddenly hard, saddened. "That's what it comes down to, right? You don't want me."

"Wally-" She starts, hands surging forward and heart breaking when he jerks away from her, side stepping her touch. "No, Wally, god, I'm not explaining this right..."

 _Because how is she supposed to put something like this into words; being with him, really being with him isn't an option for girls like her, no matter how badly she wants it... She's not the girl he can take home to meet his parents, not the girl he can slow dance to at his prom, not the girl he'll be able to fall in love with without consequences. That kind of dream isn't meant for girls like her, not ones with so much blood on their hands, who have been tortured and beaten and broken in since birth to become the wreck of a human she is now... Her only prerogative is to make it though life without damaging the people around her, without allowing the flood gates to break and drown the people she cares about... And she's failed at that already, she's failed at so much...Her only option left is one that put her far away from him, from everyone..._

"God, Artemis, just be honest with me, please?" He sighs, scrubbing at the back of his neck. "Just... Just stop telling me the same bullshit about you being messed up, about being worried about hurting me, and all the other crap I've believed before; just tell me, Artemis, just tell me whether or not you want me and then just... Do something about it!"

When she doesn't say anything his ears redden, the hand on the back of his neck seeming to yank on his hair in frustration. "We both know... Look, whatever you're going through is because of me, or us, or... Whatever. And I'm tired of being the only one who actually wants this to happen."

The way he says it, how heartbroken he sounds, undoes her slightly; suddenly her lower lip is trembling, the exposed skin of her legs prickling. "Wally—"

"Don't, Artemis." He stops abruptly, cutting off her begging. "Can you just... Make up your mind? _Please_?" He sighs, and to her surprise he suddenly steps away from the door, freeing up an exit point and walking around behind her, standing with his back facing the door and her. "If you leave right now I won't bother you about it anymore, I won't pretend to think you want me, I won't be anything to you other than a friend okay? If you stay... You stay. No more running away from me."

 _Artemis is a born runner._

"But—"

"Just pick, Artemis. In or out."

There it is, all the cards on the table: there's no more secrets between the two of them. She can decide right now what she wants, what she's willing to risk—her happiness, his safety, both of their necks if she's not careful. For a moment she stays rooted into the carpet, head swiveling back and forth once to glance at her options: Wally, back straight and not looking at her. Door, smooth and pristine and waiting to be opened, leaving this whole mess behind her.

 _Inhale._

 _Exhale._

 _In and out together._

* * *

She's always been a bit of a quiet walker, always had a lighter tread than most people she knows—now is no exception, especially when clad in only her socks against carpet. She may as well be a ghost, save for the gentle swish of her shirt as it fans between her thighs.

She takes one step towards the door before stopping all together, heart pounding. Then she turns on her heel, not moving.

He has his hands shoved in his pockets, chin lowered and listening hard for the sound of the door closing. She can see the redness of his ears from here, can practically hear the sound of his blood as it pumps violently against his skin, waiting for an answer.

Out of pure curiosity she takes a step closer to him, wondering if he'll turn around and look back at her, wondering if he'll suddenly grab her, embrace her; but no. He says resolutely still, all the muscles in his back tense and popping beneath his sweater, elbows half bent and looking so stiff they might snap should she touch them.

 _She knows what she should do._

Still, it's just like how it felt when he was in the hospital, just like how it felt when she saw him hooked up to all those tubes; she knows what she _should_ do, knows what is the _right thing_ to do, but it doesn't stop her from being human; it doesn't stop her from wanting to look at him one last time, from wanting to memorize his face they way she did in the supply closest. With a last glance at the door, as if checking it's still there, she walks until she's a pace in front of him.

It strikes her for the first time, oddly, how handsome he is, how handsome he's become in just the few months she's known him. He's no longer that scrawny kid tripping over his own feet in front of her; he's a man now, or close to, and even as she thinks it she spots a few patches of reddened stubble erupting on his chin that she's never seen before, never felt. His face has already changed so much from how it looked even on New Years Eve; she can see the new skin that's blossomed on his cheek after it was dragged through the dirt, can see the new freckles sprouting in new patterns there, new territory that she's never mapped. She studies the furrow in his brow, the auburn ends of his lashes, the sharp line of his jaw on his neck.

 _She once told herself that she could have loved him, if things were different._

And she could have, and maybe a small part of her does now; maybe this is what love is, walking away because you know it's the right thing. Maybe it's about recognizing that he's better off without her, recognizing that as long as she's around him she'll be putting both of them at risk... And maybe she would forget. Maybe one day she'll be able to look at him and not feel it, this tiny part inside her that longs for him, yearns for his touch and listens for the sound of his voice through closed doors, the part that can't help smiling when he laughs, that part that studies and memorizes everything from the way he holds his pen to the way his voice changes when he talks to small children. Maybe she can just end the chapter here, _close the book and not bother with the ending_ , maybe she can look back and only wonder what would have happened without longing for it; maybe one day she'll recognize that if things were _different_ and their respective histories were _different_ and if they just met on the street or in a high school Spanish classroom, things could have worked out.

She takes a step back, calves brushing against his bed and heart suddenly thumping in her ears when Wally flinches, as if he knows she's right there in front of him.

 _If things were different she could have, one day, fallen in love with this boy._

But things aren't different, they're never going to be different; she's always going to Artemis Crock and he's always going to be Wally West. They're still going to fight, they're still going to be teammates and despite everything he's said to her tonight she knows neither of them are going to give up on each other, not really. Because they're both stubborn, they're both optimists even if he's to brazen about it and she hides it deep inside herself. They are each other's greatest weakness, they are each other's greatest hope, the biggest, most ridiculous wish they both have despite all the bad they see in the world...

The only difference is that she's been groomed to fight it in a way that he hasn't; she's been spending too long playing her father's game, too long pretending to believe all the hatred and lies she's been spoon fed as a child. Because this is what it means, _Artemis is a born runner_ , it means she's always running back into her father's arms, running back to her old habits and her loneliness and everything about her that's awful and still owned by the man behind the mask... And she's tired, she's so tired of hating herself, so tired of running away from the things that scare her, _she wants to run but she wants it to be beside Wally West_ , she wants to feel the speed and feel her lungs burning and feel the kind of pain that only someone like that can bring her, the best kind of pain...

Wally's done nothing but double back for her since he met her. He may lap her, her may run circles around her at times but he always comes back. Her father would call her weak for even considering it, Jade would say she was being naïve... So that means she should do it, right? Because when people like Wally, people who are stupid and stubborn enough to come back for someone like her... That's special right? It's special just because she was raised to think it wasn't?

She hesitates, lower lip actually trembling when Wally's eyelid flutters, milliseconds from opening.

The ugly part inside her tells her it's not too late to turn around, but the better part of her extends both her hands.

There's half a second where she has time to see his eyes fully pop open—now that she's looking close she can see they aren't a pure apple green, there's some flecks of hazel that she sees around his pupils before they blow out, wide eyed and stunned—but it's not enough time for him to do anything more than look surprised before her palms fit around his jaw, pulling her lips to his.

It's clumsy; perhaps she's out of practice, perhaps she's just slightly afraid of the incredible size of her rash decision, regardless of whatever it is she's feeling she feels it so much so that she actually bumps teeth with him in her excitement. It doesn't matter though- Wally makes this noise, the same noise he made all those months ago in his bedroom when she kissed him for the first time, the low and surprised growl in the back of his throat that shoots into her mouth and pools in her belly, seeming to warm the deepest part of her. There's a half second where his mouth stretches into a smile beneath hers, her hands ripping through his hair so feverishly that she nearly jerks his mouth of hers before he's responding, hands wrapping around her waist and lifting her from her feet. She feels so young, so unburdened, especially when Wally rocks backwards and makes a half attempt at spinning her before he stumbles; there's a mess of limbs and hair and teeth bumping again before they crash on the bed.

Wally jolts beneath her when the air is forced from his lungs, breath flowing from his throat and into her mouth; for a half second she jerks back, afraid, terrified that she's hurt him before she realizes he's laughing. "You just scared the absolute shit out of me. I thought... Oh god." He gasps out, caught between relief and mirth as he hums beneath her. "Alright, the real question though." He chuckles, and as if he's been planning this joke he reaches out for her, trying to pull her down for another kiss. "Did that one count? Or should we try again?"

She shoves his hands away, pretending to scowl. "You're such an idiot."

* * *

 **AN: Once again, sorry about the late update. Midterms are slowly killing me. On another note, here's a quick Q &A for some of the most common questions I've gotten via reviews or PM.**

 **Q: How often do you update this story?**

 **-The short hand answer is about once a week, sometimes more.**

 **Because I like have a stock pile of chapters archived (so I can still update should writer's block hit) and my schedule allows me to write for about an hour every day, this usually means I have about 1-2 "story months" ahead of the most recent posted chapter in my word file (so if the date is January 1st in the story, I have somewhere between the 1st of February and the 1st of March written.) I usually try to have one chapter ready to go and edited at the start of the week, so I can upload it absolute earliest two days after posting the last, should an influx of reviewers (I'm talking 50+) demand an update quicker. In other news that means almost immediately after I post I organize what will be included in the next chapter, upload it into the docs section, and start editing. Sometimes the updates slow down if I have to heavily edit or change a sub-plot to better work with what I have planned for later chapters but hey, I bet you'd all have a well written but slowly updated story than an unplanned mess.**

 **Q: What days do you update?**

 **-This is a bit trickier because it all depends on my schedule and demands of University. Right now I usually try to post an update around the later half of the week (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) and if a response is demanded immediately I post another chapter in the earlier part of the week (Monday, Tuesday.) Almost all these posting occur in the evenings.**

 **Q: Can I contribute to the playlist selections at the beginning of the chapter?**

 **-Sure! Simply PM me or leave a not to me in the reviews. If I can find a way to work in a song with a chapter or use it as writing inspiration I will and you will receive credit in the opening Author's Note.**

 **On a brighter note I am now on my Fall break, which means round the clock writing & that I'm already working on the next chapter. Let me know what you think and I'll try to post sooner!**


	7. Through The Sleepless Night

**AN: Wow! This story has officially passed Artemisia for reviews. If that's not something to celebrate then I don't know what is!** **Big shout out to everyone who has made that possible by sending me feedback, especially those of you who do so with every update.**

 **For those of you wondering, YES, Parenthesis will be longer than Artemisia. Quite a bit longer, actually, right now at my roughest draft I have it spanning at least 50 chapters at my absolute lowest guess.**

 **Picks from the playlist: One More Time With Feeling by Regina Spektor; Shape of My Heart by Noah and the Whale; Treacherous by Taylor Swift.**

* * *

Wally simply grins watches her run a thumb over her lips, wiping whatever trace there is of him off her mouth. The same ridiculous grin is still plastered on his face, like he's just realized that the twenty dollar bill he misplaced a few days ago is still sitting rumpled in his pocket and waiting to be spent.

For a moment she looks at him, surveying him through her lashes and not quite sure what to feel—for so long she's felt unworthy of happiness that it feels odd, _alien_ even, for so much raw and unburdened emotion to be twisting not unpleasantly in her stomach. Because her choice is made, the arrow is fired and there's no turning back now, not when he's grinning at her in a way that tells her _this is okay_. It's overwhelming; even more so when he suddenly laughs again at the quizzical expression on her face, her leg jostling and suddenly she's pressed up, _hard_ , against him- for a half moment she can feel the absent throbbing back and hot and wanting between her legs, and before she can do something stupid _(like lean forward and practically claw kisses out of him, because oh god she wants him so bad and he has no idea)_ she forces herself to pick herself off the mattress, sliding off Wally until she's back standing a safe distance away.

 _(She's quickly learning that just because a decision is made doesn't mean it's an easy one; she has a feeling she's only just started digging herself out of the shallow grave she had emotionally submerged herself into...)_

"Where do you think you're going?" He asks her when she takes a small step backwards, hands running the length of her skirt to smooth it against her thighs.

She catches her careless fingers as they accidentally ruffle the edge of her skirt; there's a half second where Wally's eyes glance down to follow the movement and she can actually see his throat bob, and suddenly it takes all her strength to clasp her hands together instead of jumping on him like some sort of animal that's been keep in a solitary cage for far too long. _(Because they both know that if this is going to work, if she's going to be able to do this without tearing him apart like all the others she's going to have to go slow. Going to have to force herself to be wary.)_

"I-I don't know." She winces slightly when her voice breaks. "… I think I've reached my limit for mushiness today." It's one of the more honest things she's ever said to him, and maybe that's why he's suddenly frowning at her; he knows as well as she does that this kind of stuff, this... This talking about your feelings crap, the googley eyes, she has a low tolerance for it.

"Well I haven't." He says in a slightly bratty voice, and in the most Wally-ish way she can possibly imagine he flings himself upwards _(and she can't believe he can even move this way yet; he's just gotten out of the hospital, how-?)_ and reaches for her; suddenly he's breaking her hands apart with his own, thumb and forefinger tracing her wrist and pulling on her last thread of resistance until she gives in against her better judgment, scowling and moving closer.

 _Like many times before she bends her rules for him._

"... Wally." It takes half a step until her knees collide with the edge of the bed, and when he only tugs a little more insistently on her wrist she quirks a brow that seems to say what she can't— _move over, Baywatch, she's not the cuddling type_. In an instant Wally releases her, making a show of scooting over until he's more than a foot away from anywhere near where she would occupy. For some reason she almost laughs and resigns herself to lying down beside him.

 _Careful now. Keep it together._

His bed is springier than hers, and she feels as if the whole thing will topple with each movement she makes to settle into it—lying on her back, adjusting her skirt so it fans out over her legs evenly, reaching up to tug her pony tail upwards so it doesn't press at an odd angle against her skull. She feels as if she'll topple over any second; the springs are all unbalanced, the cushions too soft and the frame too flimsy; it's as if every part of Wally that she finds annoying _(his quick wit, the snarky responses, the way he changes pace so quickly in conversation)_ has rubbed off onto the mattress. As she's just let out an annoyed sigh she finally manages to find a comfortable spot, an indentation under her back that tells her she's lying in the exact place where he sleeps.

She folds her hands neatly across her stomach, staring at the ceiling for almost a minute before she caves in, head turning to meet his delighted gaze. "What are you looking at?" She says in a slightly rude voice, and suddenly it can't be more obvious that she's uncomfortable and incredibly nervous. "Stop looking at me. And stop being so quiet!"

He's flopped onto his stomach, and she wonders if he always lies that way or if it's just a habit he picked up from his extended stay in the hospital. She catches herself wrinkling her nose and stops just as the corner of his mouth juts upward, his face hidden and creasing where it's pressed against his pillow. "You're being quiet too." He reminds her.

"I'm always quiet." For some reason this comes out in a childish huff that turns her cheeks red and makes Wally grin wider. She taps her stomach impatiently. "… You're going to have to help me out here, Baywatch, I've never done this before. I've never... You know. With anyone."

"Me neither." He admits kind of sheepishly, and almost immediately they're back to an embarrassed silence again.

She makes it another half minute of glaring at the ceiling and hating herself before she catches him still staring again; the attention is making her annoyed and somewhat self-conscious. "Will you knock it off?" She snorts a little meanly, rolling onto her side to face him, one hand reaching out to cuff him about the jaw.

"Speaking of knocking it off, how about you stop pretending that-" He catches her hand before she can do much more than bump her knuckles a little pathetically about his chin, but rather than just throwing her off completely he holds her wrist curiously for a moment before winding his fingers between hers, their grip on each other tight before he drags them back down to rest against the sheets. "Huh." Wally muses, glancing down at their hands. "Never done that before either."

"Yes we have." She corrects him, scowling. "We've literally held hands _dozens_ of times."

"When?"

She rolls her head over to glare at him. " _You're kidding_. Bialya? That time when we watched that dumb movie with Julia Roberts? On the bridge? _Dozens of times._ " She hates that she sounds almost offended, as if their holding hands is _important to her_ , or something.

"Yeah, yeah." He sighs, and as if he's immune to her annoyed tone he simply hums for a moment, thinking. "Well, we've never held hands _lying down_. Or in a _bed_."

She blushes and can't quite tell why. "Shut up. Do you always have to be right?"

"I don't have to be. I just usually am."

"You were just wrong a second ago!"

For some reason his shrugs, grinning at her like he's finding the whole argument a little amusing. "You're being deliberately disagreeable, Blondie."

It's odd; when she had kissed Wally… she had thought it would give her some sort of explanation. Or a new found sense of purpose. Maybe she thought it would be easier now, that suddenly she would be free from her burdens, somehow escape her awkwardness and hesitancy or their bickering. Now a vast unknown seems to stretch between them, so overwhelming and unclear that neither of them knows how to proceed to the next step.

She bites the inside of her cheek, glancing down to stare at their hands rather than look at him as she scours the inside of her head, trying to find some way to talk to him without fighting like they always do. "… Speaking of Bialya. You've never told me what happened before I woke up. If—if you want to talk about stuff we haven't done before. Or whatever."

When she glances up at him he's grinning again, a look on his face that she's come to associate with revelation—it's as if he's finally realized what he's been doing wrong on his math homework, or suddenly remembered where he left his cellphone _(granted, that last instance doesn't happen often.)_ "Oh, man." He chuckles to himself, the whole bed wobbling as he releases her hand and flips onto his back, shifting closer until their shoulders are barely touching. "Do I have to? I'll sound like an idiot." He says to the ceiling.

A part of her almost blurts out that _He sounds like an idiot most of the time anyway_ , but another part of her, the part that she suspects might have in instinct for this kind of thing, nudges him in the ribs with her elbow. "Yes." She tries to smile, taking his hand again.

 _And maybe this is progress, the fact that she knows she should take his hand; the fact that instinctively she flexes her ankle until her toes are pressing against the side of his foot, fidgeting until their feet intertwine and the bare skin poking out in the gap between the frayed bottom of his jeans and his sock seems so warm through her stockings. And it kind of scares her and she doesn't know why; the fact that the instinct for this kind of thing is still inside or, or perhaps the fact that simply lying beside him is bringing it out of her._

Wally's ears go off, so warm that she can feel them from even a few inches away. To spare him a little dignity she goes back to staring at the ceiling, listening hard when he finally figures out what he wants to say. "Uh, I remember being so hungry that my stomach woke me up." He blurts out. She almost snorts, her chest aching and lips folding tightly over each other as she struggles to keep a few breaths of mean laughter inside her. "And it took me a few minutes to realize that I wasn't in my house, or Aunt Iris'. But I knew I was lying in the sand next to some sort of building, and I decided to check it out.

"And even though it was really bright outside it felt really dark in that little shack—or maybe it just took my eyes too long to adjust, I don't know. But I fell over you—"

"You fell over me?" She bursts out, her mouth splitting into a smirk. Wally blushes again, avoiding her eyes and holding up their interlinked hands, staring at her chipped nails as if fascinated by the peeling polish Zatanna had painted on them a few weeks ago.

"Like I said," he sighs, thumb rubbing over her cuticles and catching on the frayed edges, "I sound like an idiot in this story, okay? Anyway, I kind of crash landed on the floor and it took a few minutes to realize that you were there... And then—don't hit me or anything, okay?—and then I saw you and I kind of just… It took me a few minutes, okay? Because you looked so... So _beautiful,_ Artemis. Like I didn't believe it, I thought maybe you were a hallucination or something, because I hadn't ate for a while, you know? Like a mirage? But you felt warm to the touch and you kept letting out these cute little groans in your sleep-"

"Wally." She cuts him off, turning a horrifying red. "Don't be weird."

"It's not weird!" He sputters, looking slightly offended. "It's romantic, it's... _Whatever._ It doesn't matter, because then you woke up and turned out to be crazy."

She can feel her cheeks reddening. "I wasn't crazy."

"No." He concedes, grinning wickedly down at her. "Just completely gorgeous and completely terrifying... Which I guess is kind of the usual for you."

She can't stop the snort that rips through her nose and he can't stop from grinning at her, and before either of them can stop they're laughing in a way they've never laughed with each other. In a matter of seconds she can feel herself loosening, becoming more used to him, her barriers unwinding and beginning to strip themselves from her body. It takes a few minutes for them to calm down, and for once in her life she feels how she's supposed to: like a kid.

"I told you I sounded dumb." Wally chuckles, free hand scrubbing a few stray pieces of fringe off his forehead. She glances at him, looking away before he can catch her gaze, eyes crinkling at the ceiling. "Alright, Blondie. Your turn."

For some reason the question stumps her even though it's not really a question anymore; it had started as things they've never done and now she can sense it's turning into something bigger, a chance for them to start getting to know each other. Despite the fact that she can pull a couple dozen answers off the top of her head _(she has secrets, too many of them, most a little too dark for the giddy mood he's put her in)_ she decidedly rolls her lips between her teeth for a moment, finally looking away from the ceiling and meeting his eyes, his brows waggling at her.

Something in his face shifts when she props herself up on her elbow, as if he's afraid that she'll get up and run away from him, offended by what he's asking _(and if she recalls correctly she's done that once before, only this time things have changed and they're no longer two bickering teenagers looking for an excuse not to do their homework_ ) and for once in her life she thinks she'll do something even she doesn't expect. Rolling onto her side she feels their joined hands digging into her stomach, the bend of his elbow curving around her breast.

She looks at him for far too long, pony tail dripping down the side of her neck and jaw dropped in the same calculating look she's sent him dozens of times before. She's always used it to try to unmask him, to try and read the parts of him he hid from her, but now she can sense it's pointless to try reading deeper. This person in front of her, Wally West, Kid Flash, he's just as unmasked and naked to her as he's ever been. It's her now who's revealing her face; her who's stripping herself of the façade. And maybe that's okay. Maybe that's what she's always wanted.

She can't stop herself from reaching out without any real plan of action, one calloused edge of her finger dragging from the hinge of his jaw to his chin. He lets out a rush of air through his mouth as she does it, lungs stuttering with the heaviness of the movement, so forceful that it ruffles a few pieces of hair that have fallen free from her pony tail. It's an odd reaction and she can't stop from retracing his jaw line again, the twisting sensation in her stomach sounding when this time he utters a barely there, "That's... Not really an answer..." Before his eyes grow hazy, drifting shut.

She supposes it's getting late.

She touches him so lightly, her fingers skating across features she's never touched before: _The blister on her thumb running over his cheekbones. Webbing of her hand catching on his stubble. Finger pads on his eyelids. Pinky finger dragging over his lips. Nails raking through his hair._ He's trying to stay still, a feat that she knows is hard for him—she makes a note to ask him about that later—his impatience only showing when his foot suddenly twitches, thankfully knocking her good leg.

He inhales a shaky but soothed breath when her forefinger runs down his neck, tracing the bob of his Adam's apple before disappearing beneath the collar of his sweater, dragging over the muscled panes of his chest. Wally's breathing stutters to a halt when her fingers first find his nipple, shifting diagonally until she touches the newly acquired scar.

She can feel his heart beat right below her finger tips, and for a moment her whole world stills.

He opens his eyes to watch her reaction but she's careful not to let too much show; instead of crying like she wants to she stops her lip from quivering, withdrawing her hand from his sweater and redoubling her grip on his fingers when she takes his hand again. "I've never touched one of your scars before." She says quietly.

Wally's brows purse. "Artemis." He says her name quietly, but doesn't say anything more.

She shakes her head, already going back to running her fingers over his jaw again. Oddly Wally drops the subject, eyes fluttering again in response to the touch.

After a moment she leans in, catching him in a kiss much softer than any one she's given him before; it's more ghost than solid, more eyelashes brushing against his cheekbones than teeth on tongue. She tries to put a lot of words into the kiss, the kind of words she wants to say but isn't brave enough to promise: No more running. _Not from him._ She's going to stop their never ending game of hide and seek, put an end to all the childish games of tag she's been forcing him to play. She's done second guessing herself, now is the time to hold her ground; it's time to stand beside him, time to stop pretending she'll make it out alive without him. She's done trying to lap him, done trying to outwit him, and above all she's done leaving him, done pretending she can do without... Because if there's anything he's taught her it's that when you care about people, really care about them, _you don't leave_. Not forever, at least.

When she pulls back Wally looks at her sleepily, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards when she settles back into his indentations in the blankets, this time lying as close and she can dare, the arc of her neck wedging into the shell of his arm. "Your turn." She reminds him, curling her knees up against the blankets and trying to send him a shy smile.

Wally stares at the ceiling to think, and after a while she hears snoring.

* * *

She doesn't sleep at all. Part of her knows Wally's to blame—he's an awful sleeper, constantly tossing and turning, flipping in an almost acrobatic fashion from his stomach to his back or from one side of the end to the other; even in stillness he snores. Twice in his sleep he reaches for her, both times failing but once grabbing her pony tail in a death grip.

Wally releases her hair seconds before she starts seriously considering breaking his fingers, and at that point she gives him up as a bad job; just as she's managed to sit up she hears the blaring of the alarm in the hallway: the Team is needed.

A little ridiculously he jumps in his sleep; she can hear his feet kicking against blankets as he thrashes out towards her, one hand securing her wrist so tightly she nearly cries out. "Artemis?" He asks the darkness, voice cracking with sleep and worry and not realizing yet what's happening, as if he's caught her in the middle of sneaking out in the dead of the night. _Which, she supposes, she just was._

"I'm here." She says a little stupidly, Wally's hands still grabbing frantically at her arms as if trying to convince her to come back to bed. "You have to get up though, something's happening." She hears him swear, and when she glances over at him he's already rolled over on his side, tugging the blankets up to his head. She can't stop herself from clicking her tongue impatiently, her exhaustion beginning to get to her. "Wally-"

"I'm up, I'm up." He mutters beneath the blankets, not moving.

"Wally!" She hisses, and as if knowing what she's about to do he rips the blanket off his own body, sending her a dry look in the dark. "God, you're lazy." She snorts at him.

He lets out another yawn, propping himself up on one elbow and scrubbing at his face. "Whatever. Seriously, who calls for an alarm at-" He pauses, squinting at his watch. "Three in the morning?"

She rolls her eyes when he flattens himself back into bed, grumbling. "It's just going to take longer if we don't go now." She reminds him.

Pointedly she glances back towards the door, Wally groaning again as he forces himself to sit up. "Okay, okay." He sighs, slinging an arm easily around her shoulder in his exhaustion as he stands. "Come on, let's just get this over with and then we can both come back here and-" He trails off, looking a little confused when she takes a step back from underneath his arm. "Artemis?"

"I-" She pauses, biting the inside of her cheek as a new on slot of worry starts sounding in her stomach. "How is this going to work, exactly?"

In reply Wally blinks at her, eyelids opening and closing so slowly it makes the corners of her mouth twitch. "How's what going to work?"

"... You know. This." She gestures between them. "I mean- I don't even know what this is yet. Do you think we should... Keep it quiet for a bit? _Just in case_...?

Wally blinks again, this time shaking his head slightly as if to clear it. " _Just in case_." He repeats. "... I don't really have a _just in case_. Do you have a _just in case_?" He asks her a little accusingly.

Just as she opens her mouth to reply she alarm starts going off more insistently around them, the disembodied voice calling out around them. _All Team members report to the debriefing room._ A little helplessly she shrugs, shaking her head when he suddenly scowls, the tired lines around his eyes darkening. "Wally- I just, just wait a second-"

She catches him just as he's almost ducked around her towards the door, pulling him back and wrapping her arms around his waist a little pathetically. "You aren't listening, Wally!" She huffs, voice breaking with a mixture of exhaustion and emotion. "Just... Work with me here, okay? I want to have time to, you know, talk about some stuff, have some conversations on our own before other people start barging in an asking us questions, like remember what happened with M'gann and-"

She's cut off when Wally kisses her quickly, lips pressing flat against hers for a half second before he pulls back, nodding. "I know." He sighs. "I know, Artemis. I'm sorry, I'm just... It's been a long day. For both of us." As if sealing some sort of resolution he reaches behind him, hands wrapping around her wrists and forcing her to unwind her arms from around his middle. "It's fine. Are you coming back here after?"

She watches him scrub sleep from his eyes one last time, her own exhaustion overwhelming her but still wishing she could give another answer. "... I think I'm going to bed after, Wally." She whispers.

He lets out a tired noise and she half convinces herself that she can hear him mutter _You're already in bed_ to the room at large before he's running a palm through his hair, trying not to look sour. "Okay, so, talking. Tomorrow then? After school sometime? Because... I don't know, I don't want you to have... You know. A _just in case_. Not anymore, at least."

For some reason she feels a surge of emotion as he says it, looking a mixture of sheepish and half asleep with one hand rubbing at his eyes with a knuckle; for the first time in her life her heart actually jumps up into her throat, driving her to do something she would never do otherwise: leg aching, she forces her weight onto her toes, lips reaching up to press against his temple. "Yes, idiot. Now come on, everyone's going to beat us from to the briefing room."

 _She doesn't know exactly what she means by it; she just knows she wants to leave him with some sort of small comfort, something that tells him that she's not going anywhere. Not now._

She leaves the room before she can do anything else stupid, Wally muttering after her.

* * *

"Roy Harper is missing." They're the first words she hears out of Kaldur's mouth when they all manage to finally meet up, all look bleary eyed and half asleep as they blink up at various screens reflecting blue light into the darkness.

There's a half second where they're all a little too exhausted to be functioning, and Zatanna says what they're all thinking. "Uh, _yeah_. Thanks for the update?"

Kaldur's face sours when they all snicker a little stupidly; at once Zatanna's eyes are flicking to her across the room and instantly she knows, more out of raw instinct than anything, that all the awful things she's said over the past week are in the process of being swept under the carpet. "Pardon me. _Red Arrow_ is missing."

The last of the snickering sobers and whatever tired energy has been humming around the room suddenly sharpens, all of their backs straightening as Kaldur turns, fingers tapping anxiously against computer keys. "The League had agreed it would be prudent to track him after... After his true identity was revealed. But after the New Year there were very little hands to spare, and it was thought that the usage of simple tracking technology would suffice to keep an eye on him; after all, our Roy had nothing to hide."

"... Or so we all assumed?" Robin sighs. "Let me guess. More secrets?"

"So what did he do?" Wally cuts across him, yawning. "Slip the tracers? Exchange more intel with the Light?"

"It is not my belief that Roy was exchanging more intel; in any case, he has not been trusted with much of anything other than information in regards to the suspected location of the Real Roy Harper- all leads, in any case, have come up dry." Kaldur sighs. "And in any case, he has proven himself to be a loyal friend."

There's a moment of sticky silence in which Connor does what he does best: voices the worst thought in all their heads. "... A loyal friend who decided to give the League the slip?"

In answer Kaldur ducks his chin, glowering at the ground. "It is not so simple. Red Arrow had been tampering with the tracers for weeks, forcing them to feed false locations to make it appear he had been keeping a regular schedule." He pauses, looking up at her with the corners of his mouth quirking upwards despite the severity of the situation, as if hoping to lighten the mood. "Your Green Arrow was most insulted that his tech had been so easily compromised."

There's a moments silence in which she exchanges a smirk with Robin- he alone knows Green Arrows identity and he alone probably knows how much of an insult it is that Queen Industries Technology could be duped so easily, especially for so long without his notice. Before she can even whisper a snarky reply Raquel clears her throat, looking slightly sour. "So Red's been leading us on a wild goose chase? Any idea why?"

"I'm sorry, but are we forgetting who we're talking about?" Zatanna asks the room at large. "I mean, it's Roy. It's not exactly out of character for him to get annoyed that he's being followed without his knowledge. Sure, it's weird that he's feeding us false locations, but the guys goes missing for weeks at a time when he's feeling bothered by the view from his apartment, how do we know he isn't... You know. Just out for another stroll?"

"It is not just that." Kaldur sighs, fingers crackling against keys again and pulling a reel of grainy film up for them on the screen."We suspect the last real location Roy leaked to us was somewhere in Gotham- he was using one of Green Arrow's vehicle's at the time and we were able to get an approximation of his location before it was disabled. Facial recognition technology was able to find him on the security footage outside of a gas station-"

"That's right by my house." She blurts out.

His brows raise but regardless of the stunned reactions around her she instantly knows exactly where the image on the screen is from; it's the Quick Run where she stopped in to grab Wally that ridiculous Flash mug for Christmas, the same place Jade made an appearance after so many months of being gone. She can see Roy, their Roy Harper, gassing up his car (or one of Oliver's cars, she supposes.) They all watch for almost a minute as he flexes the end of the pump in his hand, scanning a credit card (once again, she supposes, probably one of Oliver's) before placing the nozzles back in it's sleeve. Three seconds of fumbling with his wallet , opening the driver's side door and...

A lone figure comes at him in full sprint from behind, shoving him by the back of his jacket into his seat, backside skimming over the hood of the car before his passenger side door is open and shut in an instant, the engine revving and tires squealing in a matter of six seconds, she supposes, despite the fact that there's no sound.

"Replay that." She hears herself say, eyes squinting when the film rolls back and replays the movement of the stranger again and again. There's something familiar there, something in the movement of the hands and the rolling motion of the hips along the hood of the car... "That's my sister." She gasps out unthinkingly, and before she can stop herself she's leaving Wally's side, fingers pressing against the hologram and forcing it to zoom in. "Look, there."

She runs her fingers across the scanner, watching the unknown assailant glide over the hood of Roy's car again and again. Something in the way the clothes fit, something in the darkness of the hoodie and the tightness of the jeans.. She stops the image all together, pointing. "Look, you can see it right there, I think. Some of her hair is coming out of her baseball hat- Look, you can see the brim sticking out from under her hood. It's a Yankees hat, she loves the Yankees." She pauses, looking around at their stunned faces and she spews out this random fact. "I thought, a few weeks ago..." She hesitates, wonder if she's about to get reeled out for not telling the truth before hand. "Roy reeked like Jade back in January. I kept asking him if he was seeing her and he wouldn't give me a straight answer. I just, I thought maybe he was messing with me, or that he was smoking and drinking more and that's why, I don't know... It doesn't matter. She's my sister, guys. I know her when I see her."

Wally squints, walking up beside her with his hands on his hips. "Looks like your sister." He says unhelpfully, nodding. "So should we be happy he's with friends? Or does that mean we should be more worried?"

"... I don't know." She admits a little defensively when they all look round at her, expecting answers.

"Regardless." Kaldur cuts across them. "Roy is my best friend on the surface world. And although the League says they are handling it... The time stamp on this film is less than five hours ago. Perhaps...?" He trails off, looking at all their faces as they stiffen, now alert. "Perhaps I will take a small squad. Robin, Superboy, come with me. The rest of you may go back to bed."

For some reason she grabs his arm as he tries to pass her by, looking annoyed. "What? Kaldur, come on. She's my sister. I've been waiting for this for weeks!"

Kaldur's eyes narrow for a moment before he shakes his head, frowning. "And yet this is the first I am hearing of it." He tells her not unkindly. "You should have come to me directly with your suspicions, Artemis. This Team does not keep secrets. Not anymore." He pauses, the stern look on his face quailing her slightly. She hates that her cheeks are reddening despite the fact that he's doing little more than scolding her in front of the rest of the Team, hardly yelling. "Although I do agree. Normally I would choose you for this assignment. But you are still... He glances down pointedly at her leg. "... Besides, it is a school night." He adds kindly, as if trying to soften the blow.

She actually feels herself inflated angrily when he escapes her grasp, already walking back towards the zeta tubes. "Really Kaldur? A _school night_?" She huffs, glaring when he simply waves over his shoulder. "Connor's still in high school! And Robin's not even _fourteen_ yet!"

Everyone ignores her, the others already on their way back to bed. Before Dick turns to take his leave he flashes her an annoying grin, as if quietly telling her she deserves this.

* * *

She's exhausted at school the next day, her feet dragging and hair scraggly after spending half the night up worrying about Roy and Jade. She goes through the morning wearing the same rumpled uniform she wore the day before and more than once people click their tongues after her, disapproving. She catches Dick's eyes once in the halls, and although he raises a tired brow at her appearance he doesn't stop to chat, offering no hints as to what the evening's mission held.

She supposes it won't do much good to worry anymore. Jade will find her way back to her when she's ready.

Despite being so tired and annoyed at herself for her own injuries she has an excited quirk in her stomach all day, and it takes her far too long to realize that she's actually looking forward to seeing Wally, actually looking forward to being able to talk. All the weight she's been carrying around the past few weeks or so seems to have gone, or at least seems to have lightened, been made more manageable; for once in her life she is actually excited rather than dreading what is to come. She supposes there's a spring in her step, or perhaps her limp is finally beginning to heal, because her mother actually glances up as she passes through the kitchen after school, forgoing her usual tea in favor of the full caffeine of coffee.

"You're smiling." Paula offers, one finger wedging into her book's spine to mark her place as she glances at her, looking surprised.

Too quickly she forces her face to level out, face puckering when she sips her horrible drink. "No I'm not." She shrugs, disappearing to run a brush through her hair and smudge eyeliner on her lids.

* * *

She's at the Cave before four o'clock—Wally's usual haunting hours—hits, and rather than pace around nervously or fidget with the sleeves of her sweater she decides to do some homework around the kitchen island; before long the weight of her exhaustion and the boredom she associates with biology practically puts her asleep with her eyes open, so much so that she doesn't even to think to look up when she hears his name being announced robotically to the room as a whole.

She's scratching out genetics squares for another half minute or so before she half senses someone's gaze on her back; her senses are dulled, movements slow, and for once he actually surprises her when he sneaks up behind her, one arm slinking around her shoulder. "You're supposed to do two squares for question three, your answer isn't consistent with the possible alleles of the parents."

" _God_." She hisses, shoulders jumping under his arm and one hand flying up so quickly to press against her rapidly beating heart that her whole notebook is bothered, papers rustling. "What the _hell_ , Wally."

He spares her a smirk before he leans over, chin resting on her shoulder, hand reaching out to take the pen she's just dropped before he adjusts her answer. When he finishes he hesitates for a fraction of a moment, looking as if he wants to kiss her. She's a little disappointed when he pulls back, lips not even touching her cheek, edging around her and sitting at the stool beside her. "How was school?" He asks her.

They make small talk for a few minutes, still trying to find their way around the new terrain they're wobbling on; for so long they're been between annoying each other and almost being friends, now they're on the edge of becoming more. It's exciting, overwhelming; at least half a dozen terrifying emotions at once.

 _The small talk is easier than the big talk, the talk they're both bouncing around but both know they'll have to have at one point this afternoon; the one where they talk about their feelings and everything that's happened the past few weeks and everything that is going to happen from now on... And when faced with all that it's ridiculous easy to get lost in the comfort of telling him about her day at school, or the gross food they served in the cafeteria at lunch, or how many books are currently in her back pack..._

"So," he asks her after a while, her stolen pen still in his hand and drawing random swirls around the margins of her homework. They've managed a few minutes of guessing what possibly happened last night and what exactly it means that they haven't heard anything _(which clearly means nothing happened and there's nothing to report, and for all they know Roy and Jade have decided to start their new lives on some remote island somewhere for all the clues they managed to turn up.)_ Wally hesitates and seems to loose a bit of his nerve, changing the course of his sentence at the last minute. "... What do you want to do today?"

"I don't care." She shrugs, although she does care, she's been looking forward to seeing him all day, the only thing keeping her moderately awake through her classes. "But I need coffee."

She can see the confusion on his face, one brow quirking to watch her set the kettle to boil, hands riffling through the cupboards to extract a single cup, the tin of coffee and a filter. "I always thought you were more of a tea girl." He says, leaning back so far on his stool that the front two legs leave the ground, the only thing keeping him upright is his iron grip on the counter.

She measures the grounds of coffee carefully, only having made this once without a coffee maker. "I am, coffee is disgusting. But _someone_ ," she emphasizes, glancing at him as the kettle boils. "Kept me up last night with their tossing and turning. And that was before I had my sister to deal with."

"Oh." She can see his ears reddening, the front of the stool slamming down a little harder than expected as he adjusts his weight to sit properly. "Uh, sorry. I've never slept with anyone before. Not uh, like that- not that I wouldn't like to, that is, uh-"

He looks grateful when she cuts him off, snorting. "God, Wally. You're such a geek." She tries to say confidently, ignoring the way her own cheeks have suddenly ignited like his ears as she turns back to the kettle, now whistling.

They watch in silence as she pours the boiling water through the filter. It's a slow process, one that requires more focus than tea; she has to keep the stream even, has to make sure all the grounds in the filter get properly soaked, has to make sure she doesn't pour her water too quickly, should she accidentally make it too weak. By the time she's finished her cup is full to the brim and black.

"Do you, uh?" She gestures at him with the kettle, silently asking him if he wants a cup. Wally shakes his head, but still gets to his feet, a little curious.

"No point. Fast metabolism." He reminds her.

Something quirks in her memory and she half glances at him, deciding she'd rather talk about this than listen to him start stuttering about sleeping with her again. "You know, you've been telling me that for a while and I still don't really know what it means."

Wally watches her add a teaspoon of sugar to her cup, a look in his eyes telling her that he's memorizing the way she takes her coffee for future reference _(one sugar, no milk.)_ She's already swirled her spoon around the cup twice before he snaps out of it, speaking. "Oh. Well, running so fast kind of forces my body to speed up its metabolic rate. So normal functions, like digestion, red or white blood cells, brain function, all the jazz, they're forced to speed up too."

He pauses as if this somehow explains something, and she has to prompt him with a small jut to the ribs. "… Okay? _And?"_

He watches her sip her coffee, her mouth puckering with the bitterness as it did earlier that afternoon. "So, if I drank that coffee, my body would process and eliminate the caffeine so quickly it wouldn't have an effect. Same with alcohol, drugs—nothing."

"Huh. So you're kind of forced to live with no vices." For some reason this is odd to her; she can hardly walk down a street without seeing people smoking, drinking out of bottles covered in brown paper, can hardly pass by an alley without her boots kicking disregarded needles. Even she drinks her tea like it's lifeblood rather than herbal water, even she's indulged more than once with liquor... She almost can't imagine having to go through life completely sober.

 _Maybe that's a little fucked up on her part._

Wally shrugs, fingers tapping at the counter beside her waist. "Well, I mean, I _could_ if I really wanted to. There just isn't much of a point. I mean, I've watched Uncle Barry drink coffee out of habit, because Aunt Iris has it in the mornings. But he doesn't get all jittery like she does."

Still, she forces herself to take another hearty swig from her cup and then promptly offer it to him, trying to grin coyly. "You sure you don't at least want the experience?" She asks, as if trying to tempt him.

Wally glances down at the cup and then up at her, something in his face shifting and eyes growing mischievous. Before she can properly brace herself for what she knows is coming he drops his jaw slightly, leaning in.

It's short but almost immediately invasive; in the half second he's pressed up against her lips his tongue seems to swirl against her, sucking hard on her lower lip and inhaling the breath out of her mouth, as if trying to take some small part of her with him when he pulls back, jostling her cup so much that she nearly spills. The movement leaves her slightly light headed, her cheeks practically glowing when he wrinkles his nose at her, expression sour.

"Yuck. You weren't kidding about how bad that tastes."

She scowls at him and punches him as she always does in the shoulder, and this time a few drops coffee do dribble over the lip of her mug and onto the tile floor. The ever present gentleman, Wally mops it up with his sock. "Gee, Wally. You really know how to compliment a girl."

He shrugs, smirking at her. "Whatever. Can we go? Or are you actually going to drink all that?"

She glares at him but can't stop herself from smiling as she places her cup on the counter. Wally takes her hand and she hopes to god that she has some gum stashed in one of her pockets.

* * *

Neither of them have any specific plans for the afternoon; regardless, it's easier to be with each other carefully dancing around conversation than be alone and drowning in it, and almost decidedly they both wrap their jackets around their shoulders and start walking.

They walk around the Cave, they walk outside, they follow the curve of the frosted mountain until they find themselves walking beside large expanse of flat rock that seems to jut out around the base of the mountain, both their breaths a little labored as they wade through the sand, zippers of their jackets undone and enjoying the first hint of spring in the air. After a while her leg is twinging and he has to stop and spit some phlegm in the sand, the two of them carefully avoiding each other's eyes when this happens.

 _They're both still on the mend_ , she supposes.

They keep up their little game of the previous night, asking each other questions that they don't know the answers too. As if there's some unspoken rule between them they keep their questions light, easy to answer, and before long she can feel herself putting together a map of the boy keeping pace beside her— Wally Rudolph West _(his parents didn't give him a chance with that goddamn name.)_ Sixteen, no desire for a driver's license. Could eat buckets of any kind of pasta; the carbs keep him full longer but it's better for running of there's a protein too. The walls of his bedroom at home are painted a ridiculous fire truck red, which not only matches the color of the Flash's uniform but is also his favorite color. He's oddly afraid of horses _(they make him nervous for some reason,)_ dislikes almost every green vegetable she can name off the top of her head and has a ridiculous bias against anyone who won't give country music a fair chance _(she tells him almost immediately that she hates country music and he tells her with without missing a beat that he'll make an exception.)_

They've done nearly a lap around the whole harbor when he catches her wincing; she's been trying not to show how bothered she is by the uneven ground, how weak she is in the grand scheme of things still. Without comment Wally doubles his grip on her hand and makes a bigger deal that he has to about how nice it would be to sit and watch the sun go down on the beach. She's never liked him more than she does in that moment, even if she feels like the has to justify herself by rolling her eyes and sighing "Fine."

But maybe a part of him understands her; understands that she won't allow herself to sit until he tugs insistently on her wrist. And maybe she likes it, that he knows all these little things without asking, knows the right things to do or the right things to say, unlike her... She settles beside him on the beach and feels ridiculous at how close she sits, at least until he's extracting his hand from the pocket of his coat and winding it around her shoulders, so innocent in the movement that she looks at his fingers, placed delicately on the swell of her shoulder, in surprise.

 _Nobody has ever treated her with as much gentleness and tenderness as Wally has in the last twenty four hours. She's so used to bashing people's heads in and keeping up her own walls that she's forgotten what it's like... To let someone in. To let them touch her skin and trace the outline of her heart without worry of sharpened edges or unkind words... It's so alien to her, in the best possible way._

Wally notices her gaze on his hand and almost immediately removes it, ears reddening and elbow bending behind her neck. "Sorry—I didn't know if that was okay or—"

"No." She says shyly, leaning more firmly against him and immediately being flooded with the warmth seeping through his jacket. "It's okay. I don't mind." She says it almost as if she's doing him a favor, but neither of them can ignore the blushing of her cheeks; for a while they both watch the swell of the water on the shore and she tries not to look at the smug expression on his face.

"It's your turn." He prompts her after a while. "… To ask a question."

She glances at him, pausing. "… I can't think of anything." She says honestly, and for the first time in her life she realizes her brain is no longer buzzing, no longer working itself into an anxious fit of questions and suspicions and trying to see though other people's exteriors. For once all she registers inside her head is sound of gulls flying low over the water and the lingering smell of cologne on the collar of Wally's jacket.

Instead of prompting her to rack her brains or say anything like what she's expecting something in Wally's face changes, features softening and eyes crinkling as he smiles at her. "… You're really pretty." He says simply.

She can feel her cheeks reddening and she glances down in time to catch her fingers curling in the sand between them, the underside of her nails caking with dirt. "You've said that before." She reminds him, not sure if they're still playing their game of never-before and unanswered questions.

"Doesn't make it any less true." He shrugs, his arm pulling her closer. "… Can I-?" She looks back at him just into time to see him lean in, not waiting for her answer before he kisses her.

And maybe for a second she almost considers pulling back, almost considers pulling away and trying to smile at him, trying to force herself to ruin the moment with the conversation they need to have. Only this time she's done keeping him at an arm's length, don't trying to tell him all the different ways she's dangerous. They've jumped that hurdle now, they've turned that final corner; now they need to define what this is, they need to say, in so many words, how they feel about each other... But then again she thinks, catching herself sighing into his mouth as he tilts his jaw more surely towards her, maybe those things have always been fine going unsaid between them.

The water keeps sweeping against the shore. The sun keeps making its way down the Western horizon, the gulls keep cawing overhead and the watch on Wally's wrist keeps ticking past the seconds but here, on the beach with his lips pressed against hers, Artemis wishes for the first time in her life that time would stand still.

It may be true that after a day of talking they haven't really _talked_ about much, after all... There's still a lot of feelings etched between them, still a lot of unanswered questions and boundaries they need to establish. But being on this beach with Wally, feeling the sand beneath her fingers and the warmth of the setting sun on her face, feeling his lips as they prod hers open and pull the breath right out of her lungs... It feels as everything that led to this moment has been one long sprint. And now her muscles are aching and she's groaning into his mouth as his teeth drag along her lower lip... And maybe in some ways their marathon is over, their race has been won, now they're both exhausted and their bodies are drained and all that really feels _real_ in this moment is his hand on her denim coated knee and his fingers as their tangle into the end of her pony tail...

Maybe when the running is over all there's left to do is be still.

At least for a moment.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! Please read and review.**

 **On a side note, one of the most common and surprising things I found in the reviews was how shocked everyone was that Artemis decided to stay behind for Wally. When I was writing it I always had it planned for her to choose him, either directly or by doubling back for him (by leaving the room and coming back, for example.)**

 **One biggest questions I got both via review and in private messages (and I'm still answering some of those! I will get back to you!) was "Why now?" and I think for that the answer is pretty simple... Why _not_ now? Why not New Years? Why not nothing at all until their sudden coupling a few months before the Season 2 timeline?**

 **To be frank, the only difference between this "now" and all the other possible "nows" that could have happened is that the Artemis I'm writing is tired. She's tired of fighting herself, fighting her family, fighting Wally... Mentally, emotionally, and physically she's about fifty different kinds of exhausted. That kind of exhaustion makes people more susceptible to their vulnerabilities, and in this case I just feel like this is a right time, right place kind of moment that they both needed to take advantage of. Wally's finally worn her down, and for once in her life she's far enough from the influence of her family to allow herself to be convinced it will be okay and that she's untouchable, at least for a while.**

 **But if you guys are _really_ missing all the angst, you know I'm always good for a little something up my sleeve...**


	8. Cut It Out & Then Restart

**AN: Again, a special thanks to those of you that reviewed!**

 **In other news, I am considering looking into getting a beta reader. This story is simply proving to be a bit too much work for just me alone, and I feel like my eagerness to post quickly is getting in the way of my proof reading as well as I should. And to be frank sometimes I simply get tired of looking at my own writing for so long. To make a long story short, if you're interested please drop me a line either in the reviews or in my PM box.**

 **Picks from the playlist: The Calculation by Regina Spektor, Of Angels and Angles by The Decemberists and, by the inspiration of Gemmaaaaa, Shake it Out by Florence + The Machine.**

* * *

"So what's the plan now?"

They're walking back to the Cave, much more slowly than they were on their way down the beach—not that either of them are bothered too much by it. She finds it's easy to be content, even if her leg is _really_ starting to bother her, when his fingers are looped between hers and the sun is still not quite set behind her. "I was thinking food." He grins at her, faltering slightly at the smirk she sends him and his predictably. " _Oh please_. Do you have something _else_ in mind?" The last part is more teasing than anything, and she's surprised that the flirtatious tone he usually reserves for M'gann is suddenly being used on her, his brows waggling uncontrollably and disappearing into his hair.

She catches herself wrinkling her nose at him, fingers releasing his on the condition of shoving him as hard as she can, rolling her eyes when he yelps and over exaggerates his stumbling. "Food is fine, _Wallman._ "

"Good. But if we're going to get there any time before dark—" He starts, and before he can finish he cuts himself off and turns towards her, arms outstretched. "Will you just let me carry you? This is taking forever."

She doesn't know why but seeing him standing there, unabashed and arms out stretched, sends what feels like a strike of lightning down her spine; for one truly terrifying moment she's not on the beach anymore. She's standing in ruins.

 _The last time he had carried her they had both almost been shot to death._

She can feel the wrinkle popping up over her nose, and even though she knows it's a little ridiculous she's still wary of the invitation of his arms, wary of the memories that linger there. It's no longer just the warm sand of Bialya and the comfort she had found in a stranger; it's the hot blood of the battle, the sweat dripping down his neck as she had clung to him, the vomit caked in the back of her throat. And even though she knows nothing will happen, knows that there are no soldiers on their beach and nobody wishing them harm... She's not brave enough to risk it. Not yet.

She can't quite stop the sour expression on her face, an uneasy quiver sounding through her stomach as she pointedly blinks, scrunching the whole of her face together for a moment in her own disgust with herself and her weakness—she has a feeling she'll never be able to see him run without thinking of it, without remembering the blood and the pain and the terrified look on his face. " _No._ " She tells him firmly, and as if to illustrate a point she ignores the twinge in her thigh and increases her pace, sand flying out behind her as she stalks past him.

Wally makes an annoyed noise, unaware of the war raging inside her head; he stands still to watch her wobbly process up the beach for a moment before catching up to her easily. "It's not that bad." He says moodily, as if offended by the expression she's wearing.

"I know it's not." She snaps back, and suddenly she can feel all the warmth and happiness that filled her just a few minutes before draining out of her like blood down her leg. "I just... I'd just rather not, okay?"

She doesn't trust the silence that falls between them, and Wally makes it about three seconds longer than she's expecting before he glances sideways at her, hands in his pockets and no longer intertwined with hers. "I guess I get that." He pauses, and when he speaks again she gets the sense that he's wording things very carefully, skirting gently around mentioning what happened in Metropolis. "... I mean, nobody's ever told me what it feels like, I guess. I wouldn't really... I mean, for a regular person, I guess it could be weird."

She pauses, thinking hard, and doesn't get far beyond the ineloquent words that tumble out of her mouth. "It kind of feels like sticking your head out of an airplane window."

Wally snorts, and whatever tension there is between them breaks slightly at the sound of the short chuckle that bursts out of his mouth. "Because you've done that before."

She scowls. " _No._ But if you think about it—air whipping by you so quickly it makes your skin ache, everything moving so fast you can't see or breathe. It's just… Speed. And pressure." She pauses and Wally snorts again.

"I guess I could see it feeling like that for a _normal_ person." He sighs, the way he emphasizes the word bothering her so much that her eyes narrow. "But for me… Have you ever played Super Smash Bros?"

Now it's her turn to snort. "Have I ever played _what_?" She asks incredulously.

For some reason Wally's ears redden, one hand escaping his pocket and rubbing predictably at the back of his neck. "It's a video game. I'll show your sometime. Anyway..." He hesitates again, and she can actually see his teeth working inside his mouth, canines tugging at the inside of his cheek. "My Dad bought it for me when I was a kid, back when Game Cube was the big thing. I kind of played it until the disc was practically falling apart; I had scratched the whole thing up, to the point that whenever I tried to play it the game would lag and the screen would freeze, and then after a few seconds the whole disc would skip forward and play normally for a couple seconds before it would stop working again."

"Okay." She says, not quite following.

"Running kind of feels like that. Like... Like everything else in my life is lagging behind or stuck at a stand still, and running is just the way it's supposed to be." There's a half beat of silence. "Maybe it's a stupid analogy. I guess it's kind of hard to explain to someone who doesn't have the right body chemistry to experience it, I don't know." He pauses, glancing nervously at her. "Just kind of feels like I get back control whenever I do it. Like that's how things are suppose to go."

She doesn't really know what to say to that and supposes it shows on her face, because when he looks at her again his mouth stretches it into a sheepish smile. "Sorry. I guess this is kind of a heavily conversation." He says, shrugging. "I just... Can I be an idiot for a second?"

He stops walking and after a moment she does to, turning back to squint at him in the sunset. "You're always an idiot." She says mechanically, but the smile on her face betrays any forced coldness in her voice; one hand raising to shield her eyes she blinks at him, watching the reddened ends of his hair disappear into the orange horizon.

Wally grins at her, quickly dropping his eyes to the sand and scuffing his heel. For a moment he opens his mouth, as if trying to get the nerve to say something, before quickly shutting it and shaking his head. "... Never mind."

For once in her life she has no desire to push him, no desire to dive into the depths of his mind and flip through it like pages of a book; she gets the sense that they're side stepping dangerously close to the conversation they've been putting off having all day, the moment when she'll have to look him in the eye and force herself into the vulnerability that comes with an open heart. She can tell he's nearly on the verge of revealing a part of himself to her, and as much as she wants that moment to come she's also terrified of it, like a small child who knows it will have to face the dark in order to find comfort in sleep.

Rather than speak she limps forward a few paces, one hand reaching out under the pretext of adjusting his zipper; Wally's eyes follow the movement of her fingers as they clasp together the bottom of his jacket, tugging the fastening closed across his stomach, dragging the teeth together until they come to an end just under his chin. "Let's go in." She says, rather than telling him that _it's okay, that she understands, there are some things that are too difficult to say._ "It's getting cold."

Wally's brows shoot upwards when she surges forward, one chaste kiss pressing against his lips before she pulls away, turning her back on him. She can hear him sputter slightly, as if trying to speak and failing to gather the nerve to call out to her and say what he meant to say before.

"Come on." She tells him after a moment, glancing back at him when she realizes he isn't following. "Didn't you say something about dinner?"

* * *

It takes another ten minutes—filled with her increasingly painful stumbling and Wally's increasingly more annoyed huffs when she insists, again, that she doesn't want to be carried—before they make it back to the Cave. Not unexpectedly, Wally beelines directly to the kitchen.

She has the full intention of heading directly to the couch, maybe a stool around the island, but she immediately gets side tracked when she automatically glances out their window, a habit she's picked up in the past few months; unthinkingly she changes course, slipping her jacket off her shoulders and throwing it to where his is tossed carelessly over the edge of the couch.

It's beautiful, more beautiful now than when they were sitting on the beach only a half hour ago. It's the first time in the New Year that the wintery sky has begun to defrost, the purple of dusk beginning to bleed into the reds and oranges and pinks; the last rays of the setting sun barely peeking out over the water and reflecting off the still waves as it disappears beyond the horizon to where she can't see it. It's like watching a new flower bloom in the spring; colors bursting from unexpected places and popping against the dull, white landscape, and even though her leg is aching and she knows, _she knows she should sit soon_ , she stops walking right in front of it, one hand reaching out to press against the cool glass.

 _It feels like the world is turning, something new is starting, and maybe for once she'll get to be a part of it_.

Wally comes up behind her, one hand pursuing a bag of chips, two cans of pop pinched in the crook of his elbow. "I thought you wanted to sit down?" He asks her.

For a half second they both watch her breath as it steams against the cool glass, framing her hand with moisture and leaving an almost perfect imprint of her palm when she pulls it back, wincing slightly as her knee twinges. "How about we sit here?" She asks, already lowering to the floor. In response Wally glances once pointedly at the couch before shrugging, giving her up as a bad job.

Wally's shoulder is burning hot against hers, his breath shuddering through his chest and matching the gentle rocking of the waves outside, and as the comfortable silence stretches between them she catches herself wondering if he's doing it on purpose. They sit like that for a long time, just looking out the window; Wally shares his chips and opens the tab on her pop can for her, and soon she forgets to listen to his breathing anymore, forgets to listen to the crunching of chips in his mouth or the sound of the fizzing of their pop. Her mind is too tired to do much of anything other than stare happily out at the water.

"So." Wally says after a while, beginning the process of licking grease and salt off his fingers. "What did you think of our first date?"

For some reason she stills, hand freezing halfway through the process of guiding the can of pop to her mouth. "This wasn't a date." She says automatically, snorting slightly.

Wally rolls his eyes at her "Yes it was."

"No it wasn't."

"Yes it was."

"No it wasn't."

" _Yes_ , it was."

She can see they aren't exactly getting anywhere, and with a sigh she slugs a quick sip of soda back, half dropping the can back against the tile and turning to look at him full in the face. "Wally." She says gently, eyes narrowing. "If you think this was a date, then clearly there's something wrong with you."

"No!" He says slightly indignantly, glaring at her. "How wasn't this a date?"

For a second she blanches, mouth opening and closing like a trout. Technically, she doesn't have much to compare this to _(nobody has ever really asked her out before, she's never really dated anyone, per say...)_ but she's seen enough of M'gann and Connor to know that it certainly involves a lot more than simply bumming around the Cave all day. Disregarding her gaping she stretches her leg out in front of her, trying to keep a cool head. "... How about you tell me all the stupid reasons you've deluded yourself into thinking this is a date instead?"

Wally finishes with his fingers and begins tallying points on his hand, looking stubborn and like he's already thinking several paces ahead of himself. "Well, I mean, we kissed."

She snorts again, swigging quickly from her drink. "You realize that if you're going by logic then technically we've also gone on a date in your bedroom. And on the Watchtower."

"And what's wrong with that?" He asks her, reaching over to prod her once in the side.

She glares when her whole body twitches at the movement, trying to keep the slight yelp inside her mouth should he realize he's just hit a ticklish spot. "Hm, I don't know Wally, maybe that fact that while we were on that supposed date _the entire Justice League was trying to kill us_?"

Wally opens his mouth to argue with her before promptly frowning; after a moment's hesitation he quails slightly. " _Okay_ , point taken." He admits, before quickly changing his approach, gesturing at the chip bag on his lap. "But I made you dinner! That's never happened before."

"… I don't think opening a bag of potato chips and eating most of it yourself counts, _Baywatch_." She tells him dryly, sending an exasperated look towards the water.

"God, you're stubborn." She hears Wally hiss, but she's no longer paying attention to the annoyance in his voice; all of her sense are sharpening, eyes narrowing as she looks out their window, body knowing instinctively what her mind has yet to catch up to.

 _There's something moving on the shore._

Wally's still babbling in her ear about what _exactly_ counts as dinner, unaware that she's not listening as her eyes struggle to pull whatever it is into focus, the dim light of the sunset combined with the reflection of the light off the water making it difficult to identify whatever it is. All the exhaustion that's slowing her mind is beginning to fade away, all the happiness from her afternoon with Wally blurring only her edges now; as if awaking from a long sleep her body twitches, sitting straighter, instinctively alert before her mind can catch up.

"What's that?" She asks him, pointing out the window and effectively cutting him off just as he's made the revelation that technically, _technically_ , dinner counts as anything eaten after five but before eight.

Wally goes silent and squints, following her finger towards the shore. "… Looks like a person." He says, voice no longer light and teasing, leaning closer to her and out of the direct line of sunlight. Suddenly the air between them changes; _there's not supposed to be people on their beach_ , they're supposed to be the only ones who can get to their beach—the fact that there's someone they can't recognize on their beach is very, very odd, and suddenly that fear she felt before, is back by a ten fold...

 _They're not safe from the Quarac soldiers, they're never going to be safe._

Wally looks at her, brows furrowing. "… Do you think we should-?"

He trails off, head swiveling to look out the window again; she knows they're both wondering the same thing, both wondering if they should go investigate or call the rest of the Team for back up, wondering if they should suit up and get ready for a fight. Before she can do more than shift uneasily Wally's already on his feet. "Stay here. I'm going to alert the others." He tells her firmly, pausing once to look back out at the unknown figure on the shore.

"Here," She says indignantly, reaching out to grab his wrist as she struggles to her feet, aching. "I'm coming too."

"Artemis." He says her name gently, looking as if he doesn't want to offend her. "… You're still… _you know_. Just wait here, okay?"

" _Wait here_?" She repeats, sounding offended. Immediately she can feel her cheeks flooding red, her eyes narrowing. "I'm still what, Wally?"

He hesitates. "… You know. Not… Exactly… Better." Pointedly he glances down at her leg and to her annoyance the muscle spasms, still aggravated from all their walking today. "I'll be back in a second Babe, just stay here where you're—"

"I'm not waiting anywhere! And excuse me, _Baywatch_ , you're not exactly the picture of perfect health either-"

"Yeah, but at least I don't resemble a drunken toddler when I try to walk up the beach-"

In exasperation she glances angrily back out the window, whatever insult she's been preparing dying in her throat. "Kaldur." She cuts him off again, turning back to their window.

"… I'm Wally, actually." He snaps, about to sprint away.

She nearly hits him, instead reaching out to tug on his arm and stop him from leaving, pointing in a slightly manic manner until he sees what she sees: Kaldur, dark skin popping against the white of the beach, running towards the figure on the shore. She's expecting there to be a fight, expecting there to be weapons drawn from unexpected places, expecting to see his mouth open in a scream she can't hear; instead she feels her lips open in surprise when he embraces the strange figure.

" _Tula._ " She says without thinking; now that she knows what she's looking for she can see her, the unknown Tula, arms flung around Kaldur's neck and being lifted off her feet in the affectionate embrace.

"What?" Wally asks her, still looking wary; for someone so fast his brain is moving oddly slow.

Out of respect for Kaldur she looks away from the window, no wanting to intrude on the moment. She tugs on Wally's wrist again until he gets the hint to sit back down, this time facing each other instead of the glass. "Who. It's just Tula. Kaldur's… ex-girlfriend, I suppose. From Atlantis."

"You've met her before?" Wally raises a brow.

She tells him as much as she can without revealing too many of Kaldur's secrets; how he had spoken of her in Atlantean, how she had broken his heart. "… I haven't met her. But Kaldur's told me a lot about her. When he decided to become Aqualad she… She kind of decided to date his best friend."

Wally noticeably winces, promptly glancing back at the two figures on the beach as they embrace again, looking as if they're talking enthusiastically. "Poor stiff. Wonder why she's here?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. I know Kaldur wanted her to come visit. I think he kind of got it into his mind that—" She glances back to the beach. "Oh god." They both watch a third figure appear out of the water; almost instantly the two people on the shore break apart, looking sheepish as they greet the other. "I think she brought Garth. The new boyfriend." She adds the last part as an explanation to Wally, and without verbalizing it they both quickly turn away from their view of the beach, no longer wanting to look at all, neither of them wanting to see the fake happiness Kaldur is forcing onto his features.

"Poor Kal." Wally says as they both press their backs against the glass, shoulders touching. "That has to be rough."

She nods, feeling odd at the pang of second-hand disappointment ringing through her stomach. "He's been talking about this for weeks. I can't imagine—" She pauses. "Sometimes it feels like he's always the odd one out, you know? Like everybody has somebody but him." She says it without thinking and quickly ignores the glance Wally sends her, his brows raised and silently questioning her.

They're back to not talking again, this silence a little bit more uncomfortable than the last—they're both caught in different thoughts, both too busy feeling bad for Kaldur and being a little stung by their bickering to do anything other than brood. He doesn't let her be quiet for long; before she can do much other than furrow her brows Wally's grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers between his.

"Speaking of boyfriends…" He starts and trails off quickly, brows raising hopefully despite the sour look that suddenly crosses her features.

" _Wally_." She sighs warningly; it doesn't feel appropriate, when her heart is suddenly so full for Kaldur, to have this conversation now. "Don't-"

He doesn't release her, his other hand folding onto of hers and holding her in place. "Sh. I'm in the middle of a charming segway here."

She glares. "God. Can you not be an idiot for _five seconds_?"

Wally ignores her meanness and instead finds courage in the blush that's rapidly coloring her cheeks, turning to better face her. "You're ruining this." He tells her, grinning when her eyes narrow some more. "Come on. How about… How about you and me?"

She doesn't really know how to react—she's never been asked this by anybody before, she's not exactly sure what the right response is—and instead follows her instincts, which are ill-adept at this kind of thing but at least give her a direction to talk towards—specifically, _a very stupid direction_. "You and me what?" She says, cheeks flaring.

"Don't play dumb." Wally says impatiently, ears burning red when he releases her hands, fingers running through his hair and sending waves of walnuts crashing against her cheeks, so over powering that for a moment that she catches herself holding her breath, holding part of him inside her. "You know. How about you be my girlfriend?"

When he says it an unpredictable lurch goes through her stomach, half excitement and happiness and half pure nerves, so powerful that suddenly she can't look at anything other than her shoes. "Oh." She says.

She doesn't know why the word "girlfriend" scares her as much as it does; it shouldn't, logically, as they already are in the loosest sense _together_. Maybe it's the fact that it implies commitment, it implies that Artemis and Wally would become _Artemis AND Wally_ ; it implies moving forward and maybe having a future. Being a _girlfriend_ means meeting his parents and him meeting hers, it means naming that part of her that aches to hold him close and press messy kisses against his lips. It means defining something, it means pinning her back against the wall in surrender, it means finally, finally halting her running...

She stops the thought in its tracks. _Artemis doesn't run anymore_.

Wally is patient enough to wait less than half a second before he's talking too quickly, hair musing in odd directions has he runs his hands through it rapidly, apple eyes bright and anxious and struggling to read the stunned expression on her face. "That is—you know, if you're into that? O-or? I mean, I just figured… You know. I want to be with you. And... Uh. Never mind. Maybe... I mean, you're right, _this wasn't really a date_ , and maybe that was too fast—but I mean, look at me, fast is kind of—"

" _Wally_." She cuts him off again, reaching for his hand and hoping her touch will calm him down; instantly he stops speaking, ears burning so hot she can practically feel the heat. "Slow down." She tells him almost as much as she tells herself, forcing all the anxiousness brewing in the back of her mind to still, looping her fingers between his and placing them carefully on her knee.

He looks nervous, so different than the raw confidence she saw a few seconds ago, as always moving too quickly for her to quite keep up; she watches his throat bob twice, eyes switching between hers so fast she's sure he'll go cross-eyed. "Okay." He pauses long enough to inhale a shaky breath, lungs quaking. "In what way specifically? In the talking way? Or the… You know. Way."

She nearly laughs in his face and settles for trying to smile kindly. "Just… Calm down, okay? You don't have to be nervous. It's me."

He looks confused for another few seconds before his face softens, his gaze dropping to their entwined hands. "… Yeah. It's you." He says quietly, and for some reason she senses that there's a heavier weight to the words; as if he's just remembering who he's talking to, just remembering that the girl beside him isn't as carefree with her heart as he is. "… Forget I said anything, okay? No pressure, or whatever. I'm just getting ahead of myself."

She doesn't quite know what to say, her smile slipping slightly when he goes back to sitting with his back square on the window pane. He's always been patient with her; always, with few exceptions, been willing to let her take her time reach her own conclusions, making her own decisions. Maybe it wouldn't kill her, just the once, to push herself before she's ready.

 _Being with Wally, calling herself his girlfriend, goes against almost every instinct she has. But then again, she turned her back on instinct the moment she turned her back on the door in his bedroom._

She opens and closes her mouth several times before she figures out what she wants to say, the nervous jump in her stomach forcing her to stutter. "M-maybe I can play catch up, then." She says dumbly.

She forces her mind into silence, instead willing herself only to focus on his reaction; she sees the profile of his eyes as they blink once before going wide, chin lifting before he turns his face to hers. "Is that a yes-?" He starts.

Her mind is screaming several thousand things at her which she ignores, focusing instead on the taste of his lips when she pulls him by the shirt collar towards her; it's awkward and a little clumsy with the angle they're at, and before she can do anything other than wince at the ache in her leg she finds herself shifting her weight, thighs stretching over his jeans until she's seated firmly in his lap.

Wally noticeably jerks when she settles; it seems to take him a few seconds before he registers what's just happened and what exactly it means, his lips unfreezing between hers as his hands fly to her waist, gripping tightly against her sweater. She hears the dull clunk of his skull against the window as she presses against him a little too eagerly, forcing his neck to crane backwards and hungrily reach for her.

"Sorry—" She pants, half pulling back; she can't help yelping slightly when Wally's teeth immediately take her lower lip, one hand reaching up to fit behind the curve of her skull, pulling her back in.

She groans when he forces his tongue past her lips, forces the walnut smell past her nostrils. It takes hardly any effort to ignore the whirring of thoughts inside her head, hardly a second glance to ignore every instinct when there are other, more _urgent_ ones popping up at the front of her mind; it's _animalistic_ , yes, but different then she's ever felt before... This is more alert, more raw, tiny hisses of hair bursting past her lips and morphing into softened mewls as the hand at the base of her pony tail runs down the length of her neck, barely brushing the jutting of her collar bone before taking her waist and grabbing her roughly; humming, she runs her fingers though his hair, back arching and breasts pressed flushed against his chest. She can practically feel his scent _(walnuts, cinnamon, his mother's laundry detergent, and in this moment the salted air of the ocean)_ seeping inside her pores, sticking to the uneven ends of her hair; with another sigh against him she prays to whatever might be listening and asks the universe for permission to let her have this boy. Let him have her too, and let it _somehow be okay._

It takes them several minutes to pull themselves together, a mess of limbs and lips and fingers raking down his neck and his nails digging into the swell of her hips; twice Wally lets out a groan in the back of his throat, the one that she so loves, his tongue shooting into her mouth so feverishly that she's caught between the urge to push him abruptly back through the glass window pane and more powerful need to pull him tighter against her.

Wally shifts his legs and immediately the hot point between her thighs throbs, satisfied for a half second before she nearly bucks her hips, wanting more. She's silently both thankful and bitter when Wally pulls back for air, red faced and out of breath as his head knocks back dazedly, colliding with the glass of their window pane again.

"Ow." He says in a slightly numb voice, shaking his head as if to clear it. There's a half second where he glances at her, as if checking to make sure she's actually there; she feels her mouth tug upwards with affection when his fingers shift against her hips again, almost pinching her as if to check that she's not just his imagination. "So…" He hesitates, exhaling through his mouth when she looks at him, half lidded with want. "So was that a _yes_?"

As he says it he lowers his hands almost innocently, palms skimming down her hips and barely pausing before they run down parted thighs and rest just above her knees; as if from observing herself from outside her body she hears herself let out a low hiss at the movement, barely managing to keep her hips from bucking and her head from tossing back in frustration. For a moment he looks curiously at the way her lips part, a slight wrinkle appearing between his brows when he reads the way her chest seems to suddenly stutter to life when she realizes she's stopped breathing; then, in a typical scientist fashion, he repeats the movement.

"Artemis?" The way he says her name is a mixture of questioning and teasing, and before she can even answer a small twinge runs through her as his thumb, so carelessly and freely, presses against the place where the bullet pierced her skin.

She knows it's not intentional, but the touch is enough for all the blurred and excited thoughts inside her head to still, enough to freeze over the warmth that seems to be radiating from his palms as he touches her. There's a half second where she can actually feel that terrible part inside herself lunge at the bars of the cage she keeps her in; she blinks once, and for the moment she's alone inside the darkness of her irises she almost kicks herself off of him.

When she opens her eyes she can see him looking at her a little quizzically, skin seeming to buzz with nerves; automatically she glances away from his eyes in shame, as if afraid he can see what's lurking behind the steely grey of her own. Without really knowing why her gaze slips down to his chest where she knows his scar sits, diagonal from his heart.

She supposes, when it comes down to it, the decision had been made long before this moment, long before the previous evening in his bedroom. It had been the moment when she had seen pieces of him pouring out of his mouth onto the ground, the moment she had seen him face death and darkness and saw the reality of life without Wally beside her. She thinks of herself cradling the dying boy on the ground, thinks of that person with her father's bow who she feels so disconnected to now, and knows what she would have done had she been given the choice. She knows what she would have given for one more moment, one more touch from Wally. She knows what she prayed for, knows her dying wish, knows who had been her last thought before she turned towards the hell she was destined for and embraced it.

She knows that as much as she likes to think that she's left that girl behind in Metropolis that she's still inside her. She can sense her hesitancy, her fear, that too quick instinct to run away now, like she did before.

But she also senses the better part of her, the part that the boy in front of her brings out; she senses the bravery, the toughness, the kind it took to drag herself across the rubble to reach him. She can sense that openness, the lack of shame, the desperation that would prompt her to kiss unresponsive lips, to breath words of comfort and unspoken promises. She can sense the hope, can sense the brokenness that she wants to heal.

 _She senses the better part of her inside that girl, the part that won't let him get hurt. Not again._

The dying girl in Metropolis had known what she wanted. Blindly, and perhaps stupidly, Artemis decides to trust her.

Wally fidgets against beneath her, looking nervous. "Are you going to answer, or what?" He says, sounding annoyed.

She leans forward slowly, deliberately, one finger prodding the bottom of his chin and forcing his jaw to tilt to meet hers again. "Whatever, _Wallman_." She tells him, not bothering to hide the affection from her voice.

The girl from Metropolis kisses him, desperate and as wanting as she had on the ground, only this time he's alert enough to respond. This time his lips are hot and mercifully alive beneath her, one crack of laughter sounding before she silences him again.

She knows it's not a real answer. But somehow, without words, the girl from Metropolis says everything Artemis isn't brave enough to say.

* * *

She glances up from her plate when Zatanna comes into the kitchen. Wally's been summoned home by his mother for a late dinner, and despite his insistence that she join him she manages to decline.

"You look weird." Zatanna tells her, eyes narrowing at her as she leans across the kitchen island, one hand plucking her fork from her fingers and stealing a few pieces of pasta off her plate, ignoring the glare she's receiving.

She manages to grab the utensil back. "Gee, thanks." She snorts, not quite managing to inject her usual snark into her voice. She blames Wally; he's left her in far too good of a mood.

For a moment the younger girl simply stares, scrutinizing her. "You know there's not a point in keeping secrets from me, right?" She reminds her, looking stern and like they've been in the middle of an intense conversation rather than eating someone else's leftovers. "My lips come in fairly regular contact with the Boy Wonder's, if I wanted to I could have the security codes to the Bat Cave in less than an hour."

Against her will her cheeks grow hot, and instead of answering she forces herself to smirk, jabbing a fork accusingly at the raven haired girl. "And speaking of _secrets_ , how come I didn't know that was still going on?"

Zatanna waves a hand carelessly. "Please, _so_ not a secret. It's a miracle you haven't walked in on us yet."

For some reason they both color and fall silent, and for the first time in a long time she feels awkward around the younger girl.

Zatanna fusses with the microwave and makes a big show of scooping up the rest of the stolen fettuccini she's put in the fridge and placing it on a plate. It's not until she's seated beside her and silence is nearly pounding against her ear drums that she forces herself to speak.

"Sorry about... About what I said, a couple weeks ago." She mutters, feeling stupid.

In response the other girl nods. "It's fine." She says, even though they both know it isn't.

And maybe it takes a little too much work to talk easily for the rest of the meal, and maybe they both know each other well enough at this point to recognize that there are some secrets they're never going to be okay with sharing.

Maybe that's okay. At least they're trying.

* * *

The next morning Kaldur calls them all into the debriefing room and introduces them officially to Garth and Tula; automatically she finds her eyes lingering on him, trying to read too much into the way his mouth seems to get tighter whenever he catches the visiting couple holding hands.

It's a cruel thing, whether Tula meant it or not, bringing Garth here.

It's crueler when Kaldur sees her questioning look and promply glares, spending the rest of the day avoiding her eyes.

Despite this odd behaviour she finds it nice, having a few more people around; it seems like there's been so much silence lately, first with the aftermath of New Year's Eve and then again with the of the battle in Metropolis. Quietly she thinks that maybe it's a good thing, having visitors.

Tula is more beautiful than she expected; Kaldur's never once told her what she looks like and she's oddly surprised by the soft bronze hair and the pale green eyes—but she supposes she's met enough Atlanteans by now to know that they generally are more attractive than average humans. At first she's not quite sure what her verdict on the other woman is, whether or not she approves.

At least this is the case until the Atlantean picks one of her disregarded books off the coffee table and thumbs through it quickly, too familiarly; for a half second she's annoyed until Tula disregards it carefully, spewing out a direct quote from the novel and looking around at them expectantly. Everyone is clueless except for the two of them, and when she offers to give Tula a tour of the library she doesn't miss the grin Wally sends her.

She's more wary of Garth though, something that starts purely out of respect for Kaldur and eventually morphs into something bigger, more undefined. Garth takes an interest in her archery and insists on studying her training with Canary with a rotation of different guests, all looking less thrilled than he is to be watching her stunted progress at adapting to Oliver's new bow or the rhythmic running and tumbling sessions that are forced on her to build up the strength in her leg. She finds the more time she spends with the stranger the less she likes him.

Kaldur continues to avoid her gaze, jerking out of her grasp when she touches him lightly on the shoulder. "I assure you, nothing is wrong." He tells her, all of the affection for her gone from his voice, eyes looking past her. Still, she catches herself worrying over the pained expression that crosses his features when he thinks Tula isn't looking. She asks him twice more and receives the same answer again and again with more annoyance, and silently she wonders what she did wrong.

"You're his best friend on the Team." Wally tells her through a mouthful of M'gann cookies when she confides her worries in him. "You know that. He probably just doesn't want Tula to feel threatened."

"Tula's dating Garth, Wally." She reminds him. "She doesn't have a reason to go after Kaldur, let alone feel threatened by someone else going after him. Not that I am, by the way." She adds for his benefit, because she feels like she should.

"Oh boy, haven't I got you trained well." He snorts sarcastically, breaking off a chunk of his cookie and waving it playfully in front of her mouth, pulling her out of her pensiveness long enough for her to snap it from his fingers, biting a little too hard.

Garth asks odd questions at odd times, and her dislike of him increases a ten-fold nearly a week later. They're all watching a movie together, which really means talking loudly over the actors through mouthfuls of popcorn, when Wally says something stupid that she can't remember to Robin. Predictably there's a snappy response and some popcorn gets flung across the room and they're all laughing easily, at least until Garth turns and addresses her with an innocent look on his face.

"You certainly are a patient woman. You and Wally have been together long, yes?"

Instantly the laughter in the room silences and she's left staring at Garth in horror as Wally's ears go off beside her. Across the room she can see Zatanna looking at her in alarm. "Uh, no. Not that long." Wally answers for her, apparently not trusting her to speak for the both of them. Silently she glowers at the television and vows to hate Garth forever, ignoring the stunned silence behind her.

There's about twenty seconds of absolute stillness, in which it becomes almost painful that the actors on screen are furiously locking lips.

"When the hell did that happen?" Connors finally asks for everyone, and in the eruption of snickers and chattering that comes flying at them she nearly kisses Wally when he seizes a bowl and launches a full scale popcorn attack on the room at large.

 _They haven't even been together two weeks and everyone knows._

"Are you still upset about that Garth thing?" Wally asks her a day later.

She catches the brooding look on her face, her features stretched into a scowl as she pulls her unfocused eyes up from where she's been glaring at the page. "What?"

Wally sends her a calculating look from where he's seated at his desk, fingers hitting his pencil against the edge of his math textbook as he looks at her, one foot reaching out to hook around the leg of his desk and spinning his chair to face her. She's been waiting for him to finish his homework before they start training, her back pressing against his head board and her knees folded up and, so she thought until a moment ago, hiding her brooding from him. "You shouldn't be upset, you know." He reminds her, still tapping. "The rest of the Team was going to find out eventually."

She shrugs, going back to scowling at her page. "I know." She says childishly. "I just… I don't know. Never mind."

Wally, still tapping, half spins back towards his homework. "It might actually be better that they find out like this. Better than having them, you know. Walk in on us."

"Uh, I guess." At once her cheeks are crimson, a ridiculous and dithering chuckle somehow coming out of her mouth as she glances around, eager for a change in subject. "Speaking of being walked in on, you won't believe what Robin caught Connor doing around Valentine's Day, I forgot to tell you—"

Suddenly Wally's tapping stops all together; she watches in slight confusion as he lolls his head back, one palm reaching out to clap himself on the forehead. "Oh, man." He groans. " _Valentine's Day_."

He sends her a guilty sort of look that she doesn't quite understand, her hands closing her book in alarm. "What do you mean, Valentine's Day?"

"You aren't like, you know. Mad that I didn't get you anything?"

He looks so sheepish, so beyond guilty that she can't take him seriously; his ears redden when she laughs in his face. "Wally, you spent Valentine's Day half-dead in the hospital." She says sharply, half spitting the words out of her mouth in her distaste at their truth. "I'm just happy you're alive, you idiot."

He looks so relieved she can hardly stand it; rather than watch the grin that splits across his face she gets up, walking up behind him and forcing his chair back towards his desk. "Hey, genius, you have homework to finish. Hurry up so we can start that training you've been bugging me about."

He grins despite her mean tone, and suddenly the tapping that signals his thinking is back up and running. "Yes ma'am." He says teasingly, shuffling his papers.

She's just about to go back to her spot on his bed when she sees something she's never noticed before—there it is from all those weeks ago, wrapped around the handle of the old chipped coffee mug he uses to hold his pencils.

Her hair tie, the one he had removed in the bathroom.

She doesn't know why she's surprised to see it; Wally has a magpie-like tendency to latch onto certain items. And unlike her school tie she hadn't asked for it back, she had simply given it up as another addition to her long list of lost hair elastics, like many before that had simply slipped off her wrist. But maybe that's why she's so surprised to see it; it's not like the arrow that saved his life, or the Helmet of Fate. It's not important. It's just a tiny piece of her, after all... The marker of a lost moment between missions.

"You still have this?" For some reason her voice comes out thicker than she wants, her fingers reaching out to touch the porcelain the elastic is wrapped around. The memory is still warm in the front of her mind—she had been just about to leave for the circus mission and even though they were fighting he had helped her with her hair; she remembers his fingers yanking through her tresses and she remembers the look on his face when he had seen the way her platinum locks had framed her face in the mirror; most of all she remembers the way his face changed, grown sour, when he saw her scar.

It's not really a happy memory, and she wonders why he's clinging to it.

Wally looks up at the change in her voice, brows a little furrowed at the unknown emotion that's hidden in the back of her throat before glancing pointedly at the elastic. "Oh. Yeah." He says a little confusedly, shrugging. "You know. Souvenir."

She can't explain why she's getting so sentimental over a stupid hair tie, can't explain why the fact that he kept it through their many fights and _almosts_ even means something to her; all she knows is that suddenly there's something tight burning at the back of her throat and he's responsible for putting it there.

 _And maybe it's because he thought this part of her, an ugly part of her, was worth saving... He thought her worthwhile before she even thought that of herself._

 _Maybe she's just being an idiot._

Wally taps against his notebook again, thoughts whirring ahead of her as he swings around in his chair. "You okay, Beautiful?"

"Yeah." She says, sounding stupid when her voice catches. "I'll be right back. I want tea."

* * *

She makes it about three steps into the kitchen before she realizes she's not alone; her feet actually pause on the tile when she sees Kaldur staring out of her and Wally's window. It feels odd, standing there in deliberation for a moment, wondering if she should turn on her heel and leave. Wondering if he still cares for her presence at all.

She's saved the trouble; she hears him sigh, his shoulders slumping as if he carries the entire weight of the world on them, looking at her reflection in the glass. "Artemis." He says her name, and for the first time in nearly a week she hears the renewed affection in his voice.

Her own pathetic upshot of joy at hearing him speaking to her overwhelms her, and suddenly she's as repelled by the man standing in front of the window as he has mysteriously been with her all week. Ignoring the lingering emotion in her stomach from seeing her hair elastic in Wally's bedroom, she forces herself to rise into anger. "Oh, so _now_ you're talking to me?" She bursts out, not going to him and instead rounding the corner towards the stove and setting the water on to boil.

For something to do other than huff angrily at him she slams a few cupboards around, blood boiling slightly when she hears him sigh again. "If you are angry I would much prefer you took it out on me. I understand that M'gann is quite partial to a fully intact kitchen."

The calm tone to his voice undoes her slightly, and stomping around the corner she almost bellows at his back across the room. "Really? A week of your crap and that's all you have to say to me? Worrying about the _goddamn_ -" She cuts herself off abruptly, looking over his shoulder and out the window, a sudden thickness in her throat forcing her to swallow.

He doesn't look at her when she moves to stand beside him; he only drops his head to glare sullenly at the floor, fists clenching. "I would like you to keep yelling." He says seriously, voice wavering but still not disguising the fact that it's an order. "I deserve your anger."

She actually opens her mouth, half hoping to follow his instructions; maybe a year ago she would be able to, when she was so filled to the brim with hatred that she would boil over unexpectedly, but not now. Instead she makes the mistake of glancing towards the sun's reflection on the water, grimacing when it does nothing to hide the truth of the beach. Distantly, she can see two figures she recognizes along the shore.

"She brought Garth." She says quietly. Her throat is tight again.

Kaldur doesn't say anything at first, eyes still glaring at the floor. "Yes, she did."

"And she didn't tell you she was going to." It's not a question, her voice cold.

"No."

She opens her mouth to try to obey his command again, lips bobbing helplessly for a moment before she sighs, dropping her eyes from the happy couple kissing on the beach and to the floor. Hoping it says more than she can she reaches out, fingers barely brushing the tattoos that adorn his forearms and touching him as tenderly as she can hope. She doesn't trust herself to do much more, not when she's so annoyed with him.

She doesn't expect the tiny choking sound that escapes his mouth, but when she glances up in alarm at his face she can already see it's impact being erased, the small slip of emotion that passed over his features being smoothed and wiped clean as his lips purse into a straight line. "... I have been a fool." He tells her, voice steadier now than before. "I am sorry. When Garth arrived... I felt the full weight of my selfishness, of my scheming; I have never felt more ashamed of myself, for the things that I confided in you... I could not face you. I am... Please forgive me, Artemis." He begs.

She doesn't say anything but she does wrap an arm around his shoulders. As always he's slightly cool to the touch. "You don't ever have to be afraid of facing me, okay?" She says after a while, finally finding comforting words in the slew of emotions bouncing around her head. "I promise you, no matter how awful you think you are... Parts of me are worse."

The kettle boils with enough water for one, and in a moment of pure self-sacrifice she digs through the cabinet, not stopping until she finds the blue mug he prefers and forgoing whatever comfort she wants in favor of pouring it out for him. Kaldur accepts the mug of tea numbly when she shoves it into his hands, wincing when the hot water spills over the edges and hits his webbed skin. When she leaves he is still staring, lovelorn and broken, out the window.

Wally looks up at her when she comes back to his room, still looking confused at her sudden departure. "Are you done acting strange?" He asks her teasingly.

His eyes go wide when she grabs the arm rests of his chair, bending at the waist and colliding her lips somewhat awkwardly with his; it's fast, awkward, clumsy, and still leaves him slightly breathless when she pulls back, already stalking back towards the bed. "What was that for?" He chokes out, staring at her wide eyed.

"Homework, Kid." She reminds him, opening her book to a random page.

* * *

Raquel only brings up their conversation about Kaldur once.

They've just finished sparring, both of them coated in a layer of sweater, and absently Raquel tosses her a towel to wipe her face. She'd been ridiculously relieved when Canary had matched her with another, perfect healthy member of the Team; it had meant she was improving, getting stronger again.

"You never mentioned he had an ex-girlfriend coming to visit." She says conversationally, but there's something a little off about her tone—like she's annoyed, ruffled.

It takes her a half second to realize who she's talking about, breath still coming out in slight pants and mind still a little hazy from the heat of the fight; in response she shrugs, one hand fanning over her forehead to push any loose hairs back against her sweat slicked scalp. "I didn't know." She only half lies.

Raquel scrubs her face once, leaving behind a line of smudged mascara. "Whatever." She says good naturedly, already tossing the towel in the laundry hamper. "I always liked a little competition."

For some reason the ebony girl smirks at her as if they're both in on the same joke, and a part of her almost asks what she means by it; instead of responding she just shakes her head, trying to smile and privately thinking she's better off staying out of it.

Tula and Garth seem happy whenever she sees them, oblivious to the obvious discomfort they're putting Kaldur through. Still, she makes a point of dragging herself along, and sometimes Wally too, whenever she sees the three of them wandering around the Cave. Although he never says a word of thanks, one day she meets Kaldur's eyes and knows how much it means to him, not having to go this alone.

When she asks Tula she doesn't receive a definitive timeline as to how long their stay is; she gets the impression that they're on the equivalent of an Australian walkabout, simply interested in learning the surface world's way of life and studying it before returning home. Kaldur does his best to only show the most exquisite parts of surface life, such as Art Galleries and Museums, but even he can't stop M'gann from dragging the couple to the closest shopping mall. She doesn't hear the specifics but she does know the excursion is a complete disaster; apparently Happy Harbor retailers take their "No shoes, No Service" policies very seriously.

As ever, time goes on. And as ever, Red Arrow remains missing.

They have to be subtle with their searching; the League reminds them multiple times that Roy is their responsibility and that their efforts are better spent keeping up their contact with S.T.A.R labs and attempting to discover what exactly was stolen so many weeks ago. From what she knows the entire lab was absolutely trashed upon its invasion and had several stories blown apart with explosives; trying to take inventory of what's still intact is about as easy as trying to take inventory of a city dump. It's difficult, watching footage of military presence in Quarac, watching soldiers being sent off in retaliation of a terror attack and watching the man they suspect of behind it, Lex Luthor, draping a star spangled flag around his shoulders and presenting himself as a savior. The entire thing makes them all feel utterly useless.

She takes to harassing Dick almost every time she sees him, badgering him with questions about Roy and Metropolis and whether or not there's any news of either. "For the last time." He tells her, sounding a little frustrated. "I promise, Artemis, the second I know anything I'll give you a call."

"Yeah, yeah." She huffs back. "I know, it's just taking forever. Aren't you supposed to be some sort of thirteen-year-old whiz kid?"

The smile she's wearing with her teasing falters slightly when he frowns for a moment, looking at her through his sunglasses. "I'm fourteen, actually." He says after a beat. "You made the same mistake a few weeks ago too."

For some reason she simply blinks at him. "No you're not." She says before she can really think of another response, elbows slipping slightly from where she's leaning on the kitchen counter. "... Wait. Did we miss your birthday?"

Dick makes a funny movement with his head, shrugging. "December 1st." He says simply, barely glancing at her as he whips out his phone, pretending to scroll through a white based newsfeed.

"Oh." She says, not really knowing what to say. "... Happy Belated Birthday, then."

Dick shrugs again, keeping his eyes on the screen. She feels like an idiot. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Batman doesn't tell anyone when his birthday is." He says automatically, voice oddly cold.

She doesn't know why it bothers her so much; she's sat through fifteen birthdays with nobody mentioning anything, even when her mother wasn't in prison and her family was at least partially whole. It shouldn't matter, really, that she didn't mention Dick's. And yet hours later she's catching herself staring blankly into her school notebook, disregarding Biology and unable to shake the image of Dick, alone with no candles to blow out on December 1st.

Then all at once she remembers where she was and what she was doing that night; remembers the ride on the back of his motorcycle through Gotham City, remembers Dick laughing as she emptied the alcoholic contents of her stomach on the side of the road. She remembers lying beside him in bed, not promising to keep in touch should she disappear from his life and the Team altogether.

Most of all she remembers how eager he had been to come to her rescue, how excited he had sounded to be disturbed from the safety of his bed, and before she can stop herself she's wondering if anybody, even his parents, said anything more worthwhile to him that day than the drunken words she garbled at him over the phone.

The thought makes her more than a little sad.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! I always feel a little ho-hum about transitional chapters like this. But I figure you all are already calling for my blood in terms of how often I update, and I'm better off posting another chapter and pushing through it.**

 **To answer a general question: Yes, we will be seeing Roy and Jade again. Not that I'm about to go and give away when that exactly will be...**

 **Again, please read and review. I'm going through a bit of a rough time with university and I can't tell you how much it makes me smile to see responses to this. Thank you to everyone who does so every chapter, you guys are the best and help keep me inspired :)**


	9. Skin Against Steel

**AN: Another chapter up! Sorry for the bit of a posting delay, this chapter is actually the longest one I've written so far and naturally was a big pain to edit. I have some house keeping to do but I'll save that for later.**

 **Picks from the playlist are: Two Birds by Regina Spektor, Let It Die by Feist and Expo '86 by Death Cab for Cutie.**

* * *

Time moves on as it always does; despite any recent revelations they all fall back into their old habits. M'gann bakes. Her and Wally squabble. She walks in once on Garth and Tula and makes a point to never breathe a word of what she saw to Kaldur, no matter how annoyed she gets with him.

For the second time this year everyone grows antsy and suddenly it's not just the her and Wally bickering and turning crimson over trivial things like the settings on the remote control. Both their Roys are still missing and S.T.A.R Labs is taking its time with scanning their premises, and before long they're all at each other's throats, small fights breaking out over misplaced weights in the training room and whose turn it is to do the dishes.

March begins to fade slowly and she catches herself relaxing into Wally; for the first time, maybe ever, she stops looking at the gaping holes and old scars that her life consists of and instead tries to focus only on red hair and freckles. It's easy to get lost in the blisters between his toes and the flaking skin of his elbows, and she almost tricks herself into feeling full. _Happy,_ even.

Despite their best intentions they don't talk, not really, about the broken path and mangled limbs that led them to each other. _She doubts they ever will_.

Their kisses become less frantic and more comfortable, lips beginning to find rhythm and predictable starting places. She notices the change and is surprised that it's not entirely unwelcome, even though a little strange; like a wire-walker finally placing his feet on the ground she's a little caught off guard by the sudden stability she feels beneath her, toes too busy feeling the forgotten pavement to remember to clench frantically at times of high wind.

And maybe it's alright, the fact that for the first time in years she feels as if she can breathe easily with his hands in her hair and his mouth on hers. Almost constantly she reminds herself it's a good thing that the days when their kisses were a last resort are over, no longer simply something to do when she can't think of anything else to stop him from walking away. There's no longer finger nails breaking the skin of his cheeks and teeth biting her lower lip to stop her from pulling back... Instead there's fingers circling round the belt loops of her jeans, tugging her blushingly closer as they kiss in front of their window, murmuring and bickering against each other's mouths; there's red hair brushing against her jaw as trembling lips press for the first time against her jugular, listening intently to the air that swishes out of her lungs as she sighs.

She reminds herself that she'll get used to it; she'll grow as adjusted to his soft kisses and his arms draping around her as she had once adjusted to his loud laugh and snappy replies. In time she suspects it won't feel strange for her to be almost obsessively counting down the seconds until she sees him again, and maybe one day she won't hesitate before tracing the freckles on his neck lightly with her lips.

Time will go on and she'll get used to being with him, will no longer be as surprised by her own affections for Wally as she is on the twentieth of March, when she jumps slightly upon realizing her lateness for dinner and unthinkingly leans forward to kiss him goodbye for the first time ever. She supposes that eventually she'll stop feeling the need to blush and promptly punch him in the shoulder seconds after this happens; maybe she won't have to utter the words _"get a grip"_ as a reminder to both of them when he raises his brows at her, pleasantly surprised.

On a rainy Tuesday she catches him staring at her while they're doing homework around the coffee table, the eraser of his pencil pressing against the dimple of his chin. "What are you looking at?" She asks a little gruffly, fingers unconsciously running over her scalp as if to smooth flyaway hair back into her pony tail.

Wally taps the pencil once against his face before setting it down on his notebook, dropping her gaze and shaking his head. "I..." He trails off. "Nothing."

She rolls her eyes. "Okay." She says, going back to her work.

It's a few minutes later when Wally reaches for her free hand, fingers winding between hers almost too easily. When she glances up at him curiously he's got a look on his face that reminds her starkly of the same look he wore on the beach; the kind that says there's something he's not telling her, something he can't find the words to say. Keeping his eyes on his notebook she feels him stroke the webbing between her thumb and forefinger, and it occurs to her for the first time that she's completely and utterly terrified of him.

Not of him, exactly. All her anxiety, she realizes, is centered more around these... _quiet moments_ , between them. It had been easier when things between them were more feral, more quick paced and hot blooded. She knows how to be passionate, how to move quickly and attack him with kisses that leave teeth marks on his lips. What she doesn't know is this new stillness between them, the slow-paced trail his finger traces into the back of her hand; the soft moments where he leaves lingering kisses on her lips that say more than her pawing at him ever could and that force her to think herself in circles now that she has the time to analyze their meaning. _She hates the quiet moments_ , hates that they aren't as defined as the _(I want you, I need you, touch me now)_ moments they had before they started dating, hates that the uncertainly of it all twists her stomach unpleasantly in a way she knows it doesn't for him.

It's easy to dismiss that fear when the two of them are laughing or he's running a hand through the end of her pony tail teasingly. It's easy, pretending that whatever lessons her father imparted on her are no longer relevant when Wally is beside her and she feels so untouchable. But sometimes she'll catch herself staring at him a little too closely, eyes a little too focused on the muscles of his shoulders or the line of his clavicle as it pops out of his sweater, still watching him the way a wild cat would watch it's prey... _You can't fight who you are._

 _She can't remember ever feeling like this, feeling so cherished. For some reason the new sensation is as alien as it is comfortable, and despite her best intentions she starts glancing over her shoulder, expecting something to leap out at them and ruin what they have together._

In some ways she feels she can't trust herself with the stillness between them, can't trust herself not to ruin the moment when the bickering between them dies and whatever they've been fighting about becomes trivial again. There's always a pause, in the half second before they dismiss everything hurtful that they've just said, when he looks at her like she's worth the world. It's this moment that gets to her, crushes her from the inside out; the fact that despite her flaws and her meanness that he still thinks her worth something _and she's not she's not she's not._ As much as she loves the feeling of his arm around her waist or his bare hand in hers it's the foreign closeness that frightens her—she feels as if she's learning an instinct for this kind of thing that everyone already has. All those little things he does to her that make her feel... _Safe. Cared for. Valued…_ aren't ingrained in her the way they are in him, and despite herself she's still perpetually afraid that her brutishness or coldness will in some way hurt him.

 _Ridiculously she longs for the heated moments, the ones she could allow herself to get lost in, wondering vaguely if it's possible to get them back._

* * *

There's nobody in the kitchen but the two of them, the air buzzing between them as they both laugh at something that happened in Wally's gym class earlier that afternoon. He throws his head back, a chuckle bursting out of the back of his throat and his mess of hair flopping against his forehead—without thinking she reaches out, running her hands through it the same way he does when stray pieces of hair fall in her eyes.

"Your hair is getting long." She muses, measuring the scruff by pinching her fingers against his scalp.

To her surprise Wally's bright apple eyes suddenly dim, shifting his head beneath her hand as if he were an animal begging for its ears scratched. "You're one to talk." He tries to say teasingly, voice thick in the way that always ignites her interest and wanting.

She's curious at the reaction, moving her weight so she's no longer leaning against the island like he is and repeating the movement. Her lips quirk upwards when he pushes into her hand again, eyes blinking heavily. "You're like a puppy." She snorts.

"Gee, thanks." He says, rolling his eyes but still looking pleased when she keeps running her hands through his hair, his chin turning when her fingers stray down his temple, his lips pressing against the tendons of her wrist.

It's the little things like this that she doesn't know how to do organically; the little touches and the tenderness that she wants to give but feels so unnatural when she tries to. She only knows how to launch herself at him when he has a moment of weakness, only knows how to grab him and force her tongue in his mouth and make her body verbalize what her mouth won't say. The things he always does that undo her, the wet kisses against her wrist and the way his hands are reaching for her now, fingers curling against the bottom of her tee shirt and pulling her towards him... She has no idea how to do these things, _no idea how to convey that kind of sweetness, that intimacy—_

She keeps one hand buried in his hair as he drops his jaw, kissing her; it's hard, trying to pay attention to his movements when he's this close and breathing the walnut smell into her. A part of her springs to life, pushing her to do more than simply raise a hand to wind up the back of his neck—she wants her nails digging into his scalp and her body flush against him in a way that feels familiar and safe and _almost unfeeling_ ; it's torture, _near torture_ when his chest barely brushes against hers, his hands pressed lightly against her ribs and hardly daring to glide closer to her breasts.

Still, she sighs against him, trying to mirror the pattern of his tongue against hers as it gently tickles the swelling of her lips. Even if they aren't clawing at each other like they used to she still likes kissing him, still likes the soft circles his thumbs press against her torso, the tiny rush of breath against her cheek as he exhales into her mouth. It's warm and sweet and gentle and everything she doesn't know.

Wally shifts his weight, turning her until her back is pressed against the island counter; suddenly his jaw is dropping and the kiss the deepening and without thinking she presses back against him a little too eagerly— _this is what she knows, this is how she operates_ — and she feels his grip on her ribs tightening, a set of fingers skimming down to her waist, hip, _thigh_ —

He loses his nerves last minute, thumb barely grazing the back pocket of her jeans; blood roaring in her ears she spends a fraction of a moment nearly wanting to scream in frustration before she decides to take the matter into her own hands.

Wrapping her arms tighter around his neck and acting without his touch, she hitches her leg up his hip and pulls him closer; abruptly they're pressed flush together, her knee folding around him and tugging him towards her until his growing hardness is suddenly stiff against the part where she needs him most. She almost moans, the unexpected sensation halting when Wally's teeth grind painfully but _perfectly_ against her lower lip, mouth uttering something between a groan and gasp before he jerks back.

"A-Artemis—" He chokes out before she reclaims his mouth for a half-second, not quite willing to give up the closeness until he places a hand on her chin, forcing her to stop and struggling to hold back his breath. "Just give me a—" He pauses, brows furrowing and eyes bright through the haze she's put there " _Shit._ You're bleeding."

She catches herself blinking in surprise, tongue running once over her mouth and being taken aback by the metallic taste of blood. "Oh." She stammers out, now aware of the flow trickling over her lips, swollen skin stretched almost too tight for her to notice the pain.

"Oh, man." He runs a hand once through his hair, reaching behind her to grab a paper towel and looking stressed instead of hot and bothered, like she is. "I'm sorry, babe. Let me—" He takes her chin, eyes narrowed in concentration as he tilts her face towards him, gently dabbing at her mouth. "Guess I got a little carried away." He says sheepishly, glancing at her and looking for signs of anger on her face.

 _She wants to tell him that technically she was the one who got carried away, but she supposes that wouldn't exactly be doing her any favors._

She doesn't know how to tell him that she liked it—that when he bit down on her she had felt a rush of heat run through her, how she had wanted him to bite her in other places. Because Wally by nature is soft, sweet, gentle; how do you tell someone like that it's okay to be a little rough with you, when it's so completely opposite their instinct to—

But it's completely opposite of her instinct to be tender, to take his hands and smile at him kindly. And yet that's what she does, tilting her jaw and pressing her swollen lips to the tendons of the wrist that's trying to mop her up. She counts two quick beats beneath her mouth before she pulls back, leaving a smear of blood behind. "You don't have to worry, Wally." She says quietly, letting him resume his dabbing. "… I've had worse than this and survived just fine."

The cloth hesitates once after she says it, a wrinkle appearing between his brows as his eyes flicker to hers, as if wanting to say something or challenge her. Then he drops his eyes, fingers applying pressure to her mouth.

She wonders vaguely just what they were thinking, daring to hope that two people as different as they are could rub along evenly, no bumps between them. It's the same problem as it always is: she's broken and he's determined to fix her; like she's a clock that's stopped ticking and he's taken it upon himself to help it chime out the hours again, counts past the seconds... As always he's over-simplified things, thinking that simply resetting the pendulum or a few scattered kisses can repair her, when really the problem is deeper, darker, more to do with warbled thoughts and malfunctioning cogs...

Yes, some things between them are better stitched together, flowing evenly... But some things, like the look on his face that he's wearing now _(brows furrowed, mouth frowning, like it's just now occurring to him that maybe this isn't what he signed up for)_ feel like the heel of a boot grinding pieces of glass into the pavement; the broken bits are still there, smaller and almost out of sight maybe but still just as painful as they struggle to pick them up, sharp edges digging beneath the seams of their skin...

Wally dabs at her lip once or twice more before tossing the paper towel in the trash.

* * *

"Still no word on Red?" She asks Robin the next day, practically pouncing on him when he wanders through the kitchen under the pretext of claiming the fresh baking M'gann has just placed on a platter on the counter.

Dick takes his time answering. "... Not yet." He says simply, avoiding the seven sets of eyes currently staring at him.

All of them exchange tense glances, hands freezing on the way to the pan of cookies just pulled out of the oven. There's a few seconds where the silence is uncomfortably loud and broken only by the sound Wally loudly swallowing a mouthful of milk.

Someone suggests watching a movie and, thankful for the distraction, they all pounce on that too.

* * *

She wakes up with a jolt that evening, mind racing— _Wally bleeding out on the pavement, Wally full of bullets, Wally not breathing—_ heart thundering against her ribs.

She can hear herself inhale sharply, eyes not quite seeing as they snap open, squinting at the brightness of the room. Suddenly the sweater she's been wearing is more like a straight jacket, twisting tightly around her waist, her own hair sticking to the back of her throat and choking her, making it impossible to breathe. Someone is grabbing at her wrists, hissing out a breath as she stares through the black spots of her vision, finger nails scraping and one leg kicking out sharply into a torso _(they're trying to pin her to the bed again, they're weaving the metal beams of the bridge over her arms and trying to stop her from killing herself)_ and in the blank pages of her mind she remembers ginger hair and ginger tea, tastes the old bitterness on her tongue just as she knocks the empty mug off a bedside table... _Wally's room, she's in Wally's room, and the real Wally who's not full of bullet holes is wincing when the heel of her foot shoves him back into the bed, neck ripping backwards as she gasps in surprise at his appearance, banging her skull against his head board—_ She's disoriented, not sure what is real, her head pounding and heart racing and—

"Artemis!" She hears him cry out, her skull still throbbing. "Artemis, calm down—"

She feels the tears dribbling off her chin, feels the unevenness of his bed as she plants herself more firmly against it, the tightness of her jeans cutting into her hips before she half unfolds herself, shoulders still clenched like the haunches of a coyote that's just encountered the barreled end of a gun. "I—" She hears her voice break, the pathetic sound pulling herself back into her head, her toes still pressing against Wally's chest and holding him off when he sits up, trying to get close again.

"Babe?" His brows tense before both their eyes drop to his chest, watching her foot flex against the dip between his muscles, toes pinching the fabric of his tee shirt. "Artemis?"

She drops her foot, horrified. "I... Sorry." She breathes, hating that she's suddenly shivering as she collapses the bulk of her weight into the bed, hands quivering as she pulls the end of her pony tail from her mouth.

She gets as far as winding her limbs around herself, dropping her forehead to press against her knee caps before she feels the bed shaking, the sudden warmth along her calves telling her that he's succeeded in moving closer. "What, uh...?" He hesitates, pausing as if reconsidering the question as she scrubs angrily at her wet cheeks. "... Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine—" She says unconvincingly, inhaling a shaky breath as she lifts her head from her knees, eyes roaming over her surroundings. _Wally's room_. She had been reading in Wally's room, they had had tea and she had been tired and he had promised to wake her after twenty minutes. She flinches when Wally touches her, the warmth of his hand too much for her icy shoulder; without thinking she shrugs it off, glaring. "What time is it?"

Wally looks concerned before she disappears behind her hands under the pretext of scrubbing the sweat off her forehead, but after a moment she can hear him settle back a bit into the bed, no longer so close. "A little after eleven." When she emerges he's thumbing through the book she fell asleep reading, correcting her folded pages.

She hesitates, and in the quiet she sees him: Wally, _realizing he might die_. Wally, _lips cold for the first time in his life and not responding to her kiss_. Wally, _lifeless_. "God." She mumbles, finding it's easier to be angry at him rather than herself, easier to channel all that fear and panic into her voice than let it linger at the front of her mind. "You were supposed to wake me up hours ago." She says, voice low and hard and not really her own as she moves to stand.

"Whoa, what?" He says, so stunned that she actually manages to get to her feet before he catches her wrist in his hand, tugging her so hard back that she feels the muscles of her bad leg twitch before her backside collides with the mattress again. "Artemis—"

"I need to shower, Wally." She tells him dryly, but she doesn't move, not yet; not when her leg is still twinging and he still has a death grip on her forearm, waiting for her to try to escape again.

Wally looks at her, glaring hard and eyes roaming her face, as if such a critical analysis of her tear-stained features and slept-in make-up will somehow force her to cave or drop the scowl she's wearing. " _Artemis_." He says her name lowly, and against her better sense she feels her stomach squirm. "You know I'm not an idiot, right?"

"Could have fooled me." She sneers back, immediately feeling guilty when his brows tense; this is misplaced anger and emotion and exactly the reason she needs to leave; she can't be around him like this, _can't trust herself not to hurt him or say something stupid_...

Wally releases her wrist roughly, glancing down when her other hand automatically goes down to rub at the reddened mark he's left there. " _For fuck's sake_." He says, barely loud enough to hear as he always does when he swears around her, as if afraid of offending more delicate ears. "Artemis, can you just cut me some slack here? Explain what just happened? Because I can't follow what's going on inside your head if you don't tell me; one second you're asleep and the next you're screaming at me and kicking me off of you and looking at me like you don't really see me... Don't pretend there's nothing wrong when I know there is, it's insulting."

"God." She sneers, actually looking to the ceiling as if praying. "Relax, Wally. It was a nightmare, okay? Can I go?"

She almost half rises until she catches the look on Wally's face; it reminds her sharply of the moments they shared after the exercise, the rawness and the jagged emotion etched so clearly there as he had watched her cry. "A nightmare." He repeats, glaring. "Just a nightmare."

She opens her mouth to snarl something back and hates that she hesitates slightly, mouth open without speaking for only a fraction of a second but giving her away entirely. "Yes." She hisses, grinding her teeth and dropping her jaw, allowing her pony tail to hang like a curtain between them.

There's nearly half a minute of silence between them, the rough sound of her callouses as they trace the red marks he's left on her wrist the only noise in the tiny bedroom. She still feels cold, the sweat that's clinging to her lower back icy on her skin; despite the slight wobbling of the bed she nearly jumps when she feels his feverish fingers against the tendons of her neck, tracing the line of the muscle leading to the shell of her ear before flicking her pony tail down her back so as to better see her face.

"It's okay, you know..." He says quietly, arranging her hair so it falls in an even sheet between her shoulder blades."… I get them sometimes too."

She doesn't know why but it doesn't comfort her, knowing that someone like Wally is plagued by the same vile thoughts she is; there's something in his voice she can't dissect, an emotion she's not familiar with. Screwing her eyes up she reminds herself not to look at him, not to look into his eyes _(he had blinked to tell her that he heard her, that he was still alive; he had blinked his glassy eyes once to let her know that he believed the lies she told him... "It's going to be okay, I'm going to figure this out..." and he had pulled her into focus one last time before he had shut them for what he thought was the last time...)_ should he suddenly be the blood-choked figure she remembers him as.

"... Do you want to talk about it?" He asks after he's abandoned her hair, hand splayed flat on her back.

She feels herself shakes her head, tastes the walnut-flavored breath she sucks past her lips, holding it so long in her lungs that she grows dizzy. "No." She nearly gasps out, wishing she would faint. "It's nothing, Wally." She sighs, forcing the wrinkle that's popped up above her nose to smoothen, wrenching her eyes open and becoming aware that now she's the one with a death grip on her wrist. "It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters." Wally's hand flexes almost unnoticeably against her back, the same unconscious tightness he always adopts whenever she's anything other than her façade of over-confident sneering.

 _("This kind of stuff is really hard for you, isn't it?" He had asked her once. His hand had been reaching for her, as if she were a bird perched nervously on a branch, debating on flying to the safety of higher limbs.)_

She feels familiar bile rising in her throat and swallows back the memory, shaking her head. "… Yeah. Well." She shrugs her shoulders until he gets the hint to take his hand off of her. "I don't want to talk about anything, okay?"

She's thankful when he runs his hands through his hair, the familiar scent at least providing some comfort and enough courage for her to glance warily at him, watching almost coldly as he slouches, resting the bend of his elbow on his knee. "Look." He sighs, clearly frustrated. "I get it. You don't... You don't have to tell me the details. Can you just not run out on me without an explanation? I can't..." He pauses, sighing again. "That scares me, Artemis. I don't like it."

Something in his voice catches; without blinking she narrows her eyes, teeth gritting as if he's greatly inconveniencing her. "... Fine."

"Fine." He nods back, fingers returning to the cover of her abandoned book, pressing the spine tight together as if to undo the cracking she's left there.

There's a long silence in which she flexes her toes into the plushness of his carpet, elbows still braced against her knees and not really knowing what she wants to say. And what exactly can she say? What do you say to someone like Wally, how do you explain the memories painted onto the darkest corners of your mind, how do you take them there and show them the how the bile and vomit and violence still clings to you like muscle and marrow onto bones? How can she allow herself to taint someone like him, someone who so sweet and soft, with the stickiness of her past and the sharpness of these memories?

 _This is the same person who winces on her behalf when she stubs her toe, who insists on kissing her fingers better when she slams them accidentally in the folds of cupboards. It would kill him, tear him apart..._

Instead of saying anything she reaches out to snatch her book back from his hands, ignoring the affronted look he sends her and instead picking at the pages and refolding all the progress Wally's made in fixing the mutilated edges. She gets the impression that he's waiting for her to say something, eyes patient despite how narrowed they are, watching her intently. For something to do other than look at him with a lost expression on her face she opens the book to a random page, scowling. "… I just..." She starts after a while, glaring at page ninety nine and losing her train of thought. "I wish you wouldn't unmark all my pages."  
She says in a frustrated voice. "... I do it for a reason, you know."

"... What?" He asks, and she's a little off put by how hushed his voice is.

"... I don't know." She says, air firing in a huff out of her voice. "Sometimes that I just liked that part of the story. Or that something somebody said made me laugh. Sometimes I just like knowing that I've read up the part before. Whatever."

Finally she feels safe enough to glance at him, a little surprised to see that he's already looking at her, red eyelashes fluttering as he blinks. "Okay." He says simply. "I won't unmark your pages anymore." As if in resolution he folds his hands in his lap, fingers interlocked and no longer threatening the contents of her book.

She doesn't know why but when the corners of his mouth tug up in a crooked grin she loses it slightly, going back to staring at her fingers as they clench tightly about the cover of her book. More to avoid the kindness of his smile she ducks her head again, hiding behind her hair. "... And I wish you wouldn't keep trying to make me talk about stuff all the time." She says quietly, scowling as she fiddles with a random page, beginning to rip the margin. "I know you think it will make me feel better but... I just don't want to, okay?"

When she finally glances at Wally he's blinking at her again. "... Why not?"

"Because I don't." She says severely, thumb and forefinger ripping the margin of the page completely free of the rest of the paper. "... Because _I don't know how to_ , okay? I don't... I don't know how to put some of that stuff into words. I don't know how to say things without... Without making them feel to real, or too awful. I just don't want those thoughts to leave my head."

She can feel Wally looking at her quizzically and instead of glaring back she crumples the torn piece of paper in her fist. "Artemis." He says, voice no longer soft. "You realize that we both... We're both on the Team. We both go through a lot of the same stuff—"

" _I know that_." She sneers between her teeth.

"So don't you think I'd be a good person to talk to about this kind of stuff? Don't you think I'd understand?"

"That's not the point, Wally." She snaps, and against her better judgment she whips the book impatiently across the room, both of them watching as it smacks hard against the wall before dropping to the floor. "I know you'd understand, _I know_ , Wally... Can you just let this go? _Please_?"

"No." He says stubbornly, glaring as she flings the crumpled margin out after the book, the tiny piece of paper barely flying a foot out in front of her before falling. "God... I hate this, I hate looking at you and knowing there's something I can't fix—"

" _Then stop trying to fix me_ , Wally!" She bursts out, suddenly wishing she still had the book so she could throw it at him. "Just leave me alone."

She watches him makes a frustrated noise, both his hands scrubbing viciously at his face before he flops dramatically backward, his weight shaking the whole bed. "I don't get you." He snarls through his fingers, one leg kicking out to bang against the frame of his bed angrily and nearly striking her in the process.

They're back to being quiet again, both of them annoyed with each other; she can feel a headache brewing at the back of her skull from where she hit it before. She'd told him before she's not good at this... Not good at opening up to people, letting them in. She hates the feeling that he's peeling her apart, trying to dismantle her walls board by board, ignoring the way the drywall is crumbling and the nails cling together, desperate to keep him out should he discover something he doesn't like.

She had started things with him under the silent agreement that she wouldn't run from him, not anymore... So why is it so hard? Why were things so much easier when they were just kissing frantically? How come she could manage that and not this? Why is all this stillness so difficult, all the quiet and the heartfelt talks, all these things she knows he craves but that she can't give to him, not without digging her nails into her palms and gritting her teeth and forcing herself to do it...

"Wally." She sighs, hanging her head and glaring at the carpet between her feet. "... Is it really so bad that I just want... us... to be about the good stuff? Happy things only?" She pauses, listening to the slight hiss of breath that comes out of his mouth when he pulls his hands back from his face. "I don't want to mess it up with all the other stuff."

The bed jostles, the familiar walnut smell telling her that he's running his hands through his hair again. "Will you please stop pretending to think that you're going to ruin things?" He says, and she's surprised that his voice is still hard. "It's annoying."

 _She wants to tell him that she's not pretending, that between all the kissing and the laughing that she's been terrified that she'll do something that will hurt him and that she'll lose him forever and she'll never be happy again. As usual it's easier to be quiet._

"... I just want you to feel like you can tell me stuff in the same way that I feel like I can tell you stuff." He hisses, the bed jostling when he sits up, balancing his weight on an elbow. "Sometimes I just feel like... What's wrong with me, you know? Like, why don't you trust me?"

"It's not _you_." She sighs again, actually wishing that it would be easier to physically beat this information into his skull. "It's not about trust, it's... Just not easy for me to—"

"Artemis—"

"You said you have nightmares too?" She asks, cutting him off as she turns to glare at him over his shoulder.

Instantly something in Wally's face changes, his whole jaw stiffening as he glares at her. "… _Yeah_." He says curtly, fingers clenching into the folds of his bedspread.

"Tell me, then. If you think it's so easy."

She can sense that she's won the argument, can tell just by the way his shoulders stiffen and his lower lip suddenly tightens against his teeth that she's caught him; for a long time his eyes simply flicker between hers, glaring and looking very much like he'd like nothing better than to strangle her. The silences between them stretches out for nearly a full minute before she allows herself to smirk maliciously, turning her back on him. "That's what I thought." She sneers at her socks. "I'm going to bed."

She feels the bed jostle again; automatically she glances back towards him, half expecting him to be on his way up to grab at her and make another attempt at arguing. She's a little surprised to see him flat on his back again, eyes hard and glaring unseeingly at the ceiling. "... The Exercise." He croaks out suddenly.

It's the thing none of them really talk about, the memory all of them have but never speak of; without thinking her knees knock together a little violently before all her muscles still, half in fright and half in curiosity at the secret he's kept from her all this time.

"... It's always The Exercise." He says after a moment, expressionless. "It messed me up so much. I..." He sits up just as she's tucked her knees under her chin, childishly wishing she had the gall to press her palms to her ears and block out the broken voice he's speaking in. "I kept seeing it, kept seeing everyone who I couldn't save. Dick and Connor and Kaldur and _you_... I hated you so much. I hated that you died, I hated watching you die. I hated watching your skin fall off your bones and that no matter how many times I went back there I couldn't do anything to stop it and I just—" Something in Wally's voice breaks and he has to stop for a moment, hands clenched together in his lap. She's afraid to touch him. " _Are you happy_? I watched you die…"

He stops himself to wipe clumsily at his nose, and she finds herself half hiding behind her knees when she speaks. "… I watched you die too." She reminds him quietly, as close to a confession and she'll allow herself to get. He looks at her, jaw cut sharp against his neck; before she can do more than raise her chin up a few inches he's kissing her.

It's almost painful, the intensity in which he rams his mouth against hers; she can feel their teeth biting into each other and can feel all the emotion she's forced out of him bubbling to the surface, can feel the heat of his cheeks burning and half a sob that bubbles up past his lips as he breathes into her. It's awful, it's not the kind of heat she's been wanting; she's pushed him too far, he's coming undone in the same way she is, she shouldn't have said anything—still, she breathes him in, fingers itching to cling to him and cry and let him hold her in the way she's always wanted to be held, protected, but she can't trust herself, can she, _she's done enough damage_ —

Wally pulls back, making a small choking noise in the back of his throat, looking at her with clouded and desperate eyes. "Do you still want to leave?" He breathes.

For once what she wants to say and what she actually says are the same thing; unwinding her limbs she reaches for him, placing her hands on either side of his face. "No." She whispers, pulling his jaw towards her.

* * *

The kiss only lasts a fraction of a moment, and even though she still doesn't really understand everything he puts into his soft kisses for the first time ever she feels something back; there's a small stir of emotion in the pit of her stomach as he inhales slowly into her, the dry flakes of skin on his lips and the way they leave something, some unsaid feeling _(of safety, of comfort, of neediness and attachment)_ lingering in the joining tastes of their mouths. She's felt it all before, felt all his emotions he's been trying to say without words, but for once she feels her own awaking at the touch of it; it's everything she's ever felt in all their quick paced moments _slowed down, less blurred, more defined and outlined darker..._ All the emotion, all the clarity she usually tries to keep in the cage of her ribs is trickling off her tongue, both a hope and fear there that this time he'll be able to catch pieces of it in his mouth like he always does with droplets of rain as they fall from the sky; that he'll be able to taste her there, taste all his feelings and the ones just now rising up inside her in response to his touch.

It's frightening, so much so that an actual shiver runs through her body, quivering lips withdrawing from his and foreheads pressing together. She doesn't resist though, when his one hand reaches up to press lightly against her collar bone, guiding her down until her back presses against the mattress.

Wildly and perhaps terrifyingly she gets ahead of herself; for a moment she's half convinced that he's going to scramble on top of her and start pressing frantic kisses against her skin, start fumbling with the buttons of her jeans or the seams of her sweater. A little ridiculously she screws her eyes shut, waiting.

 _Please... Please._

Instead the bed wobbles and she feels the familiar heat move beside her; she's just managed to snap her eyes open in surprise as he settles next to her, one hand squirming to wedge between her and the mattress and pull her closer. "I know you don't really like cuddling." He says quietly, no doubt noticing the way her muscles at tensing with mild alarm as he wraps his arms around her. "But can we just... Can I just hold you? For a few minutes?" He breathes into her ear. " _Please?"_

 _They're both begging each other for completely different things._

It's not necessarily that she doesn't like cuddling; she likes being close to Wally, she likes the way his breath hums in her hair as he settles into her. It's just that she's never been held like this before; never had someone fold themselves around her, arms wrapped around her waist and one leg hitching up to hang over her knees, forcing her to lock her limbs around his calve. It's hot, nearly suffocating as he presses himself against her, head ducking to skim the sensitive part behind her ear.

She can hear herself grinding her teeth with her anxiousness and forces herself to stop, instead reaching up to flick her hair so it's out of his face and hanging over the top of their pillow. "It's stupid." Wally inhales, the tip of his nose grazing the roots of her hair. "But after that day... This is all I wanted to do for the longest time. I just wanted to hold you. " His voice sounds frail, so broken, and she realizes with a jolt that she he's talking about The Exercise again. "I just wanted to be near you, or touch you... I thought I was going crazy."

She shifts slightly, adjusting her hips nervously against the bed and ignoring when she brushes to close to Wally, his breath catching slightly. "… Oh." Is all she thinks to say.

She doesn't tell him of her own misgivings that night; doesn't tell him how much his presence in his bedroom had terrified her, doesn't tell him of how his closeness is frightening her now. She doesn't tell him about how he was the first person she had cried in front of in years; doesn't tell him how she had thought he was going to kiss her and how much his fingers around his wrist had meant to her. She doesn't tell him how much him finding comfort in her for his worries had made her feel better, whole, more like herself and yet completely different than before.

Instead she gives up on trying to force her muscles to unwind; settling her head more firmly beneath his chin she presses at the point on his jugular, counting out his heartbeats.

* * *

After a while they stop talking, and in the silence Wally twitches to life. It's slow, at first. The shifting of his limbs against the blankets, the sound of his hair scratching against the pillow. Twice he catches himself tapping his thumb absently against the dip in her flesh between her ribs and hips, and twice he halts it with jutting and abrupt movements.

"Is it hard for you?" She asks quietly, his thumb stuttering to a stop against her skin as Wally pulls himself back into his head, becoming aware of the movement for the third time. "Staying still, I mean?"

Wally exhales near her ear. "Sometimes." He admits. "It's like… Second nature to be moving. When I'm stopped too long… I don't know. It's like every atom in my body fights me on it, sometimes I don't even notice its happening." She feels his head lift slightly off the pillow, surveying the curve of her eyelashes against her cheeks. "If it bothers you—"

As if to prove a point a muscle in Wally's knees jumps, flicking up against her thigh. "I don't mind." She says honestly, and he lets them slip back into familiar silence.

She waits until his breathing evens out _(no doubt he's getting tired with the lateness of the hour)_ before she allows herself to whisper to him, deliberately being quiet and already half hoping he won't hear and save her the embarrassment "Wally?"

She feels his breath stutter slightly in his chest, feels his finger resume the tapping on her hip as he jerks into wakefulness again. "Yeah?"

She hesitates, teeth gnawing at the inside of her cheeks before she decides on the best possible wording, her hands clenching where they're folded beneath their pillow. "... I don't know how to do this." She says a little gruffly.

 _("I'm sorry." She had told him, to her horror blinking back tears. "I'm not good at this. Just... drink your tea."_

 _He had done what he was told, and a few minutes later he had wrapped his arms around her for the first time, ever.)_

"What?" His head lifts again, watching with interest as he cheeks turn crimson. "... Artemis? ...You don't know how to cuddle?"

She turns her head towards the mattress, wanting nothing more than to scream all her frustrations into the depth of the pillow. " _Yes."_ She mutters, even though it's not just that; she has no clue how to be in a relationship, has no idea what to do now that things are slowing down between them and that there's not enough haze and wanting to block out the sound of her anxieties.

There's another silence between them, this one a lot stiffer than the last as his hand stills, all his energy shifting from his body to his mind as he thinks. "... I don't really know how to explain it." He says frankly, and despite not wanting to hear it she still notices the odd note of pity in his voice. "I guess you just... Relax. And enjoy being together."

"This is _stupid_." She says through clenched teeth.

"Only because you're not relaxed." He says a little insistently, shifting until he's pressed more tightly against her. "Relax, Artemis, it's like I'm spooning a cardboard box here. Just..." He nudges the tip of his nose behind her ear, his hand at her hip beginning to move again; his fingers tracing the lines of her hipbones so carefully they may as well be trace blueprints. The touch is soft, innocent in its nature but still her muscles tense as if waiting to be hit unexpectedly; she can feel the lingering sensation of his finger prints as his he slides his hand over her, ghosting impressions on her body and tracing patterns she can't follow. "It's me, Beautiful." He says softly, breath tickling against her neck like Bialyan wind.

It's soothing in the best way despite her initial rigidness, her muscles tight until he brushes over them—following the tendons he can't see across her lower back, across the indentations of her hips, one finger braver than the others and slipping up past the hem of her sweater to touch the tightness of her abs; creating a path between the two sun spots on her forearm that she got last summer, tracing up to the dip in her shoulder, the blotches of blush on her cheeks, the shell of her ear…

He lingers back down to her shoulder, his index finger pausing almost unnoticeably at the seam of her bra strap. There's another beat of hesitation where he seems to be deciding where to go next, thumb brushing against the ticklish spot below her earlobe; she shifts at the touch and her sweater catches on the blankets, pulling backwards.

She knows instantly there's nothing to hide it; her hair is still pooling at the top of the pillow where she flipped it before, her sweater now gaping open in the back and exposing her—her scar, _her fucking scar_ , intruding on another sweet moment and making it ugly. She's about to roll onto her back and hide it when Wally stops her, one hand pressing against her shoulder momentarily – _he's telling her to wait, please, be patient with him_ —and before she can do much other than settle back into her spot on the blankets she feels his fingers again.

She sighs, shuddering and rougher than she knows is nice to hear, but at once his fingers grow more sure, their touch no longer feather light but more curious; she hears her own heart pound nearly twenty times in her ears as he traces it, feeling all the warbled and uneven skin that she's never let him properly look at before. She feels as if she's naked— _not in a good way, never in a good way_ —waiting for him to pass judgement on her, point out all her flaws.

"You said once that you might tell me the story behind this one." She hears him whisper. His voice sounds thick with something she can't quite identify.

She hesitates for only a moment before she makes up her mind, hearing her own eyelashes skim the pillow case as she blinks. "I did, didn't I?" She says softly, and for a half second she can practically feel Wally's ears perk up as they listen hard, focused and curious for her to say more.

She can sense his disappointment when she moves again but it doesn't stop her from squirming in his arms; shifting her weight and stealing her limbs back from where he's gotten a hold on her, rolling onto her back and hiding the scar and all it's memories from view. Almost defiantly she looks at him, waiting for him to lose patience. "Wally?" She says quietly, wondering if he understands.

She immediately misses his warmth when he extracts his arm from underneath her, the bed wobbling as he rolls onto his back and glares at the ceiling. "It's okay." He says mechanically, and she can tell he doesn't mean it. "You don't have to tell me."

The bed jostles again when he rolls onto his other side, leaving her staring somewhat blankly at his back. He doesn't stop her when she gets up to leave.

* * *

It's freezing in her kitchen.

Or at the very least she's freezing; it's not even April yet and already her crappy apartment heating system is overly optimistic, blasting ice cold air through the vents like it's mid-July. Absently she shifts closer to the burner she's just set her kettle on, willing the ancient wiring to warm faster and somehow heat the whole room rather than just her water.

Twice she pulls out her cellphone, debating on summoning Wally to her apartment to provide the mysterious warmth that's always hanging in the air around him. Twice she scrolls through her contacts until she finally sees the pixels reading _Baywatch_ and twice she gets the same unbearable sinking feeling in her stomach as she stares at his contact name, debating.

Things have been... _Tense_ , since that day in his bedroom. Not tense like it used to be before they started dating; it's the kind of tension they're both tip-toeing around rather than throwing in each other's faces. It's less emotional, more untrusting, the kind of tension that can't find release no matter how many times they try to talk normally, no matter how many times she grabs at his hand and squeezes, questioningly, only to have his automatically respond to her pressure.

Twice she snaps her phone shut, going back to scowling at the uncooperative burner. She supposes some things aren't meant to quite work properly, no matter how much you want them to.

Finally she decides to embrace the inevitable and wander back into the depths of the apartment in an almost stiff fashion, her freezing muscles unwilling to move and the familiar ache back in her bad leg from the cold. A little sourly she shoves open the door to her bedroom, spotting immediately what she's looking for: one of Wally's old sweat shirts that she had stolen off the back of his chair the other day. _("Souvenir." She sneered somewhat dryly as she had grabbed it, looping the sleeves a little ridiculous around her shoulders. "Yeah, yeah." He had shrugged, hardly looking up from his homework.)_

She feels incredibly unsatisfied when she tugs it over her head despite the immediate warmth the thick cotton of the fabric coats her with. The sweater feels as foreign and strange as Wally himself has been acting lately; it's hardly too-big for her in the way she'd always imagined a boyfriend's sweater should be—but to be fair, Wally's not that much bigger than her, save a few inches. It's an odd fit, the same way it's just occurred to her that she and Wally are an odd fit for each other; his sweater is overlarge in the shoulders and waist yet oddly tight about the hips, so much so that she actually pauses in the action of pulling the zipper up over her breasts to examine herself in the mirror, frowning at how much they jut out against the fabric. Distantly, she hears the lock at the front door click open.

"Mom?" She calls distractedly after a few moments, still staring at her reflection. She realizes, a little jarringly, that she's grown in the past couple months; now that she's properly thinking about it she realizes her jeans have been feeling a bit too snug as of late, the denim stretched too tightly across her hips and a quarter of an inch showing at her ankles. Maybe she just shrunk them in the wash.

"... Mom?" She repeats, a little curious when there's nothing but silence, no shout of greeting or hello in response to her yelling—it's obvious she's here, she's left her quiver right by the front door, she's surprised Paula isn't yelling at her to move it out of the way so she can wheel in— She tugs the zipper up to her chin, listening intently to the silence stretching out in the apartment, broken only by the soft hissing of the half-boiled water on the stove.

Then she hears a set of footsteps.

Like an old reflex her muscles tense up— _nobody should be walking in her house, she's the only person who walks here anymore_ —and suddenly her shoulders are tensing and she's turned to face the doorway to the hallway like a wild animal, nostrils flaring as if trying to smell out a predator and eyes roaming the room for some sort of weapon—he's here, this is the moment she's been waiting for, been sabotaging her relationship with Wally over. _Sportsmaster is out of prison_ , _her father has come to seek out his revenge_ and like some sort of amateur she's left with nothing to defend herself— She could hide, she could still fit in the small space beneath her twin bed if she really tried, she's sure... She hears three footsteps rattling loudly, almost clumsily, against the floorboard, a loud scraping nose telling her that whoever is trespassing has just collided with the edge of the couch and bumped it into an end table.

Biting her tongue, she spots a hair brush on her bedside table.

 _Okay, a plan. She needs a plan._

 _Calm down. Focus, focus, focus. Don't be a baby..._

It takes her a ridiculous amount of time to get the nerve to leave her bedroom, shaking hands unknotting the laces of her boots and kicking them off as silently as she can, hoping her sock-clad feet will at least disguise her nervous tread and give her some element of surprise. Testing her weight against the creaky floor boards she advances onward, brush raised up almost defensively in front of her; she makes it nearly four steps into the hall before she spots someone sitting on her couch, the same spot her father occupied all those months ago—without thinking she hurls the hairbrush like a projectile into the dim lighting of the living room.

Her brush strikes her quarry in the temple, _hard_ , and she allows them to let out one choice swear before she launches herself at them, clambering over the back of the couch and forcing her foot into the fold of a groin; clumsy fingers attempt to remove her as she flattens herself in an absurd crouching position, hands pinning forearms and knees digging into a muscled chest, her heel still pressing mercilessly into the bulge of a crotch. "What the _fuck_!" A familiar voice slurs out, swearing cutting off slightly when she accidentally shifts her weight in surprise, heel pushing deeper and forcing the man below her to grunt out in pain.

" _Roy?!"_ She nearly shrieks, one hand slacking and reaching up to fumble for the string of a lamp in the dark.

He winces when the light turns on, hardly recognizable in the save for the sudden grumbling that escaping his lips. He looks worse, _so much worse_ than he did a few weeks ago; his red hair is so over grown and matted with grease that it's catching the light almost like a murky brown, the stubble on his chin overlong and growing in patches on scratched and bleeding cheeks. His unmasked eyes are blood shot and watering from the pain of her assault, one eye so badly swollen and bruised that it's little more than a watery and pus encrusted slit.

"Don't call me that." He slurs out, one clumsy hand raising to push her off and succeeding in doing little more than scratching a little pathetically at the corner of her mouth, gnawed finger nails breaking the skin of her chin.

"What are you—" She starts to ask, cutting herself off when he coughs in her face, several particles of thick saliva hitting her cheeks and the overwhelming scent of alcohol slapping her in the face. " _Are you drunk_?" She yells, choking on his filthy, cracked finger when he finally gets it into her mouth and tugs, trying to fishhook her loud voice away from him.

"No—" He starts to say defiantly, yelling in surprise when she bites down hard on his forefinger; he tastes like old sweat and dirt, the filth trapped in the webbing of his hand scraping against her teeth and nearly forcing her to swallow the gritty mud that's caked there, mixing unpleasantly with the metallic taste of the blood her bite has produced. "Fuck—" He slurs, retracting his hand in pain.

He winces again when she spits, not bothering to miss him when she coughs a mixture of her own saliva, his blood, and the grit he's left in her mouth onto his chest. "Red!" She snarls, clambering off of him and the couch entirely, watching with wary eyes as his hands claw against the cushions and struggle to raise him into a sitting position.

"Fuck." He swears again, glancing down at the place where she spat at him. "You're disgusting." He tells her frankly.

She shakes her head, disbelieving, watching him rub the rapidly swelling bump on his head where the brush collided with him. She can't believe him, she doesn't understand… "How did you—" She cuts herself off again when he leans back against her couch cushions, one functional eye unfocused and chest heaving with a withheld belch. " _Okay_ , never mind. Why are you here?"

"That," He begins, blinking once at her very slowly. "Wasn't my call."

The kettle behind her starts whistling just as she's about the beat his head in; taking it as a sign she needs to distance herself from him she lets out a frustrated sigh, getting to her feet to walk towards the kitchen. "Well if it wasn't your call, Red, who's was it?" She snarls over her shoulder.

"That would be mine." The kettle goes silent just as she looks around in horror, heart jumping up into the back of her throat.

 _Jade._

Instantly she's back to tense muscles and clenched fists, her eyes wide as her sister stands mere feet in front of her at the stove, placing the kettle on the cool burner. After weeks, _months_ , of wanting desperately to see her she's suddenly unsure where they stand; unsure if this moment warrants the widening of her stance defensively and the muscles that are beginning to pop beneath Wally's sweater, expecting a fight.

The Cheshire Cat mask surveys her a little curiously, tilting her head almost comically to the side. "Don't be silly, Baby Girl." Jade purrs, one clawed glove flicking at her chin, the mask flipping up her forehead before being set casually on the counter as if it belongs there. "I'm not here to fight you. Besides, we both know you can barely take me with your arrows, what chance do you stand with your bare hands?"

She doesn't miss the taunt that's hidden in the tinkling laugh that echoes through the kitchen, Jade moving effortlessly around the cupboards as if she never left and filling two mugs with loose tea leaves before pouring the boiled water over them. "You can relax, Artemis." She says after a moment, not looking at her but somehow still sensing the tension, her voice no longer low and dangerous like Huntress' once was. "I'm over the whole sibling rivalry thing." As if to prove a point she sets the kettle back on the stove, sharpened fingers taking a mug for herself and offering her the other.

For a moment she surveys her sister curiously. "… Why are you here?" She asks, trying and failing to bare her teeth.

Jade smirks at her, leaning against the counter and oblivious to the fact that the last time she was here she had shoved her little sister's head through a television screen. "What? I can't drop by on my _favorite sister_ from time to time?" She grins wickedly, offering the mug a little more insistently. "Drink up. I know you don't like your tea cold." She purrs, lips twisting into a wicked smile.

For some reason she takes the mug, snatching it so quickly she nearly spills and half debating on tossing the scalding water in Jade's face the whole while. Without saying anything else her sister automatically turns to stare at Roy, the sound of his drunken snores beginning to fill the silence of the room. "… Why?" She asks after a while, not daring to take her eyes off Jade even as she sips her tea, the hot water steaming up and bothering her unblinking eyes. She doesn't really know what she's asking.

"Why am I here?" Jade guesses, side stepping around her and walking back to Roy, surveying him through a dropped chin. "I thought that was obvious given the trouble I went through, what with propping him up so nicely on the couch. I'm returning something of yours that I borrowed."

As if knowing Jade is making a claim on him Roy lets out a gurgling noise, silencing himself with a groan as Jade shoves him until he's lying his side, vomit dripping out of the corner of his mouth and onto the carpet. "How kind of you." She glares. "Any reason in particular you borrowed him in the first place?

Jade lets out a brash laugh that fills the whole room, so loud that she actually feels her ears ache with the noise. "You act like I took him captive."

"You did, Jade." She says through gritted teeth.

Her sister takes a sip of tea, lips smacking and looking untroubled by her icy tone. "Trust me, the first time he came of his own accord. As for the second... Not my fault your little friend Red was trying to give me the slip without fulfilling his part of our bargain."

There's something lecherous in her tone that she chooses to ignores, taking another swig of tea. "So what? Were you helping him find the Real Roy Harper?"

"Mm. At first." Jade muses, downing her tea in one and placing the dirty mug down on the coffee table, unexpectedly taking care to use a coaster. "My help in exchange for... _Some of his_. Although believe me, I certainly got the better end of the deal. Your Red Arrow certainly is... _Energetic_."

Jade smirks at her when she unconsciously pulls a face, cheeks reddening and making her wish she could do more than hide behind her mug in revulsion. Rather than deem this with a response she goes back to glaring at Roy, eyes narrowing at the scratches on his cheeks and his swollen eye socket. "What have you two been playing with? Barbed wire and boxing gloves?"

"I don't kiss and tell, Baby Girl." Jade winks, looking pleased at her disgust. "But sadly that wasn't my handy-work. His back, certainly—" Jade stops when she lets out a loud retching noise despite herself, resuming speaking with a smirk. "We got into a bit of a spat the other night—something about me distracting him from _his mission_ , I don't know, I wasn't really listening—but I will tell you that when I found him he was drunk as a skunk and barely breathing in a gutter. Who knows what he got into the last thirty-six hours."

She senses that they're getting down to it, the real reason behind Jade's sudden appearance; in an almost business-like fashion swallows the last of her tea, crossing her arms and glaring at her sister, still warm mug pressed absently against her breasts. "So what? You've had your fun and suddenly he's my problem?"

"In a sense." Jade shrugs, ignoring her annoyance and running a hand through her hair, examining the frayed ends of her hair with interest. "I'm trusting you to return him to his rightful owners with a message—either you and the rest of the League step up and help him find his little twin and let me enjoy _my_ Roy Harper in peace, or the next time I find him in a gutter I leave him to his own devices, regardless if that involves his _death_." Jade pauses, smoothing her hair back in place and sending her another wicked smile. "And be sure to fix him up nice too. I don't open my legs for ugly boys."

For some reason she's brave enough to snort in her sister's face. "You're crazy." She snarls, shaking her head.

Jade doesn't respond immediately, the corners of her grin drooping slightly as she surveys her. She knows she can feel it too; all the raw, disturbing childhood memories of beatings and hiding in their shared bedroom to avoid their father's wrath suddenly feel as if they're pressing hard on the boundaries of her mind, threatening to prompt her into doing something ridiculous like believe the best of her sister again, like she used to. "… How have you been?" Jade asks, dropping the Cheshire Cat persona completely.

The question is so unexpected that she finds she can't quite respond at first, her eyes going from wide to narrowed and suspicious in a matter of seconds. "… Fine. I mean, it's been okay."

Jade nods. "I know. Red was—" She cuts herself off, glaring at the figure on the couch rather than at her. "I thought it better to keep my distance. After the whole things with Sportsmaster."

"Ah."

"I'm much easier to find than you are. I thought the less I knew, the better. It would keep you safe."

There's a loud silence between them in which she catches herself glaring at the floor, shaking her head. "… Sure it was." She says, not allowing herself to believe it as much as she wants to.

When she glances up Jade's face has hardened; it's not malicious like she's been expecting—it's hurt, real hurt from someone she never expected to feel pain. "I didn't have to bring Red back, you know." The older girl says quietly.

"Right." She snarls, still glaring at the floor. "It's not like you actually care about him. He's just another play thing."

There's another pause, and for a fraction of a moment she almost flinches, expecting to be hit. She's surprised when her sister simply sighs, shouldering roughly past her. "I'm leaving." She registers the sudden shift in Jade again, hears the familiar teasing in her voice and the low and dangerous growl the Cheshire Cat always speaks with. "Tell Arrow to give me a call when he's sober." Her sister says, not even bothering to give her a proper goodbye before she's drifted out of her life again.

As if he knows something she doesn't Roy coughs again, filling the living room with the sound of vomit hitting the carpet.

* * *

 **AN: Phew! Over 12,000 words for this one!**

 **On to house-keeping, I had a few of you express interest in becoming beta-readers. I'm naturally a little private with my work so I'd like to kind of get to know each of you with a quick questionnaire before I decide things, just to see if we will work well together/have similar writing styles/expectations. Expect a private message within a few days!**

 **To be clear, however, I'm not looking for someone to beta-read the entire length of my work but rather someone who would be open to reading select passages that I'm struggling with or talking over sub-plots with me. This is by no means a huge time commitment but simply requires maybe an hour or so of your time each week. You must be comfortable with the fact that you will have parts of this story spoiled for you!**

 **If you are interested in this kind of beta-reading and still haven't let me know please do! The more the merrier.**

 **As always, please read and review.**


	10. We Were in Screaming Color

**AN: Sorry for the delay in posting. I've entered my university's examination period and it's been hectic to try and find the time to sit down and edit... It also doesn't help that this chapter is over 14,000 words long. Remember those days when I could crank out measly 8,000 word chapters twice a week and everything was so much better?**

 **I know I'm over a week late, but it's December which means it's Young Justice Appreciation Month! If that's what brought you here then welcome, thanks for keeping the fandom alive.**

 **Picks from the playlist this week: Dives by Alvvays, Keep Warm by Ingrid Michaelson, and Out of the Woods by Ryan Adams.**

* * *

The sound of the slammed door seems to reverberate deep inside her for a moment, much louder and more vile to her than the sound of Roy's gagging as he spews up more bile and stale liquor; for one wild moment she actually considers running after Jade, apologizing, saying something, _anything,_ in hopes of reeling her back into the dingy, dark apartment.

 _She wasn't brave enough to do it before, and she sure as hell isn't brave enough to do it now._

Like always she stays where she is; she's no different now than she was at the tender age of ten, no less hell bent on keeping their family together than she was before. And maybe it's that kind of loyalty, to what she's not entirely sure, that prompted her father to mark her as weak, _as worthless_ ; maybe it's that kind of thinking that prompted Jade into leaving in the first place... After all, if she were _anything worth saving_ her older sister would have done so a long time ago.

She's not really thinking when she hears herself sob, choking sounding in the back of her throat before she can do anything but stop it. Without thinking she rushes forward, grabbing the cup off the coffee table where Jade has left it and throwing it as hard as she can at the wall opposite.

 _She wants any trace of her sister out of her house; she wants any link to that vile creature with the hardened eyes like molten steel away from her. She never wants to look upon that face again, never wants to crave that touch, that affection; she wants her sister dead, she wants her gone, die die die..._

Her breath is ragged before she realizes her own cup is no longer in her hand and there are too many fragments of glass scattered in pathetic looking piles on the carpet. All the anger and fear constricting her throat forces an almost animal sound to escape her mouth; she's just like both the mugs, now more than ever she feels broken, rejected, _the same foolish child always one step behind her sister_ , always rushing around to clean up her empty bottles or scrub her dirty dishes before her parents came home and scolded the two of them... She glares at Roy as he rolls onto his back again, not quite spewed vomit smudging on her couch cushions.

She feels like screaming, like running from her house and never returning. Instead she leaves the room in search of a broom and dustpan.

* * *

She gathers the shattered cups and forces them neatly into the bottom of the kitchen garbage bag. She doesn't know why but she takes extra care, covering them with old banana peels and used paper towels, as if afraid her mother will find them and ask questions.

She doesn't know why but after she finishes she hides in the kitchen, a little wary of approaching Roy; she doesn't have a clue what to do, has no idea who her sister has turned him into after so many weeks together. For a long time she stares absently into the garbage can, contemplating the leftovers that went bad in their ancient and only half working refrigerator, wondering what to do. _Don't be a baby._ She tells herself as her fingers spasm about her chin, pocking absently at the blotched skin that covers her jaw; it's more effort than it should be, forcing her hands to still and crossing her arms nervously over Wally's sweater.

 _She needs a plan. She needs action, she needs to breathe and think about what Jade's just thrown her into... She needs to review what she knows._

 _Jade had Roy._ _Jade brought Roy here._

 _Roy is a member of the Justice League..._ As she thinks this her hand twitches towards her pocket, already picturing Oliver's contact name in her phone. The idea feels oddly like ratting a sibling out to a parent which doesn't sit well with her.

 _Roy is on her couch. And her mother is_ \- she glances automatically at the clock on the stove. _Her mother is supposed to be home in 57 minutes._

 _Okay. Step one is to get Roy off her couch._

She doesn't know why but it's easier to think of what lies ahead of her in terms of steps; as if the fact that there's a specific process she's walking herself through somehow makes the task at hand more manageable, more orderly. Inhaling sharply, she turns on her heel and braves the living room.

She only hesitates for a half second _(ridiculously she wonders if she can do this without physically touching him)_ before her hand reaches out without her permission; Roy grunts when she shakes his shoulder roughly, another long dribble of saliva and vomit trickling from the corner of his mouth and landing in the substantial puddle he's already left on the carpet. "Get it together, Red." She says. " _Red._ " She grunts a bit more firmly, glancing nervously at the clock sitting crookedly on the wall.

 _55 minutes, Crock._

When nothing happens other than Roy muttering a little vaguely and shoving his vomit slicked cheek more surely against the arm of the couch she feels herself scowling, mentally expanding on her plan. _Step one: get Roy off her couch and into the confines of her bedroom._ She decides she needs let him sleep off whatever liquor is in his system until her mother goes to bed, then she could wake him and interrogate him and maybe throw him down the fire escape _(which she thinks is more than justified. Her and Red are barely friends, let alone show-up-at-your-house-drunk friends. And seeing as there's an actual pool of vomit seeping into the fabric of her carpet and a very real possibility that he slept with her sister she figures she's allowed to have one half decent attempt at his murder.)_

Feeling stupid she gets into an awkward slouching position, arms extending before she realizes she has no idea what she's doing. She's lifted Wally before, dragged him clean over her head _(she remembers now the ridiculous yelp that had come from his lips, remembers that before she had a clue who he was she had found it slightly endearing: that comical noise and the sight of surprised eyes blinking up from the Bialyan sand even in the seriousness of the situation sending her stomach twisting)_ and pulled half the muscles in her back in the process. But Roy's a lot bigger than Wally; Roy's a full grown man at the beginning of his twenties, made of muscle and weight designed to be completely inhibiting from where he's collapsed into her couch. But still, she supposes, if she's going to get Roy into her bedroom and keep her mother from asking questions she's going to have to try. Inhaling sharply, she leans forward, looping her arms beneath the hollows of his arm pits and clawing across his back, trying desperately to get a grip on his shoulder blades.

 _4... 3..._

For some reason she starts mentally counting it down, as if she were about to launch him like a rocket into the air; scoffing inwardly at her own stupidity she moves before she's really ready, the muscles of her back and knees not quite in a proper position for the task at hand. She heaves, and for a moment Roy's head lolls back, mouth open and drooling and giving her a view of vomit coated tonsils. She has enough time to snort at the slacken expression that's written there before she feels her bad leg twinge as she rocks her weight onto it, the familiar sharp pain shooting up her spine and seeming to stun even her finger tips.

 _Her leg is just going to be another thing that's wrong with her, like the scar on her back and the darkened corners of her mind; it's going to be another thing that always lingers, never quite healing right, always hurting, hurting, hurting..._

Roy collapses in a heap at her feet as she gasps, and in what she can only describe as _poetic justice_ she hears the distinct sound of a nose crunching into dampened carpet.

Despite the watering of her eyes and the fact that her hands are clutching at her thigh in pain an odd bubble of laughter bursts from her throat, sounding strange and too loud when it mixes with the heaving of her own sounds of pain; for a long moment she listens to it echo off the nearly empty walls _(just as foreign to her ear as Jade's had been a few minutes ago,)_ wondering how long it's been since she made a noise like that in this room, if it ever really happened. Vaguely she remembers the imagined memory on the couch Roy was so recently occupying, her smile vanishing and being replaced by a scowl and renewed anger at her sister.

She kicks Roy's shoulder a little harder than she should with the bulk of her sock clad heel, finding a little too much twisted enjoyment at the grunting noises of distress he makes into his own sick until she finally forces him onto his back, puke sticking against his nose and cheeks. "Yeah, yeah, Harper." She tells him quietly, bending again. "You can thank me for those bruises later." She says gruffly, ignoring her still sore leg and pressing her arms underneath him until her hands are hooked into the shell of his shoulders again. She raises his torso off the ground, nearly dropping him again when she glances at the clock.

 _48 minutes._

It's slow work, dragging Roy's lifeless body across the apartment, and only leads her to wonder how Paula has managed in her wheel chair these last few months; she's never realized how many jutting corners there are, how many obstacles there are to avoid for someone with limited mobility. Twice she gets the toe of Roy's boots caught around the edge of a table or the leg of a chair and twice she rips it free, so mercilessly that each time she does so Roy lets out a half-gurgling cry of pain.

She's finally made it into the relative easiness of the hallway leading towards her bedroom when she feels the vibration of her cellphone in her back pocket; in an intentionally careless manner she simply drops Roy, taking relative pleasure when she hears the dull clunk of a skull against the floor. She's not quite finished smirking when she checks the caller ID on her phone, her heart stalling when she sees the name _Baywatch_ flashing on the screen. Pointedly she glances down to Roy's barely conscious body, deciding quickly that he's not going anywhere.

"Hi." She exhales into her phone, nearly out of breath from the struggle of dragging Red such a long way. Between her ankles Roy rolls his head on his shoulders, his ear getting caught in the height of the arches on her left foot and folding slightly as he rests his cheek precariously on her sock.

"Hey." Wally sighs back through the speaker. Without really knowing why she imagines his hand is pressed against the back of his neck, the awkward silence stretching between them for a long moment as she cranes her neck around the corner, checking the time. _40 minutes._ "So get this. I'm sitting here in my living room, flicking through the TV channels. Guess what movie is on?"

She pauses, listening hard to the attempted cheerfulness of his tone. "I don't know." She says a little warily, eyes quickly dropping when she sees movement out of the corner of her eye; Roy's arm flops a little clumsily onto his stomach, hand trailing up to rub at his face.

"... It's that goddamn Julia Roberts movie. The one from the 1980's? I swear, it's always on. I think there's a whole channel committed to just playing it on a loop twenty-four hours a day."

She doesn't know why but her eyes narrow, as if to scrutinize Wally and his babbling even though he's not here. "... This is why you're calling me?" She says dryly, inhaling sharply when she feels a wobbly hand probing the fabric of her sock, her leg jerking back from Roy's touch when his finger dips into the top of the cotton and brushes too intimately against her bare ankle. "T-to tell me what you're watching Pretty Woman?"

"No." Wally says defensively, and in her mind she sees the hand that's on his neck flying out exasperatedly. "I'm calling to tell you... I don't know. That I miss you? I guess?"

"Wally, we just saw each other yesterday." She sighs, trying to sound annoyed as she hops another step back and away from Roy's hand, still intent on drunkenly pursuing her sock.

"Not like that." She hears the sharp breath he exhales and decides it's in her best interest to get back to the Roy situation– she can tell that whatever Wally wants to say is going to take a while for him to get out properly, and she's already wasted two of her precious minutes listening to him babble on the phone. Bending down again, she forces Red's hand back to his side as it grabs a little questioningly at her knee, wincing as he realizes the pain she's literally kicked into him.

Roy gurgles at her again, thankfully too drunk to quite manage speaking yet; Wally, on the other hand, seems to figure out where he's going with this just as she pinches her phone between her ear and her shoulder, heaving Roy's torso again. "... I don't know. It just feels like things have been weird between us lately. And I'm kind of tired of pretending it hasn't been."

She hears the sound of her own huff into the phone, the puff of air sounding like a dramatic sigh rather than a reaction to Roy's skull flopping back hard into her stomach, blue eyes staring up at her confusedly as if wondering who she is and what she's doing. "Okay." She says distractedly.

Wally hesitates, reading the stress of her breathing and her response incorrectly. "... Remember the first time we watched this together?" He says a little pleadingly.

 _As if she could forget_ , she thinks, and she tells him as much. "It was the first time you held my hand."

She can hear herself barely mask a groan, Wally chuckling as she heaves again, pulling Roy much more slowly now that her one side is hindered. "Yeah." He laughs, pausing as if to remember it again. "I just... I don't know why it was so much easier then."

"What was easier?" She asks, trying to sound nonchalant through gritted teeth.

She released Roy just in time, her nose wrinkling as his whole body flings forward, the muscles in his back and stomach clenching and heaving as more gooey remains of liquor and bar food dribble down his front. She's hardly listening to what Wally's saying, her hand reaching up to press against her receiver and blocking out the sound of Roy's gasping to haul air into his lungs. "Everything, I guess? I mean, I knew there was stuff about you that I didn't know, and I knew there was stuff you probably weren't going to tell me. But it just didn't matter to me. I just..." Something shifts in his voice, and when he breaks off the pause his voice sounds lower, more inviting in a way that forces her to listen. "... I just wanted you. Really bad."

She has the sense to remove her hand from the receiver, staring with slightly wide eyes at Roy as he slumps backwards into her arms again. "Oh." She says dumbly, pinching the phone against her neck again and wincing when Roy gags loudly.

Wally pauses, listening hard and no doubt wondering what he just heard; again she can just tell his brows are furrowing, bothered so much by her silence and lack of response that he's suddenly babbling into the phone. "I don't know why I just said that. I mean– it's true– but maybe this wasn't... I'm missing my point. Just... Remember how easy it was before? Can we go back to that?"

"Wally–"

"I mean, not _entirely_." He amends, as if sensing that she's about to dismiss it. "Obviously I still want to be your boyfriend. I'm just saying–"

"Wally." She says more forcefully, warning him with the urgency of her tone to be quiet. "Look, this isn't a good time, okay?"

"Oh." Wally listens to her heavy breathing, allowing one beat of curious silence. "I uh... Okay. Sorry. Is there a better time we could–?"

Roy's boot catches on the doorway to her mother's bedroom and she pulls him free with an almost unfeminine grunt; she's not quite braced for the impact of the movement, her weight hitting her bad leg in the same spot again as she rocks back, the same unpleasant yet all too familiar strike of pain sounding through her whole body as her back collides against the wall, crying out with a gasp.

"Artemis?" She hears Wally calling her name through the speaker of her phone, her hand barely managing to keep it pressed against her ear as she pants, trying to keep the second strike of pain from blocking out her vision with blackened spots. "Artemis, babe, is everything–"

Roy, having landed flat on his back, looks up at her with blurry eyes, mouth finally capable of forming words. "-Eshire?" He slurs, reaching for her questioningly.

 _And she doesn't know why but she feels bile rising in her own throat; feels her hatred for her sister radiating through her whole body as Roy's hand finds her knee, thumb stroking almost tenderly against the sensitive point of her knee cap in a way that strikes a whole different kind of pain through her body. He thinks she's her sister and she hates it, hates that he sees parts of that cruel person in her, hates that he can look upon that part of her and still touch her in such a soft and entirely disgusting way..._

She kicks his hand off of her, ignoring the way he yelps and instead pressing the phone more tightly to her ear, listening to the sound of Wally's voice and the way he keeps saying her name frantically. "I-I'm fine, Wally." She says into the receiver, wishing it were true. "I just– Roy's here. I don't know how." She lies quickly, before he can pull the truth out of her and force her to relive all the awful feelings seeing Jade has brought about tonight; a larger part of her wants to save him from this, save him from the horrors of her childhood. "I don't know how he got here. He's just... He's so drunk he can't walk. I'm dragging him into my room before my Mom gets home."

There's a half second where the only thing she can hear is the sound of Roy's continued groaning, tears dripping down his scratched and ruddy cheeks. Then, without saying goodbye, Wally hangs up on her.

* * *

"Okay, I'll say it." Wally says, glancing up at the Alice in Wonderland poster on her wall and trying to sound teasing. "Not exactly how I pictured seeing your room for the first time."

They both automatically glance down to where Roy is snoring loudly in Jade's old bed, a line of drool dripping down his mouth and seeping into her sister's old pillow.

She shifts uncomfortably from where she's sitting on the mattress, her knees knocking together a little anxiously and colliding with the edge of her bedside table. He's been in her apartment for nearly twenty minutes, moving silently around her floor boards and thankfully remaining hidden when she pokes her head out of her bedroom door to clean up Roy's sick and say goodnight to her now-present mother. She doesn't know why she's so nervous, doesn't know why her muscles are still tensed as if waiting to leap up and attack some sort of unknown threat. She feels as if the boundaries between her old life and her new one are being pressed too closely together, the friction between them no doubt going to ignite before she can properly staunch the heat; she wants Wally out of her apartment, she wants him and his prying eyes away from every dark part of her past should they see something inexcusable, too dirty to be touched.

Wally's sprawled out where she normally sleeps as if he belongs there, his hands folded behind his head and looking completely unbothered by the presence of a drunken Roy opposite them; one of his knees nudges her in the back when she doesn't immediately respond, her anxious eyes fixed on her alarm clock and counting down the seconds until Kaldur will arrive and help them remove Roy. "Sorry to disappoint, _Wallman_." She says mechanically, pressing herself even closer to the edge of the bed and away from his familiar heat. "... It's not exactly how I pictured it either."

Even though her back is to him she can feel his eyes change focus, can tell by the way he shifts against her bed that he's looking at her now instead of Roy; there's a couple beats of silence before she feels his fingers on her back, running over the pilled fabric that sits there. "Nice hoodie." He says quietly.

"... Souvenir." She forces herself to say, sounding more squeaky than cheeky as she glances back at him over her shoulder distractedly.

Wally simply looks at her for a moment, the crinkles around his eyes fading slightly. "You okay?" He asks, and as if he already knows the answer he sits up on his elbow, the hand on her back gripping the fabric more tightly.

She doesn't quite know how to answer and settles on leaning back into him, her knees pulling up automatically as she folds in on herself, trying to obscure Roy from view. A small part of her feels like crying; feels like pulling him against her and weeping into the fabric of hic jacket, feels like telling him the truth: _she's finally seen her lunatic sister and things are just as broken between them now as they've been since she was ten years old._ She feels like screaming that Roy and Jade are _sleeping together_ and whining about how disgusting she finds it. Most of all she feels like grabbing him by the shoulders and either kissing him or throttling him, because things between them feel more precarious now than they ever have before, and she doesn't know how to fix it, not without frightening him or overwhelming him to the point that he'll leave her, _just like everyone else..._

"I'm fine." She says blankly after a few seconds, thankful for the excuse to break eye contact with Wally when Roy lets out a croaky burp in his sleep.

"... I don't get why he came here." Wally says when Roy quiets, both of them now watching him shift beneath the blankets. "He was just on your couch when you got home?"

She hesitates. "Yeah." She lies, thinking of the look Jade had worn when she had watched him sleeping on the couch, thinking of the affection on her face and how it had made her stomach churn. "I don't get it either."

* * *

Kaldur arrives shortly, but even between the three of them it takes a ridiculous amount of time to maneuver Roy down the fire escape of her apartment.

"Apologies, friend." Kaldur mutters for the second time as they bang Roy's skull against the railing, adjusting his grip on Roy's shoulders. "Are you sure it is not possible to simply remove him via the elevator?"

She snorts into Roy's chest, the way she's carrying him practically smashing his sternum into her chin. "Yeah, because that's what I want my mother to see. Me parading three boys out of my room, one of them unconscious. Every parent's dream, right there." Behind her Wally snorts back a laugh, uselessly propping up Roy's feet with one arm and hardly doing much of anything to help.

They've just made it to street level when Kaldur turns to her, carrying Roy like a dead body across his back and avoiding her gaze, looking almost accusingly at the fire escape they've just descended. "... Perhaps you should come with us too." He says gravely, making clear it's less a suggestion and more an order than anything else.

She ignores the questioning look Wally fires at her and instead keeps her surprised glare focused on Kaldur, wondering why he's commanding her to leave her home in the dead of the night when she's done nothing wrong. It's beginning to rain, the streets of Gotham damp and soaking through the thin material of her cotton socks.

Kaldur turns his back on her and Wally, stumbling slightly under Roy's weight and ignoring her when she whispers the word _"fuck"_ under her breath.

In this moment she realizes she hates him. But she still follows.

* * *

She's told to simply wait when they arrive at the Cave; Kaldur wants to check Roy over for injuries and make sure he doesn't need to go to an actual hospital. She quickly dismisses Wally's offer to wait up with her, not sure if she can trust herself to be in his presence for very long without breaking down and telling him what actually happened. When he tries to argue with her she reminds him he has a calculus test in the morning, and ridiculously he disappears without needing telling twice.

At first she rips through her bedroom like the wind that's beginning to pound against the walls of the Cave; her clothes, still soaked from the Gotham rain are ripped unceremoniously from her body and shoved into a corner of her room, her mind to preoccupied to even bother with hanging Wally's sweater on the back of her chair to dry properly. She doesn't know what Kaldur's getting at, doesn't understand why he forced her to come back to the Cave with him and Wally; _as far as he knows she's done nothing wrong, where does he get off..._ She paces violently around her bedroom once, naked with her skin still prickling from the cold, before she realizes she should get dressed and drags her soaking limbs into a fresh pair of jeans and a tee shirt.

She alternates between trying to sleep and trying desperately to keep herself awake. She doesn't know why she's nervous, she just knows that Kaldur's been behaving oddly since Tula arrived and she's still not entirely sure if they're on good terms on not. At three in the morning she practically rubs her face raw with her own impatience. It's been agony, being this exhausted and being too anxious to sleep; her eyes are bloodshot and incredibly itchy, so much so that by the time she remembers she's still wearing make-up she's scrubbed two massive black smudges from the border of her lashes to the tops of her cheeks. After what feels like hours she finds herself buried beneath blankets with her favorite book, unable to resist the temptation of the coziness of her sheets any longer.

She jolts awake when she hears her door open abruptly, throwing her blankets off her body a little jerkily as if she hasn't just been woken from a nervous half-sleep; stupidly she squints at the bright light of the hallway that's leaking into her bedroom, trying to force her tee shirt to lie flat and unwrinkled upon her stomach. "Apologies." She hears Kaldur murmur, one hand still on her door knob and looking as if he's unsure whether or not to advance into her bedroom. "Did I wake you?"

"No." She lies, sitting up straighter and brushing chunks of her hair out of her mouth. "No, of course not. What time is it?"

Kaldur seems to get the courage to advance a little further, clicking the door shut and blocking out the light in the hall. "A moment or two after five in the morning. I can return later, if–" He cuts himself off, eyes lingering on the smudges of make up. "If you would prefer to sleep."

"It's fine." She says insistently, deciding there's no way to be discrete when she licks the tips of her thumbs, swiping hopefully at the black stains below her eyes. "... How is he?"

Kaldur seems to take his time with answering, crossing her bedroom with even paces and hands folded neatly behind him. "Sober, finally." He says, the corners of his lips quirking upwards in the ghost of a half smile before he promptly forces his mouth back into a serious line. "His ribs and shoulder are bruised and he has an infection in his left eye, I am not sure what from. Black Canary is tending to him as we speak." He pauses, coming to a stop at the foot of her bed. "May I sit with you?" He asks politely.

She doesn't know why the formality of the request bothers her, but it does; she's not used to things being so stiff between them, so distant. The way he's looking at her, as if he doesn't know her at all, makes her stomach squirm uncomfortably in the same way it does whenever she looks at Jade; like she's looking at someone she used to know in another life, on a different timeline.

More to annoy him than anything she shrugs, not giving him the satisfaction of her consent; after a few awkward seconds when he doesn't move immediately she sighs and nods at him, realizing quickly that they won't get anywhere if she doesn't go along with whatever game he's playing. "Yes, _Kal_ , you can sit with me." She drawls out, hating when he nods back at her, satisfied.

He waits for her to pull the covers up over her breasts and smooth the blankets up over her legs before he settles on the very edge of her bed; he's acting as if he's never been in here before, never been this close to her, _like he doesn't want to touch her_. She catches herself scowling when he presses his elbows against his knees, webbed palms pressing together, joints popping and flexing as she loses him for a moment to his own thoughts. "... I am here to ask you to tell me the truth." He says severely, glancing at her and cutting her off when she opens her mouth, looking annoyed. "I am not finished, Artemis." He says curtly, waiting for her to close her mouth and grit her teeth together angrily before he speaks again. "I am not here for the story you told Wally. You withhold secrets from him, whatever your reasoning for doing so may be. I am asking for the real version of what happened tonight, nothing withheld to protect yourself or... Others."

" _Others_?" She scowls at him, hating that her upper lip is pulling back and she's snarling at him like she's some sort of dog. "... Roy's been up and talking then, has he?"

"Roy has been babbling in his drunkenness." Kaldur says evenly, glaring just as ferociously back. "... I am waiting, Artemis."

For a moment she just looks at him, disbelieving that of all the people Kaldur is demanding the truth from her; she's always thought of him as on of her best friends, on of her greatest allies, _one of the few people on the Team who would always be in her corner no matter what the circumstances were_. Now he's looking at her suspiciously, like he has no measure of who she is, as if he actually suspects she would do... _something._

Automatically her hands go to the corner of her blanket, clenching tightly around the duvet cover. "... _Cheshire_ brought him to me." She says through her teeth, nails digging through the thinness of the quilt and into her palms painfully. "I don't know how she got him there, because The League is supposed to be watching the apartment." She pauses, blinking once at him as his gaze drops hers and he goes back to glaring at her hands in such a guilty way that her shock and anger immediately flares up. " _Wait_. U-unless that was lifted without my knowledge? Kaldur?"

 _... He thinks she's smuggling criminals into her apartment..._

She narrows her eyes at him and is surprised when he immediately flexes his digits, hands spread wide and revealing the thin webbing between his fingers. "... That guard was there to protect your mother as much as it was to watch the both of you. I requested to have it lifted, once your intentions were clear and Sportsmaster was in prison."

" _And you just decided not to tell me?_ It would have been nice to have a heads up, Kal." She snarls. "You do realize that it's not just me who depends on that type of security? My mother's in a goddamn wheelchair. And Cheshire has proven herself to be a threat time and time again–"

Kaldur scowls at his hands, looking properly angry despite the fact that his chin drops almost guiltily, cutting a sharper line between the thickness of his neck and his jaw. "We are not here to discuss my secret keeping, nor my reasoning behind it." He reminds her.

"Like _hell_ we aren't!" She bursts out, nearly yelling. "And what about after you saw the security footage of Cheshire kidnapping Roy? It never occurred to you that she could very easily do that to me too? _Or my mom?_ " She says accusingly, glaring more ferociously at him. Kaldur hesitates, as if trying to find the reasoning that's hidden inside his own head, and in his silence she finds herself flaring up at him even more. "So what, now that I'm no longer a suspected mole my life isn't worth saving anymore–"

"Artemis." Kaldur cuts her off before she can even finish, looking stern. "You know that is not true. Beside, Cheshire never kills her victims–"

She snorts in Kaldur's face. "Oh, how _comforting_. Silly me, it's not like the last time she was there she tried to stab me in the stomach or anything." She snarls, and against her better judgments she actually kicks out underneath he blankets, enjoying the way he jerks in surprise when her foot collides with his hip sharply.

Kaldur looks at her, clearly furious and struggling to keep his temper under control. "... You are more than capable of taking of yourself."

" _I know that_." She says through gritted teeth. "But what about my mom? What if Jade had snuck up on Paula? What if..." She cuts herself off, remembering the last time the two encountered each other and how bloody it had been. "... Kaldur, you can't just do stuff like this and not give me a heads up. She's my mom, she's..." She pauses again, closing her eyes pinching the bridge of her nose. "... You're supposed to be the fucking leader of this Team, Kal. _Start acting like it_."

When she opens her eyes she can see him noticeably stiffen, no longer unfocused in his anger; his milky eyes are sharp, glaring at her dead in the face and immediately she knows that she's over stepped a line. " _Excuse me_?" He says, voice deadly low and no longer his usual welcoming tenor.

"I–" She starts, immediately quailing and forcing herself to scowl. "You heard me." She snarls, finding courage in the affronted look on his face.

Kaldur opens his mouth once before closing it, looking furious. "It is not under your realm of authority to question mine." He says lowly, seething. "If you have an issue with the way I run this Team, I suggest–"

"Of course I have an issue with the way you're running it!" She bursts out, sitting up straighter against her headboard. "Kaldur, what the hell has been going on with you lately? This isn't like you; _you don't tell me anything anymore,_ you're going behind my back and not letting me know when security measures that _keep my mom safe_ are lifted... _What the hell_ , I mean, it's like ever since..." She trails off, and as if he knows what she's about to say Kaldur's eyes suddenly leave hers, his glare now focused on the wall.

There's a second where she actually thinks he might hit her; all the muscles on his tattooed arms are popping wildly, his shoulders tight as he balls his flexed palms into fists. Then all at once he's exhaling sharply, doubling over a little pathetically and burying his face in his hands. "I..." He begins, swallowing loudly. "I have been foolish. Please–"

" _Kaldur_." She says sharply, cutting off his apologies. "Kaldur, tell me what's going on."

He hesitates again, lifting his head from his hands and looking troubled. "My head is being played by a foolish heart. I am sorry, Artemis. I..." He pauses, finally looking at her again. "Tula said something, when I had told her what happened tonight. It was not meant to be taken seriously but in my haste–"

"God, Kaldur." She snarls dryly, bristling at him and curling her fingers tightly against her blanket. "You're kidding me." She stops, by now so beyond annoyed with him that she can't speak for a moment. "... All this because of Tula? Do you even... I'm going to–" She sighs, shaking her head and deciding it probably isn't smart to go around making threats he knows she's more than capable of enforcing. "I thought we were close. I thought you were... I feel like I don't know you anymore."

Kadur frowns, going back to glaring at the floor. "I am sorry. It was foolish to suggest—"

"Like hell it was _foolish_!" She snaps at him, glaring when he continues to look forlorn at the ground. "… We're supposed to be friends, Kal. You said it yourself, on this Team we _trust_ each other." She snarls, finally feeling better now that she's voicing all the thoughts that haven been buzzing angrily in her head every time he avoids her questioning looks. "What happened to that? Did it even mean anything to you? I've been fighting beside you for months, I've risked my life time and time again on your order, and still... And all because if some stupid comment made by a _dumb_ Atlantean girl who's been here less than twenty seconds, if that's enough to undo—"

 _She's never going to earn anyone's trust; she's always going to be mauled to pieces and just be scattered, broken bits of bone left over from her childhood... She's never going to get over it, they aren't either, she's destined to live the rest of her life in exile_ –

To her surprise Kaldur gets to his feet abruptly, glaring down at her in a way he's never done before. " _Enough_. I have already apologized. I am leader of this team, Artemis. You are not to question my reasoning."

Instead of backing down from his barking tone she catches herself rising to it, the stress of the evening's events souring her mood; suddenly she's on her feet too, snarling at him as her blankets crumple in a mess atop her mattress. "Someone should!" She bursts out. "These days I hardly see you, let alone know what you're thinking. You don't come to training anymore, _no_ , your _lovesick ass_ is too busy running after Tula—"

" _Artemis_." He interjects warningly.

"—Hoping Garth won't notice what you're doing. It's disgusting, Kal. He sees it, we all see it, why do you think he won't leave you alone with her for a minute—"

"That is enough." He says darkly, and this time she gets the sense that she's finally pushed him a bit too far, his face malevolent and twisted and unlike anything she's ever seen his features wear before.

Suddenly her voice is dying in her throat, annoyance still at the forefront of her mind despite not being brave enough to say anything else. Instead she inhales and exhales twice, her bloodshot eyes blinking rapidly at the floor. "… Sorry." She says to the carpet, not meaning it.

"It is forgiven." He says stiffly back.

She's never really fought with Kaldur and she can already tell she hates it; hates that suddenly for the first time the air is tense between them, so much so that it actually makes her lungs ache when she inhales and exhales again, trying to calm down. "... I'm sorry, Kal, that was out of line." She says sincerely. "That was—I didn't mean it. I just… You haven't been yourself lately, and I miss you. I've just been wondering what's going on."

When she finally gets the courage to glance at Kaldur he's still looking at his feet, looking troubled and still slightly angry with her. "… I have not been myself lately. That is true." He admits, crossing his arms over my chest. "I know I have been distant… It has not been easy, having Tula and Garth around. I believe I was mistaken, thinking it would be a good idea to have them close, especially when Tula is..." He pauses, looking up at her. "I believe Tula is suspicious of the nature of our relationship. I know it has seemed like I have been pushing you away, and perhaps I have." He adds the last part weakly, looking ashamed. "I am sorry if my judgment has been marred by my desire to..." He trails off, his cheeks darkening.

"Kal." She says his name weakly, not sure what else to offer him as her cheeks redden, silently willing him not to finish that sentence.

He seems to get a lot more out of the word than she does, his head nodding in acknowledgment as he sits back down beside her. "You are right, about the lovesickness. It has been… _distracting_ , and clearly inhibited my judgement." Finally his milky eyes find hers. "I apologize for insulting you, for being suspicious and for whatever other ways I have hurt you. You have my word that anything I have broken or undone will be fixed."

She's a little off-put by how quickly the fight has been resolved; she doesn't know why but she'd been expecting him to drag it out, to keep yelling at her in the same way Wally would had she said something similar to him. A little confusedly she licks her thumb again, still scrubbing at the smudged make-up and blinking up at him confusedly. "...Okay." She says warily.

If he notices her wince when he reaches for her hand he ignores it, cool skin wrapping around her wrist and pulling it from her face. "Again, Artemis." He says, clenching her hand between both of his. "I am sorry for my mistakes. Your forgiveness and your patience with me are..." He smiles at her weakly, releasing her. "... You will pardon the question, but I have never had a sibling to fight with. Am I correct to assume that it feels something like this?"

For some reason, despite seeing her sister and still feeling raw about it, she catches herself trying to grin at him. "Well, you know. Mine were always a bit _bloodier_."

And it's easy, the way it always is with Kaldur; in an instant she can feel the direction of the conversation changing, can feel the lightness that's always there returning, and even though she still hears the stickiness and vileness of the words they've just said to each other echoing inside her mind she no longer feels like it matters. And maybe that's why she's been feeling so anxious lately; Kaldur is her best confidant, her closest friend, losing him to the invasion of Garth and Tula had been awful; maybe now things will start getting better...

"Come." Kaldur says for a moment, tugging gently on her hand. "There is something I must ask of you."

"What?" She asks warily, letting him lead her towards the door.

For some reason Kaldur dons a very uncharacteristic smirk, making a gesture for her to lead the way out of her bedroom. "Let's call it a gift, to make up for my behavior." He says slyly, finally answering her questioning look after a moment. "I have decided to allow you to be present when I question Roy."

She feels her mouth twist into a slightly malicious smile, the knowledge that Red has just spent the last few weeks sleeping with her sister churning somewhat disgustingly at the front of her mind. " _Goodie."_

* * *

Kaldur leads her down one of the more abandoned hallways in the Cave. She knows that the medical bay is in this part of the building but that's about the extent of her knowledge; this area of the Cave is so far gone from their bedrooms or the actual living quarters, there isn't much of a reason to enter this part of the building save for their own frank curiosity.

She doesn't thank Kaldur when he opens a seemingly random door for her; She supposes the hallway they're walking down is filled with conference rooms exactly like this one, each painted with identical grey walls that match the carpet. She has enough time to take in an vast amount of chairs, her eyes scanning the length of a long mahogany table before they stop moving altogether, pulling in matching flops of ginger hair.

Wally looks up when she crosses the room in too quick paces, taking in her messy hair and smudged make-up with slightly wide eyes. "Babe." He says in greeting, standing as if out of respect for a general rather than his girlfriend.

She ignores him entirely in her annoyance with the situation, instead focusing on the other figure and just now remembering the mess he had left on her carpet back in the tiny Gotham apartment. "Red." She sneers in greeting, pulling up a chair beside Wally.

Roy doesn't respond immediately, still looking a little drunk as he lifts a glass of water from the table. There's a stiff moment in which he avoids her eye, Adam's apple bobbling as he swallows clumsily, some liquid spilling over the edges of his cracked and chapped mouth and dripping onto his tee shirt _(which she realizes with a jolt is Wally's_ – _the words Keystone High are stretched too tight across his chest, ill fitting)_ before he smacks his lips, placing the now empty glass back on the ring of moisture he's left on the table. "Artemis." He says back evenly.

She wants to beat him senseless, and if knowing what she's about to do Wally places his hand on top of where hers is resting on the table, affectionately squeezing but effectively pinning her against the wood. Noticing the movement Roy raises a brow. "When did that happen?" He asks dryly, looking pointedly at their hands.

"A lot has happened in your absence." Kaldur says evenly before either of them can respond, closing the door behind him and walking in even paces around the table. "Perhaps if you tell us of your happenings we will tell you of ours."

"You say that as if this isn't an interrogation." Roy snorts, switching his wry gaze from Kaldur to the two of them. "Any reason why the two brats have to be here?"

Wally ears redden. "Dude, I carried you down a fire escape." He says darkly despite his relaxed position in his chair. "Pretty sure that gives me a right to know why."

When Roy's eyes turn to her she scowls. "You puked on my carpet, asshole."

Kaldur takes a seat opposite Wally. "Roy." He says warningly, ignoring the way Red winces at the use of the old name. "You get a choice of being interrogated by us or the League. I do not believe I would be wrong in saying that you are getting the better end of the bargain here."

She doesn't blame Roy for suddenly sitting up straighter, doesn't hold fault to the nervous muscle that jumps in his cheek; it's times like this, when Kaldur speaks so slowly and so dangerously, that remind her why they elected who they did to lead the Team. She smirks when Roy's hands reach out nervously to play with his empty cup. "Start from the beginning." She sneers.

They all watch as Roy spins the glass in one clean rotation, smearing the line of condensation he's left behind further into the table. "... The beginning." He repeats a little hazily, almost half snorting– she has the distinct impression that there's still a little bit of alcohol in his system, blurring his thinking. "... I guess I just got tired." He says frankly, the tail end of his sentence trailing off into a wry chuckle. "I was living with Ollie after New Years. He kept trying to have Black Canary round for dinner..." He looks over at her imploringly. "You know Ollie. He won't let anything sit. He kept wanting me to talk about emotions and other _crap_..."

"Yeah, I know Oliver." She admits dryly, remembering what she went through when she thought Jade had been murdered by her mother.

Roy finally releases the glass, one hand running across his forehead and pushing his overlong hair out of his face, gradually growing more serious and less sarcastic as he does so. "I got out on my own in Star City. Made sense, going solo for a bit, just to help me get my head on straight. It felt good, too. You know, having a couple drinks, beating in a couple petty criminals' faces... Like I was useful. And then..." Roy pauses, glancing at her as if for help.

Wally and Kaldur both look bemused as Roy trails off, eyes drifting towards her again almost nervously. Taking pity on him she decides to finish his sentence. "... You found Jade." She says quietly, Wally's fingers tightening on her hand.

"No." Roy says, sparing their hands another glance before he runs his palm over his face, wincing when it touches his bad eye. " _Cheshire found me_." He sighs, looking despaired. "I thought I was going crazy. I'd think I was being followed, kept thinking I was being watched, kept hearing weird noises in my apartment at night or seeing faces in crowds... I didn't even make it two weeks until she finally decided it wasn't fun anymore and cornered me. She told me she had some information about Speedy, that she'd be willing to give it to me, in exchange for..." He trails off, something lecherous in his tone not prompting any of them to ask for clarification. "She told me that there was something of interest at Cadmus."

Beside her Wally shakes his head. "Bats and the rest of the League cleared that place weeks ago."

" _I know_." Roy grits out between his teeth. "I know, I don't know why I... But Guardian and I went, we swept every inch of all the fifty-two levels, even the ruins of Genomorph City... Nothing. But I had promised Cheshire. And I had to go back to her."

There's another pause in which she actually feels her stomach churn, not quite up to meeting Wally's gaze when he glances at her. "It wasn't that bad." Roy says after a while, looking over at her. "She's okay, your sister. A little rough around the edges. She let me talk when I wanted to but kept me from wallowing. Could have been worse." He says a bit gruffly. "Everything was so hectic in February, what with what happened in Metropolis. Cheshire started manipulating the tracker GA put on my gear to make sure they fed fairly usual locations, made it seem like I was keeping a regular schedule. Although I doubt he was checking; he was too busy in the hospital with _you_."

There's an odd note of jealousy in his voice and without thinking she looks up, a challenging glare on her face. "Oh gee, Roy. I'm sorry my almost _dying_ hurt your feelings." She sneers. "Why did you leave, anyway? Decide you wanted to come home and stake your own claim on _Ollie?"_

"No." He says back almost defensively. "I just... I got tired, again, I guess. Tired of hiding and not knowing what was happening. But... Cheshire didn't like that." He says the last part quietly. "But she was ready for me. She'd been saving something just in case I tried to run out on her, or tried to leave... It changed everything."

There's a long pause in which they all stare at him, his voice breaking when he speaks. "Guardian is a clone too." He says severely, fingers back to anxiously spinning the glass. "Cheshire broke into Lex Luthor's office weeks ago, way before the Metropolis attack, stole the intel as a means of control, she was trying to get me into staying permanently... She had a little USB memory stick that told us everything we needed to know. Guardian isn't even a clone of my– Speedy's uncle, Jim Harper, he was made from Speedy's DNA just like I was, just forced to age up longer... While the real Jim Harper is rotting in an unmarked grave somewhere."

She has enough time to exchange a worried glance with Wally before she nearly jumps out of her seat; Kaldur's back to his authoritative voice, loud and commanding in the chair opposite. "Where is Guardian?"

"In hiding–"

"Red." Kaldur says seriously, placing a palm on Roy's shoulder. "You must help us find him. We need to get him to Miss Martian so we can cleanse any Cadmus programming from his mind, he could pose a serious danger to himself and the rest of the League–"

Roy shakes his head, looking troubled before he buries his face back in his hands. "I don't know where he is, Kaldur. After we found out we both ran; we both wanted to just get away from each other and Cheshire, I haven't seen him in weeks..." Roy trails off, emerging from his hands. "I've barely contacted _anyone._ I've just been trying to hide from Cheshire; she kept messing with my GPS signals, making it impossible for the League to find me and impossible for me to run... It doesn't matter. You guys saw the rest. I've been... _living with her_ in her apartment in Gotham the last few weeks."

"How did you get away though?" Wally interjects.

"She let me go a couple days ago. We were at each other's throats... Kind of hard to enjoy the sex when you're screaming in each other's ears, you know?" He says gruffly, smirking slightly when she grimaces. "I just wanted a drink, wanted to clear my head, and I ended up at a bar."

Wally's hand tightens on hers. "And you just happened to stumble onto my girlfriend's couch?"

Roy blinks confusedly for a moment, and across the table Kaldur glances at her. "I... No. I got into a bar fight with a couple Gotham burnouts. Cheshire found me and brought me to Artemis', she knew she'd be able to contact the League."

There's a half second where Wally's hand goes so tight on hers that she actually sees her skin whiten, the blood now pumping quickly through her veins failing to reach her finger tips. She cringes when Wally's head swivels towards her, glaring. "... Jade brought him there?" He repeats, voice dangerously even. "... You saw Jade?" Wally watches her open and close her mouth for a moment, looking furious. "Did you just _forget_ to mention that to me?"

Before she can stop him he's violently let go of her hand, knocking his chair out from behind him and storming out of the room. "Wally!" She calls after him a little too late, the door already slamming shut behind him.

 _No. No, no no no no_ –

She turns back when she hears a snort break the silence, Red looking at her meanly across the table. "... You're a filthy liar just like your sister, aren't you?" Roy says almost teasingly, as if to break the tension.

She almost punches him clean in the jaw but manages to stop herself when Kaldur sends her a stern look. "Excuse me." She snarls, chasing after Wally.

* * *

She leaves the room and immediately has no idea which way to go. She has no clue which way Wally went; she's completely unfamiliar with the layout of this part of the building, the empty hallway not even giving her the hint of ruffled papers or any other articles shifting from the movement of his running. Blindly, still in a bit of a haze from her anger _at Roy_ and _herself_ and _worry for Wally_ she turns right, sprinting.

"Wally?" She calls, coming to another cross point; she hardly glances down the right, which she can see is just another long stretch of blank walls and doors. She smells cool, fresh air and hears the thunderous slamming of waves against the shore to her left, and without a second thought she charges onward, moving so quickly that she clips her shoulder on the edge of the archway.

She wishes they had just gotten up and left when Roy asked them to leave, wishes she hadn't heard what had been happening in the months since the New Year. Most of all she wishes she had trusted that instinct, the one she felt so compelled by in her bedroom with Wally; she wishes she had told him sooner, hadn't lied to him, had allowed herself to cry and be comforted... _It's just the same old story again and again, her running and him play catch up, after all this time nothing has really changed and she hates it, she hates herself_... The hallway widens and she realizes she's in the air hanger; she looks around a little confusedly until she spots the emergency exit, red light flashing above it and signalling that it's recently been opened.

The wind whips her the end of her pony tail against her cheeks when she emerges outside, her own hand impatiently unsticking the ends of her hair from the surprisingly wetness leaking out of her eyes. She doesn't have time to be crying, _doesn't have time to panic or be a child about this_ ; she needs to focus, she needs to find Wally, she needs to figure out what she wants to say to him that could possible stop him from walking away.

She's in the small grove of trees that conceals the opening of the air hanger from prying eyes, the small collection of trees and bushes and brush fading out towards the right as the grass changes into the sand of the beach. She can feel her own anxiousness beginning to bubble at the back of her throat, strangling her, making it difficult to breathe, and she doesn't have time to succumb to that part of her, not when every second Wally wanders away from her is another moment where he gets closer to leaving her _– she'll never catch up, he's gone he's gone he's gone and she hates herself–_

She allows herself a fraction of a moment to blink the blurriness and hair out of her face; the wind is still whipping around wildly off the water, the first few rays of morning sunshine trying and failing to burst across the horizon almost stomped out in the storm unfurling along the ocean. It's in these few rays of half-light that she sees him; he's only made it a few paces pasts the boundary when grass begins to bleed into the sand, hands in the pockets of his jeans and shoulders shrugged up in the unexpected cold. She's loud, clumsy with her movements, her feet so careless when she moves towards him that she's kicking up sand at the backs of his knees, unsurprised when he turns around to look at her, eyes narrowed.

"Wally–" She starts, cutting herself off when her voice breaks unexpectedly in the face of his glare, the absolute hatred she sees there sending her lips quivering embarrassingly. She doesn't know what she needs to say to him, doesn't know how to express all the feelings and thoughts whirring around in her head; she can feel the familiar grip of her own anxiety as it closes in around her throat, constricting her air flow and making it impossible for her to breath even with the blast of wind rolling off the water and slapping her in the face.

"You lied to me." He says severely, glaring at her harder when her chin wobbles pathetically. She doesn't know why but she doesn't even try to argue, her mouth closing more firmly and blocking out whatever avoidance she's planning on making. There isn't a point in deny him, not when she can hardly even look at him anymore, not when he's wearing that expression on his face; in the more distant parts of her mind she can hear the old memory of a _sai clattering against tile_ , can feel the same overwhelming dread bubbling up in her stomach and choking her now as it did then.

Her silence doesn't comfort him; if anything it makes him angrier, his feet advancing a few steps until he's practically bellowing in her face. "So what? You're not even going to look at me?" He yells, ducking his head and trying to catch her eye. "I don't even get to hear _why_? Artemis?"

"I don't know, okay?" She bursts out, wincing when he lets out one bark of malicious laughter.

"Okay, I see how it is–"

"Wally!" She can't stop herself from screaming his name, not when she sees his muscles shifting as if he's about to sprint from her; without thinking she reaches out and latches onto him, her nails digging sharply into his forearm and leaving two long, almost bleeding scratches when he jerks roughly out of her grasp. "Wally, just listen , okay? It just– It just seemed like it would be easier, you know? I just care about you _so much_ , I don't want you to see that part of me, I want us to only have good things together–"

"That's not what a relationship is, Artemis!" He snarls at her. "God, I don't want that, I don't– I don't lie to you, Artemis. And how many times do I have to say it– I want to hear about this things! I... You don't have to hide, okay? I want to know, I don't want this to be just another thing you compartmentalize and only take out when you need some cheering up, I just–" He pauses, and in the half beat of silence the wind howls around them; for some reason in this moment she feels the coldness of the air seeping into the bottoms of her feet, reaching through the soles of her boots and chilling her to the core. "... Unless that's what this is? _Just another secret for you to keep?_ Something to distract you from... Is that why we had to carry Roy down the fire escape? Because your Mom doesn't know about me?"

The honest answer is _yes_ , but she can't seem to bring herself to say it. "I'm sorry." She sobs, hating the way he looks away from her tears, as if they disgust him.

Wally shakes his head at the ground, shoulders hunching up as the air around increases in speed again; suddenly the wind is whipping his too long fringe into his eyes, making it impossible to read his expression. "I know, Artemis." He sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets again and sounding utterly defeated. "I know you're sorry. Just..." He hesitates, as if debating the horribleness of what he's about to say to her. "I'm just wondering how much longer this is going to go on. This whole trying to _protect_ me from stuff thing. Because, if I'm being honest... It lost its charm a long time ago, Babe."

The wind screams around them again, so loud that he can't hear the tiny sob that bubbles up out of her throat as the invisible fingers clenching there offer a moment of release. "What do you want me to do?" She asks after a second, wondering if he can even hear her mumbling. "I don't... I don't–"

"I know." He cuts her off, still glaring. "I get it, Artemis–"

"Do you?" She bursts out, finally get the courage to fight back. "Because I don't think you do."

Even in the dim light of the early morning she can see his ears redden. "Then explain it to me!" He yells back, one hand pressing against his forehead and pushing his bangs back. "If you don't think I get it then help me understand, okay?"

For a long moment she looks at him, her breasts heaving as she struggles to force air through inside her, struggles to keep her brain focused; she can feel it, the overwhelming sensation of anxiety beginning to take hold of her, beginning to drag her below the surface and drown her and she can't, _she can't explain it to him_ , can't talk to him, she doesn't know how she doesn't know how to–

She hears herself draw in a rattling breathe, the salted taste of the ocean on her tongue for a moment before she feels herself withdrawing; like a turtle back into its shell she feels herself shutting down, feels the anxiety take over and put up her best defense, forcing all the overwhelming emotions into an almost numbed silence. She no longer cares what promises she made to herself or him, she can almost hear the voice inside her head, the one hissing frantically _Artemis doesn't run anymore, not from Wally_ ; before she can stop herself she opens her mouth, voice as stiff as her prickled skin in the wind. "I'm cold." She says mechanically, turning her back on him. "I'm going inside."

She doesn't even make it one complete step before he grabs her, his palm slapping on her shoulder and tugging her roughly backwards; the force of the movement nearly topples her, her whole weight slamming backwards onto her bad leg as he twists her, the _lightening strike of pain_ sounding from her heel to the backs of her eyes, almost blinding her. She hears herself gasp out half in pain and half in shock, the blur of her own anxiousness disappearing like the spots in her eyes as they pull Wally's reddened and furious face into focus.

 _(and the apple eyes she so loves are unrecognizable; there's nothing familiar in the anger she sees there, no unexpected flecks of gold calling back to her, reminding her she's safe)_

She can feel the muscles of her biceps bruising as she clenches her, beginning to shake her, his finger nails breaking the exposed skin of her arms as her head rocks back violently. "Don't you _dare_ –" He snarls _(and suddenly she isn't fifteen anymore_ – _she's eleven and her father is shaking her, her teeth are chattering as he's swearing at her, calling her worthless;)_ and just as quickly she's looking at Wally but not really seeing him– the force of his shaking makes her bite her tongue and before she even thinks twice she's pulled her knee up and into his stomach, hand ready when he doubles over to slap him with every ounce of strength in her body.

She can hear the sound of her palm against his cheek, can hear the smack of skin on skin way louder than she can the sound of ocean water crashing against the shore, but nothing, _nothing_ , is loud enough to drown out the noise that comes out of this mouth _(it's that same goddamn noise she heard in her high school gym, the one that makes her sick to her stomach and somehow forces her to suck in a rattling breath, sounding like a deer in the woods that's been shot clean through the throat, blood and saliva and oxygen gurgling and spilling from the wound...)_ The force of her blow sends him stumbling back a few feet, his neck twisting so far to the right it looks as if it will snap, relentlessly making her to look at the rapidly reddening mark she's left on his cheek.

Seething, still not quite herself, she sends a piece of hair that's fallen in front of her face fluttering as she hisses at him, teeth bared. " _You do not get to touch me like that._ " She snarls. "You _aren't ever_ going to do that again."

Wally finally turns his head back to her, eyes so wide and scared; _she's no longer the creature he's trying to coax out of the woods, she's the wolf who's cornered him, who's just snapped at his leg and torn through the tendons and muscle..._ She's hurt him, finally hurt him, in the way she's always been afraid to do. Suddenly, as if her own fear is somehow sobering her, she feels herself come back; feels the way her fists unclench and how cold she is, inside and out... She can't help the way her expression cracks as the horror of what she's just done washes over her, the wrinkle over her nose is disappearing and her lower lip is quivering and she can't stop herself from closing her eyes, wanting to block out Wally and that look of terror and erase it from her memory forever. " _Oh my god."_ She whispers to herself, and without knowing why the only logical thing she can do is allow her knees to give out.

Wally doesn't move to comfort her; her hands are shaking, still stinging from hitting him as she scrubs her fingers over her cheeks, pulling at the hair around her face and trying to frighten the panic that's over taking her into hiding again. She feels as if she's a boat out on the water in front of them; she's barely afloat, waves crashing over her edges and threatening to drag her below but she can't capsize, not now, not when going under means dragging Wally with her. She hears herself gasp and gag on oxygen as she drags it into her system, limbs winding tightly together and locking her against the ground– _she won't move, she's never going to move, she's never going to be okay..._

"... Artemis?" She hears Wally say quietly from a few feet away.

She presses her forehead to her knees, trying not to sob. "I'm sorry–" She chokes out. "I... Just give me a second, please." She forces herself to focus only on her breathing, the way he taught her weeks ago. _In and Out. In and Out. In and Out, together..._

Wally is patient enough to allow her ten full seconds before he speaks again, sounding anxious. "Babe? ... Can I come over there?"

"No!" She bursts out, pushing her head further against her legs, hands dragging through her hair violently and ripping the elastic from her tresses. "Don't, Wally, I-I can't–"

Wally ignores her; she hears the sound of sand being kicked up, and a little more wildly than she wants to she lifts her head from her knees. "I'm serious!" She says desperately, legs unfurling as she scuttles clumsily away from him. " _Please_ , Wally–" She sobs, no longer too proud to beg when he advances on her, jerking backwards until she's on the slight bump that signals the change of sand into grass; she can feel her palms as they scramble in the dirt behind her, half balancing her weight and half clawing into the ground, as if trying to force her to _get a grip_. He makes it as far as crouching in front of her before she kicks out her foot ridiculously, boots catching him in the chest like it did days ago, forcing him to keep his distance.

"Artemis." He says her name seriously, gripping the heel of her boot and fighting with her to remove it, both of their muscles tightening and jerking until he pries it off his chest. "Babe–" He forces her thighs to part for him, and almost hazily she feels that old heat flaring up, the kind that would be so hot and wanting and much more pressing is she wasn't so upset; he's on his hands and knees, leaning over her and looking like he's just stumbled upon a kicked mutt skulking in an abandoned alley way. "I'm sorry, that was–"

It's his touch to her thigh that does it; it's so soft, the feeling of his hand rubbing small, reassuring circles nearly an inch below the scar they both know is there. Suddenly she's shaking and sobbing and entirely herself, no longer that storm of violence that attacked him; all she wants is him closer, comforting her, and without her permission she loops her leg around his hip, trying to pull him closer. "I'm sorry." She chokes out, coughing and sputtering and trying to force herself to breathe. "That... I don't even know. It's just... _Dad_ used to..." She trails off, and finds she's not brave enough to finish the sentence. "I'm so _sorry_ , Wally."

He looks at her, face still hard; she's waiting a little childishly for him to kiss her, for him to comfort her, for him to press the wetness of her tears into her cheeks and pull her into his lap. Instead his mouth opens, voice low but still almost cold. "... What did your Dad used to do?"

It catches her off guard, the sternness of the question, the way he rocks his weight backwards so he's no longer hovering between her legs. The way it's phrased sounds like an ultimatum, as if should she not give him an answer he'll get up and leave without glancing back. "You know what he did." She says almost pleadingly, voice breaking. "... Don't make me say it, please."

She doesn't know why but admitting it aloud, admitting that her father used to beat and terrify her, admitting that he used to dig the points of javelins into her neck and shake her until she thought her own blood would dribble out of her ears... It would make it more real, in some way. It would mean acknowledging that he beat her until a part of her broke, it would mean giving him some power over her, _it would mean that the scars he left on her body would define her again_.

Wally's eyes are narrowed at her but he's no longer angry, no longer glaring; instead he seems to be watching the process of her own thoughts behind her head, watching her own hesitation push itself out of her mouth, forcing her lips open and closed. There's a pause, a moment of silence so loud and so awful that she actually wonders if he'll to allow her to put herself out of her misery and sprint towards the ocean to drown herself. "... Come on, Artemis. Please? We aren't going to make it if you're always keeping me at an arms length."

She wasn't aware of dropping her chin and glaring at her knees but suddenly her eyes are wrenching upwards, focusing hard on his face. "... You want us to make it?" She says warily, almost skeptically.

Wally's ears blush crimson, bleeding into the pink light beginning to leak through the clouds on the water. "I... Yeah. Of course I do." He nods, as if reassuring himself. "I mean, it's not like I've picked out names for our kids or anything but... I don't know. I've taken bullets for you, Artemis." He says seriously, her stomach clenching tightly painfully tight. "Seems kind of stupid to pretend otherwise."

 _She doesn't know why but this resolution, not matter how small, makes up her mind for her._

She can feel her skin prickling from the wind still, the flesh on her cheeks feeling raw and red from the beating it's taking from the iciness of the breeze; rather than look at the intensity of the look on his face she slouches back onto her elbows, watching the movement of the clouds atop the water and allowing the breeze to flick her hair in front of her face. "... He was a shitty father, okay?" She blurts out before hesitating, wondering how best to explain how she feels to him. She doesn't have a plan, doesn't have a direction to talk in, not when she swore months ago to never tell him about this part of her past.

"I went through a lot, growing up. He didn't really... He didn't care about us, the way Mom did. We were just another tool for him to use, another face to point a gun at, another warm body he could throw in front of his own if the cops ever got too close." She pauses, spitting her hair out of her mouth. "And... And I don't know. I did what I had to survive, especially after Jade left and there wasn't anyone left to stop him. The stuff he made me do, it... I had to destroy parts of myself, had to turn things like feelings off, because if he saw anything there he would try to take it from me."

Even though she's not looking she can sense Wally staring at her, can sense the way his attention is now focused solely on her and trying to catch every word above the howling wind. "I don't want to talk about... _Specifics_ , okay?" She adds hastily. "There's not a point in analyzing every beating. They didn't have any rhyme or reason any way." She pauses as he shifts, pushing himself between her knees again. "But... Look. Before you, I-I never really planned on switching anything back on. And after a while I thought that this was just who I was... _Cold,_ and that there wasn't anything else there... And now you're here and I just feel like I'm two different people, and the part that's with you is just getting her bearings and... She has to learn how to do everything again, Wally."

She runs a hand over her face, pushing her tangled hair off her forehead and trying her best to look him in the eye. "I'm not _trying_ to be difficult, I swear. I just... I thought that part of me was dead, Wally... You're pulling stuff out of me that I don't know how to deal with, I'm not... _Trained for it_. And you're so sweet, and so caring, and I just... I don't know how to react to that. You're just going to have to be patient with me for a bit, okay?" She feels herself shudder into silence, waiting with almost baited breath to hear what he's about to say.

She flinches when his hand cups her cheek, thumb touching her softly as if wary of frightening her. "I'm sorry." He says quietly, tracing the outline of her lips. "I-I'm... God, come here, you're freezing." It's only when he says it that she realizes how true it is; all her skin is goose pimpled, her nipples taught and popping out against the thin cotton of her tee shirt, her frozen skin shivering and forcing her breaths to come in shuddering gasps that have nothing to do with her recent crying.

 _For the first time in her life, her instinct is to move closer._

She doesn't fight him when he tugs her upwards, hardly allowing her to sit up fully before he pulling her legs around his waist, his limbs folding like a cage around her. She can feel sand seeping into the folds of her jeans, can feel the hot point between her legs pressing against his belt buckle, but for once in her life she doesn't struggle for control, doesn't try to stop the way he's pressing her head into the joint of his shoulder, her arms winding around his neck and half wishing she could bury her whole being into the flesh coating his walnut flavored bones.

"Do you feel better?" He asks after a moment, hand pressing her loose hair against her skull and holding it there, his lips barely brushing her ear. "After talking, I mean?"

"... Not really." She says, even though it's not entirely true.

Wally sighs, chest shuddering against her breasts, his arms tightening around her. "I know I shouldn't keep pushing you." He says quietly, both of them blinking when the wind picks up her hair. "It's just... It's hard for me too. I'm not used to having to slow down for someone, if that makes sense. You're going to have to be patient with me too."

Something inside her tells her to pull back, her arms loosening around his neck as she looks him in the eye. "... Okay." She says vaguely, eyes dropping down to look at his lips.

It feels like the kiss on the Watchtower all over again, his lips soft and almost hesitantly pressing against hers as if they're never once traced the opening of her mouth before. It's not rushed, not frantic; it reeks of better things to come. Most of all she tastes gentleness, feels the way his arms cradle her against him as if his whole world is stretched clean across his lap, and despite the sweetness of the moment she pulls back, wondering why she ever thought this would be easy.

The wind blows again, still cold as ever, and as if they've been waiting for it a few new rays of light burst across the ocean.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter done! I'm going to try and update as much as possible during exams but I can't guarantee anything right now, which is a shame. Regular posting will for sure resume after the holidays.**

 **A quick Q &A**–

 **Q: Is Wally a virgin?**

 **A: Yes. While answering this I was considering revealing who on the Team isn't a virgin but I don't want to spoil my own story. You'll have to wait for some of those answers, but it might be funny to hear some of your guesses in the reviews!**

 **Q: Are Wally and Artemis _ever_ going to have sex?**

 **A: Hey, it says "rated M in later chapters" in the description for a reason! Keep in mind that this story spans the whole 5 year gap between season 1 and 2; there's plenty of time for these two to jump into a bed (besides, the build up is half the fun, even if it does get me a few red-faced reviews along the way.)**

 **Please read and review!**


	11. Lock Me Out, Knock Me Down

**AN: One last long chapter up before the holidays. Enjoy!**

 **Picks from the playlist: The Last Time by Taylor Swift, This is War by Ingrid Michaelson, and The Ice is Getting Thinner by Death Cab for Cutie.**

 **This chapter contains mild-sexuality.**

* * *

She doesn't know how long they sit there exactly; despite the fact that she can feel the cool metal of Wally's watch as it presses against her through her shirt she doesn't ask him the time, doesn't do much anything really that would warrant them moving.

 _She wants to hit pause, wants to freeze time still for just a few hours and live in this moment just a little longer._

For some reason she can feel herself memorizing how he feels against her, can feel the same part of her mind that had mapped his freckled cheeks in the closet so long ago begin to buzz against the surface of her skin. It's the same sensation now, the carefulness in which she measures the soft yellow light reflecting along the ocean water, the way the wind ruffles her hair and blows the storm out and away from the harbor; how Wally's chest is so warm against hers, her chin is pressed into the joint of his shoulder and neck, the way his belt buckle is catching on the fold of fabric that buttons her jeans as if threatening to undo them. She wonders if this moment, if the way Wally's arms are encasing her and the way he keeps pressing untraceable patterns into her spine with his palms, if all these little things will always linger with her, unforgotten and ready to be called up whenever she needs them.

 _Wally wants them to make it._

She doesn't know what he meant by saying it and isn't sure that she wants to ask, but she knows Wally well enough by now to have a small inkling... Wally's a planner. He's knows what he wants and what the future holds for him with a reasonable amount of confidence, knows where he's going and how to get there... It's a little frightening to her, to think that in his rush to follow the path he's carved for himself he's been thinking of dragging her along behind him, as if she doesn't have anything better to do than follow...

 _Well, she doesn't._

She's never planned a future, never been confident enough to place a bet on herself and her own abilities in the same way Wally is; her life thus far has been a series of steps, paces towards ensuring her survival... She's not like him, she doesn't plan what age would be ideal for officially joining the Justice League, doesn't plan which mantle she'll adopt when she finally outgrows the whole sidekick shtick _(she's seen Wally's list; it's awful, the idea of him even sitting around to jot a few ideas on a sheet of loose leaf, and yet none of that compares to the horribleness of the speed-related puns that are scribbled there.)_ All her planning has revolved around making sure there's enough food in the fridge and that bills go paid from one month to the next... She's a survivor by nature, nothing else.

She's pulled out of her own overthinking when Wally's watch catches in the length of her hair, wincing and pulling back to glare at him as he extracts the platinum colored strands from around the wrist strap. "Sorry babe—" He starts, glancing at the time. "Shit. I'm late." He swears almost inaudibly, glancing up at her guiltily for a moment before shrugging, winding his arms around her waist again. "... Doesn't matter, I guess. How about we play a little hooky, Beautiful?"

She wants so badly to say yes and very nearly does, biting the inside of her cheek before speaking. "Don't you have a calculus test this morning?"

There's a comical moment in which Wally's hopeful grin freezes and his shoulders slump forward, his forehead pressing against her collar bone and breath warming the tops of her breasts as he groans. "Always have to be right, don't you?" He hums, jerking his head up so quickly that he nearly catches her about the chin. "You want me to run you to school?"

"I'm not the one with a test first thing." She reminds him, her knees aching when she unwinds herself from around him, extending a hand to help him up. "Besides, I am way too tired to—"

Wally's mouth finds hers before she's even finished speaking; his lips are warm and wet, taking her by such surprise that she doesn't even have time to fully shut her eyes before the sensation is gone, leaving behind only a gust of air and disturbed grains of sand.

 _"The old kiss and run."_ _He had sneered at her the first time he did it, coming back to gloat despite being late for dinner. "Gets the babes every time."_

It still gets to her the same way it did then, her tongue reaching out to trace the warmth he's left there of its own accord.

His kisses, his smell, his freckles— they're all just pieces of Wally that linger, all part of a whole being that's fighting against her, breaking through her walls and unlocking her internal gates, trying to make a home inside her. Even after a month together she still wonders if it's stupid, allowing this boy in, allowing him to hold the shattered pieces of her and let him try his hand with the glue she needs to hold herself together. And maybe it's also dumb, letting herself work up hope, letting herself memorize small parts of him to save for later...

 _Jade would say she was being naïve._

The last of the wind blowing the storm out of the harbor splashes against her, as if making her more resolute in her exhaustion; licking her lips one more time she turns on her heel, wondering if it's also stupid to try to talk to Roy again.

* * *

It takes her far too long to find the room she had occupied in the early hours of that morning; for nearly twenty minutes she wanders around identical hallways, unsuccessfully trying to remember the path she had sprinted down in her desperation to find Wally.

Finally she spots Kaldur emerging from one of the rooms, carefully closing the door behind him and glancing up when he hears her footsteps pounding against the tile, brows raising at her haggard appearance. "Artemis." He greets when she comes to a stop beside him. "Do you not have school today?"

"I'm going." She lies, ignoring the knowing way he crosses his arms over his chest, one brow raising skeptically. "I just— Is Roy still here?"

Kaldur hesitates. "... Yes. Batman and Green Arrow will be arriving shortly, however."

He doesn't say anything further, but when she glances at his face she thinks she sees something hidden there; Roy's in trouble, a lot of it. "Could I see him? Alone?" She asks, one hand clapping her forehead and pressing her limp hair off her face. "Please, Kal?"

She half expects him to tell her no, that there simply isn't enough time for her to indulge whatever it is that she wants to indulge in before members of the League arrive; to her surprise Kaldur bites his lip but still moves to step out of the way, and she suspects that whatever guilt he has over his unkindness in the past few weeks is going to be playing to her advantage for a while. "I cannot promise more than five minutes. Go."

* * *

Roy looks up when she enters the room, his head lifting from his palms and good eye blinking at her a little wearily when she clicks the door shut behind her. There's a moment where they simply look at each other, a half-second when the full knowledge of his happenings with her sister and the nature of their relationship seems to surge angrily through her veins, and before she even manages to take a step towards him she actually has to remind herself that murdering a teammate is probably frowned upon.

The moment breaks when Roy drops her gaze, one hand reaching out to fiddle with the empty glass still sitting on the table. "... You here to give me a refill, sweetheart?"

She feels her eyes narrow at the pet name, mouth pulling into a snarl. "No." She says lowly.

"That's a shame." Roy says almost conversationally, smirking at the stiff way she crosses the room. "... I don't think I've ever been so hungover in my life."

She pulls out the chair Wally had occupied that morning, taking care to sit straight and rigid in the seat. "That's your own fault, Red."

"Suppose so." Roy shrugs, keeping his gaze fixed on her face as she avoids his eye, trying to figure out what she wants to ask him and aware that her precious few minutes alone with him are rapidly dwindling. "Your hair is down." She blinks at him, wondering for a second what he means by that comment; then all at once she's jumping slightly when she feels a hand on her shoulder, his fingers rustling the tresses and hardly bothered by the furious look she dons as she jerks out of his reach.

Roy places his hand back on the table, grinning at her reaction. "... Wally couldn't shut up about your hair a couple months ago." He says wryly, as if this is of some interest to her _(which she supposes it normally would be_ — _she always has a soft spot for old stories like this_ — _if she wasn't already mentally counting down the seconds they have left together.)_ "Used to really piss him off, kept babbling at me about the improbability of your _genetic alleles_. Guess he's got a point though... You're half Vietnamese, right? You should have the same coloring as Cheshire." He says her sister's mantle very deliberately and then pauses, as if waiting for her to interject. When she doesn't he sighs, looking annoyed. "Come on, kid. We both know the clock is running here, if you have any questions you better ask them now—"

This time she's ready for him when he tries to grasp her shoulder again, her hand grabbing the tendons of his wrist as he reaches for her and twisting, not stopping until she's slammed his knuckles against the table and smirking at the way he groans as she grinds his bones against the surface. "Let's kill the whole older brother act, Red." She snarls, pausing long enough for him to grab his hand back and deciding there's no longer a need to try to be tactful, not when so much of her precious time has already been wasted. "Unless it's not just an act?"

Roy snorts, rubbing his knuckles and shaking his head. "Relax, sweetheart." He smirks when she wrinkles her nose at him. "Just trying to be nice."

"So you're _just_ sleeping with Jade, then?" She presses on, hating the way the words sound coming out of her mouth.

"I think you're forgetting the part where I mentioned being coerced—"

" _Please_." She cuts him off, leaning back in her chair and half glancing at the door, expecting to be interrupted. "... You were living with her, Roy. I _know_ Jade, I shared a room with her growing up. She likes her space. She may have been using you, but we both know living together, sleeping beside each other... That wasn't her idea." Her head turns back towards him, feeling slightly numb when she realizes Roy's cheeks are reddened, his eyes glaring at the glass on the table. "So what... Are you in love with her, or something?"

To her surprise Roy is bold enough to glance up at her defiantly, mimicking her posture and leaning back in his chair. "... Depends. You in love with Wally?"

She hates that she's not expecting the question, hates that her cheeks turn a disgusting crimson. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm not going to pretend I don't know what's going on here— you're trying to ask me what my _intentions_ are with your sister." He holds up a hand to silence her when she opens her mouth indignantly, pressing onward. "I know, kid, I've been on the receiving end of this kind of conversation plenty of times. But if you're going to be asking those kinds of questions you better have your own answers ready, Artemis." Suddenly the tables have turned and he's the one interrogating her, the index finger of his right hand pointing at her accusingly at he glares, even his bad eye managing to narrow further despite the swelling. "Wally West has been following me around like a little brother for years now. I have a right to know just as much as you do if the person sleeping with him even gives a shit about him."

She blushes red again, nose wrinkling. "We aren't sleeping together, asshole."

"Even better." Roy shrugs, still glaring at her. "Answer the damn question."

Roy holds her gaze as her mind scrambles for an answer, her teeth audibly grinding without her making any effort to stop them. She doesn't know why she's hesitating, not when it would be so much more satisfying to snarl the words, _Yes, I do_ in his face... And yet a larger part of her is telling her to stay silent, her tongue actually curling against the backs of her teeth to keep her from saying anything. She doesn't know why but she doesn't lie, not to Roy, an old habit rearing its head and warning her that she doesn't want to give him the satisfaction in catching her at anything, ever; somehow, looking him in the eye and telling him she loves the boy who is like his brother would feel like doing so.

It's not that she doesn't love Wally. She loves... Parts of him. She loves the way he looks when he first wakes up in the mornings, how his hair is mused and his eyes are barely open, how he stumbles into the kitchen and he slings a clumsy arm around her shoulders as if the only thing in the world that makes sense in that moment is to touch her. She loves his laugh, loves the wrinkles that appear above his brows and the way that first rush of air seems to burst from his lips, loves how young and free and deliriously happy he sounds and how he fills up empty parts of her with it. She loves his freckles and how they connect to form tiny galaxies of past summers on the crook of his elbow; she loves his eyes and how they remind her of unripe apples hanging off branches; she loves the blisters on the back of his heel from ill-fitting running shoes, loves the salty taste that clings to his lips after he eats popcorn, loves the red hairs she finds clinging to the fabric of her sweater after they spend the day together, she loves how he makes her smile and how he's not afraid of her the way she is of him—

But she's not in love with Wally. She's still on the surface, still dipping her toes, watching the way the ocean moves the tide of the water... She's not submerged, not yet. All these affections, all these tiny moments of love— they don't feel like what she's read about in books, don't feel as if they're unconditional. It doesn't feel all-consuming, doesn't feel like she's being pulled under, doesn't feel any bit like that _I'll-die-without-you_ sensation that she's only felt once, only felt in the seconds before her whole world went black, when she was half drained of blood and thought Wally was running someplace where she couldn't call him back.

She drops Roy's gaze and decides to address his glass instead. "... I don't know." She says honestly. They both hear footsteps in the hallway and unceremoniously she gets to her feet, not looking at him.

She's just got her hand on the door knob when she hears Roy sigh, the sound of the glass spinning on the table breaking the silence. "Yeah. I don't know either."

* * *

Nobody on the Team really seems to be aware of her recent contact with her sister and she doesn't go out of her way to mention it; a larger part of her wonders if its something to alert them to, something they would want to hear about. But perhaps it's just another thing that's simply past the point of being interesting—it's no secret, not now at least, that her relationship with her family is the rocky is best; Jade's appearance just means another criminal for them to fight, another body to slam their fists into... She wonders if one day the Cheshire Cat will be just another thing they don't talk about but all silently deal with, like the aftermath of the exercise or the taught lines that appear around Zatanna's eyes whenever they have a brush with Doctor Fate.

Even Kaldur, one of the few people privy to the full story, doesn't waste his breath asking her if she wants to talk about it— although she supposes he has his hands full. On the thirty-first of March it is announced that Red Arrow has been officially demoted to the Team and they all find themselves at the mercy of Roy's sour temper. Despite M'gann's cleansing she discovers that Red's ambition and pride are inherently genetic; it's also obvious that he considers the demotion from the League a slap in the face. It's probably the most awkward she's felt in her whole life, standing uniform clad with the rest of the Team and trying not to make eye contact with each other as Red tries to argue his point with Batman and Kaldur.

She supposes she doesn't help things much when she sarcastically reminds the room at large that the Team _still needs a real archer_ , but it's worth whatever uncomfortableness she inspires when Roy whirls around on his heel, teeth grinding together and cheeks positively crimson from yelling. "Shut. Up. Artemis."

She doesn't tell Wally about her private conversation with Red, doesn't tell him how protective he had sounded when he had asked her if she loved him. It's not that she's going out of her way to lie to Wally, and in many ways it isn't really lying at all; it just doesn't seem like a good idea to steer the conversation in the whole "love" direction, to tell him that she's discussed it with a stranger before she even did with him.

She thinks a lot about the answer she gave Red, that defeated and pathetic sounding _"I don't know."_ She wonders if she really was being honest, or if it was just easier to copout and say that than actually take the time to arrive at a logical conclusion.

She thinks herself in circles over it night after night; even now as they sit beside each other on the couch, her legs draped over Wally's and both their hands rummaging in the bottom of an almost empty popcorn bowl, she still catches herself staring blankly at the screen of the television. Maybe it's a mark of how bent out of shape she is over the whole thing that she actually jumps when he nudges her, her mouth suddenly not working and unable to give a proper answer when he asks, "What's up, Babe?"

She catches Wally's gaze as she pulls herself out of her own thoughts again a few minutes later, now hopelessly lost with what is happening on screen. His back is pressed so far back into the couch that he's less sitting and more squishing himself into the cushions. "What?" She asks, annoyed when he doesn't look away.

Wally hesitates, one hand probing once around the bowl to scoop up what's left of the popcorn— _he never leaves her anything, she swears_ —before popping it into his mouth. "I don't know." He pauses, chewing and swallowing loudly. "You sure you're okay?"

She scowls, eyes falling to his watch as it clangs around the empty bowl, still searching for more popcorn among the un-popped kernels. "I'm fine."

"That. That right there, that's what I'm talking about." He tells her, extracting a buttery hand and licking his fingers in an almost accusatory manner. "That face. You haven't made that annoyed face at me in forever."

In response she scowls deeper, catching herself and forcing her expression to smoothen. "Yeah, because you haven't been this annoying in—"

"Was it the whole thing with Red?" He asks, cutting her off. She nearly bites her tongue _(because really, after all her much deeper and darker issues this one seems so pathetic and frivolous— how do you even tell a boy you can't decide if you love him? Is that even a thing you can tell a boy without it being weird?)_ avoiding answering to glare at his sock clad feet resting on the coffee table.

When she doesn't say anything he extracts an index finger from his mouth with a loud pop. "That thing that you said the other day—"

 _("... You are a real archer." He had said blushingly, heel extending and turning his chair back to face her better. It was as if she was being x-rayed with the intensity of his apple eyes on hers; for the first time in a long time she had felt utterly naked in her uniform, as if he was scrutinizing and admiring every one of her bumps and scars, tongue reaching out to wet his lips. "And you don't have anything to prove. Not to me, okay?"_

 _Stupidly her knees had knocked together, her chin dropping to survey him through the holes of her mask, still worn as if to preserve some of her pride around him. "...Okay." She had said evenly, wanting to say so much more, wanting to put the Bioship on auto-pilot and launch herself across the room and kiss the moisture his tongue had left on his mouth..._ _)_

"—I know, Wally." She cuts him off, finishing his sentence for him and lying back, neck tilting against the arm of the couch to glare at the ceiling. "I was kidding."

"Oh. Good." He nods, the hand that's not still habitually scrounging around the popcorn bowl resting on her knee. "Because... You know."

She gets the impression that Wally's still treading carefully around her, trying to make up for the months of nastiness they both threw at each other; she ignores the intensity of his gaze as he watches her crack her neck, the end of her pony tail fidgeting on the edge of the couch's leather and finally falling, trailing down like Rapunzel's mane and pooling on the floor. Just when she's opened her mouth to change the subject she hears the sound of the popcorn bowl being disregard and dropped to the floor; in a second Wally's leaning over her, weight braced on an elbow.

His lips are slick with butter when he kisses her, salty yet unexpectedly sweet, so much so that she actually hears the rush of anxious breath that fires out of her nose, pressing against his cheek as she rises to meet him. It's instantly sweltering pressed between him and the leather, trying to adjust her position so there's room enough for them to lie side by side, trying not to break the kiss as the lines of Wally's muscles fit against hers and the bulk of his weight nearly pushes her from the couch as he wedges between her and the cushions; it's clumsy and imperfect but the _perfect_ thing for pulling her from her own mind, providing a welcome distraction—

The hand on her knee squeezes once, enough for her to jerk away from his tickling; there's a half second where Wally's lips pull into a smile beneath hers before his palm starts moving. It's slow, at first: the deliberate dragging of his thumb, the way his fingers press into the lines of her thigh and up to the jutting of her hips and— perhaps feeling braver now than he ever has before, Wally reaches round to cup her rear, squeezing tenderly but hard enough to send a fresh wave of heat between her thighs.

She gets as far as groaning and lacing her hands through his hair, but before anything more exciting than Wally hitching her leg up and over his hip can happen she hears the kitchen cabinets slam shut; both of them break apart abruptly with a loud suckling noise, lips swollen and hearts pounding and grimacing as Robin's tell-tale laugh ripples in the air between them. "Get a room!"

 _She officially wants to die._

Wally's naturally the quickest between the two of them to recover, propping himself up on one hand and glaring over the back of the couch, ears so red they're practically glowing. "Dude, it's called a living _room_ —" He snarls out, a few seconds of glancing around and a frustrated sigh signaling that the Boy Wonder has vacated the kitchen.

Whatever moment that was there is broken now, leaving the two of them embarrassed and not immune to the close quarters of their position on the couch; she winces as the sound of the squeaking leather as Wally tries to settle in the tiny space beside her and she actually buries her face in her hands as if to avoid looking him in the eye. "God…" She groans, rubbing her hands furiously over her face, as if hoping to scrub the embarrassing red from her cheeks; when she gets the courage to look at Wally he's still looking half dazed, ears glowing in the light of the television.

She hears him swear under his breath before glancing at her with a sheepish smile, looking uncomfortable. "Sorry." He says, both of them wincing again when the leather squeaks. "… Probably could have picked a better place for that move."

For some reason she lets out a breathless chuckle, body still buzzing from the lingering effect of his touch a few minutes ago, a mess of endorphins and hormones. "I think I can agree with that one, _Wallman_." She laughs quietly, sitting up under the guise of fixing her pony tail, thankful for the space it gives her to cool her body down.

She can feel Wally's eyes on her back as she pulls her hair down, can hear the way he shifts to occupy her previous spot of leaning against the arm of the couch so as to better see her; it stuns her even now that she can tell exactly what he's doing, can sense the way he's trying to commit the methodical movements it takes to pull her hair back to memory, another tidbit of information about her that he's saving for some reason. As if there's some importance in the way she presses the baby hairs around her face clean against her forehead, her thumbs pushing over-grown bangs behind her ears; like there's a possibility that it effects him in some way, the work her fingers put into smoothing her hair at the crown of her head before tugging her elastic off her wrist, twisting it and tugging her hair into place. She doesn't know why this of all things is what he's taking time to remember, why he decides to stop and stare in these moments; but maybe these moments are like her memories in the closet, or a few days ago on the beach, maybe this is what he thinks of when he wakes from nightmares in the night and—

She's expecting the touch; expecting the way his fingers trail out first to catch the end of her pony tail and twist the fraying ends of her hair over his knuckles before pressing his palm against her, thumb rubbing circles in the small of her back. She glances over at him as he lifts the hem of her shirt, continuing his ministrations on her bare skin and looking almost a little too contemplative for the moment. "What's that look for?" She says teasingly, trying to cover the stickiness of their recent embarrassment and raising a brow at him.

The corner of his mouth jerks upwards, one arm tucking up behind his head and forcing the lines of his bicep to go taught. "No reason. Well… Okay, this might be a weird time to ask this. But would you want to... Meet my parents?"

There's an awkward pause in which he reads her stunned silence correctly, fingers pausing on her back as he sits up. "There's, uh, no pressure, or whatever." He says quickly, looking nervous. "It's just— My mom really wants to meet you. And I figure... You know."

"Wally." She says seriously, looking over at him skeptically but not quite managing to find the words to express all the different ways in which she thinks this is an awful idea.

 _She doesn't do parents._

"Artemis." He says back just as seriously, eyes narrowing when she drags her pony tail over her shoulder as if hiding from him. "Please? It'll be fun, I swear." He pauses for a second before grinning mischievously. "Come on, I've met your family—"

Her neck aches with the speed she looks at him, scowling when he has the nerve to brush her hair off her shoulder and down the middle of her back after what he's just said to her. "Those two aren't my family." She says severely, getting to her feet and ignoring the way Wally's grin slips off his face as she stalks past him.

* * *

Despite saying there was no pressure Wally doesn't stop badgering her, and with a feeling of immediate regret she agrees to meet his parents just for the sake of getting him to be quiet. She's not exactly sure what _meeting the parents_ entails, but she suspects that it involves a certain amount of unpleasantness.

It's less than a minute after she finally says yes when Wally glances pointedly at her worn in jeans, trying to smile kindly. "I was thinking... How about you wear something nice?" There's a half second pause where her lips pull into a frown. "Like a dress or something?"

She hears herself agree, despite suddenly feeling a tenfold more insecure and wondering what about her regular clothes no longer counts as nice with Wally.

Whatever half-hearted confidence she had been feeling when she emerged from the shower _(ankle bleeding profusely after her most recent attempt at shaving her legs)_ quickly disappears altogether when she stands towel clad in her bedroom and it becomes abundantly clear that she doesn't own a dress— she's never really had an excuse to go out and buy one, even if she had found the idea of wearing a dress remotely appealing. For one wild moment she considers raiding her mother's closet, but thankfully before she can act on the impulse she's already out the door and walking towards the zeta tubes, angry at herself for even agreeing to this in the first place.

Out of pure desperation she decides to ask M'gann for help. By the time she reaches her bedroom door in the Cave she's sure she looks like a nervous wreck; she's tugged the smaller pieces of hair out of her pony tail in uneven chunks, her cheeks red and blotchy from her own embarrassment at the whole situation. She doesn't blame M'gann for jerking back slightly when she opens her door. "Artemis? Are you okay?"

"Wally." She seethes out between her teeth, stopping for a moment to shake her head disbelievingly. "Has asked me. To meet. His _parents_."

She closes her eyes when M'gann squeals in her face, silently willing the headache that's pounding at the back of her temples to cease.

The whole thing promptly turns into the most horrifying thing that's ever happened to her— before she can do anything to stop it, every female in the Cave has been summoned in some sort of way to help her, as if she were an anxious bride who needs coaxing before walking towards the alter. It feels as if there's advice coming from a thousand different directions, Zatanna smudging lipstick swatches on the back of her hand and reminding her to compliment the West's on their home at every chance she gets while Raquel fusses over the state of her nails. There are too many people in the room, too many hands picking at her as she's forced into a chair, M'gann pulling her eyelid open to smudge mascara on her lashes. She nearly loses it entirely when Zatanna forces her into a navy blue dress and she has to endure the clicking of several tongues over the fact that it doesn't match her jacket or boots, as if she's the one who should have known better.

She draws the line when Black Canary pokes her head into the room and suggests curling her hair, and somehow she looks her Teammates and one of the powerhouses of the League in the eye and manages to negotiate just ditching the pony tail.

By the time she meets Wally by the zeta tubes she doesn't feel remotely like herself; she feels as if she's trying to fill another, better woman's shoes, hands tugging the hem of the dress further down her thighs and her boots rubbing uncomfortably at the band aid on her ankle. When he stutters hello and tells her she looks great it doesn't feel as if the compliment is actually meant for her, as if it were intended for the women she left behind squealing in M'gann's bedroom.

Despite the impending horror she's expecting— _she's never met somebody's parents before and she feels like an idiot as they round the corner of Wally's street, pretending not to be cold even though she's shivering in her dress and bare legs_ —she gets a good feeling as she walks up the front walk of Wally's house. This is what a home, a proper home, should look like; sidewalk salted to prevent them from slipping on the rapidly melting ice, dripping icicles hanging off the months old Christmas lights and glowing different colors in the semi-darkness, a wreath still hung straight on the front door proclaiming the few-days-late words, " _Happy Easter!"_ accompanied by cheesy cartoon rabbits. She can imagine Wally toddling around here as a kid, laughing loudly with his parents around the dinner table, playing catch with his father in the back yard. _The lucky bastard,_ she thinks, teetering a little unsteadily when she climbs the steps to the front porch, the tightness of Zatanna's dress not quite giving her the mobility she's used to.

"You forget your keys?" She asks when Wally stoops to pluck up the front mat; it's also Easter themed, two decorated eggs looking up at her from the beaten in whicker as he extracts a ring with two metallic digits hanging off the end.

Wally glances at her as he sets the mat back, looking a little confused at the amount of time it takes her to finally get beside him on the front porch. "No. I always lose them, Mom just figured it would be easier if I left them under here."

When Wally jimmies the door open it's instantly like something out of a movie; Wally's mother's smile is huge and her reddened hair bounces in curls on her shoulders when she greets them in the hall _(she introduces herself as Mary and starts talking excitedly at her before she can even get her coat off, both her hands reaching out to grip hers as she squeals. "It's so nice to meet you finally, I've been hearing all about you since September—" Wally groans beside her, half horrified and half pleased. "Mom…")_ and his father appears half a pace behind her, the apple eyes Wally inherited crinkling above an impressive moustache _("Out of the way, Mary." He tells his wife, shooing her behind him and helping her finish tugging her jacket off her shoulders. "Nice to meet you, dear, I'm Rudy.")_ There's a ridiculous amount of fussing over her and twice she nearly flinches when Mary reaches out to smooth her hair against her shoulders, looking at her fondly as if she's been visiting the house for years.

She can't explain why but her throat feels tight; all this caring, all this affection for her when she hasn't done anything to earn it... it's overwhelming, uncomfortable. She can't stop her eyes from lingering on the photos of Wally plastered on the walls in matching frames— _Wally winning a ribbon at the science fair, Wally posing with a bunch of other boys his age in matching football jerseys, Wally being kissed by his mother on his seventh birthday, one of his front teeth missing_ —and feel an incredible sense of inadequacy. Wally comes from love. He comes from family. She comes from filth and darkness and a lot of hurt, how can she ever be enough for him... ?

Wally takes her hand as she pauses, eyes glassy as she lingers a more recent Christmas photo: He's looking twelve, maybe thirteen, braces exposed as he sits grinning around a well decorated tree with his parents, obviously meant to be posing for a holiday card. "How you holding up?" He asks warily, as if half worried she's about to turn on her heel and run out of the door.

"Your parents are nice." She says, concealing the look she knows he's looking for _(because she's on the verge of a panic but she's not going to bring her crazy into his perfect home, she's not, she's not.)_ But even she can't hide the clamminess of her hand, nor the surprising strength with which she grips his fingers.

Dinner is uneventful for the most part; Mary's so excited that she's there that she keeps worrying over her, offering her more salad and more chicken and pretending not to notice that she's confused by the fact that there are forks for specific foods. Rudy asks her what her parents do and she almost chokes on her mashed potatoes, and after a thump on the back from Wally she manages to choke out, "—M-my mom works at a grocery store."

"And your father?"

Wally glances at her as her eyes continue to water. "He... Him and my mom are separated. I don't see him much." She says lamely.

Wally doesn't correct her and instead starts shoving food rapidly into his mouth, but Rudy's eyes narrow slightly. Mary insists on giving her an extra helping of everything to cover the slightly awkward moment. "Now dear, don't let Wally finish it all before you have a chance to get started. Eat up!"

Surprisingly, by the end of the evening she's convinced herself that things are actually kind of going well; she likes Mary a lot and Mary seems to find her easy to talk to, and before they even finish desert she's being shown photo albums and old junior league football trophies and other strange sentimental stuff that as a girlfriend she's supposed to be interested in. She's just gotten up to help clear the table when a glossy photo of Wally, no older than three, completely naked and squealing in a bathtub over flowing with bubbles is passed under her nose. "Oh my god." She blurts out, snorting loudly.

Rudy's moustache bristles unpleasantly at her noise but Mary seems delighted with her reaction as she reaches for the photo, holding it carefully around the edges and already making a note to tell Dick about its existence. "When he was a baby he used to love the water—"

" _Aaand_ that's enough of that." Wally groans, ears bright red before suddenly snatching the photo from her hands, usual breeze whipping past her as suddenly he's holding the photo out of her or Mary's reach. "I'm going to put this where it can't hurt anyone. Namely me."

"Wally!" His mother bursts out in laughter as her son disappears. "Oh, he's always been easily embarrassed. You hold on a second sweetie, he doesn't know about the album I have in the basement—" She chortles, high heels banging on the hardwood as she wanders off.

It's just her and Rudy now, and suddenly the air in the dining room is a lot more awkward than it was before, as if all the good tidings and friendliness left with Wally and his mother. Rudy surveys her over his moustache, not hiding his frown as she averts her eyes, casting around for a topic of conversation.

"You have a lovely home." She tells him as Zatanna had suggested, throat tightening when he simply nods, not saying anything back for several seconds.

"Thank you." He says stiffly, thick brows furrowing the same way his son's do as he starts picking plates up off the table. "… So. Which one are _you_ , then?"

She doesn't quite know what to say, quailing slightly under the stern look he sends her. "Uh, excuse me?" She says a little stupidly, glancing down when he starts passing plates towards her, hands extending a little helplessly. "Which one of _what_ am I?"

Rudy passes her another three plates, ignoring when some gravy spills over the brim and not apologizing when it slops onto the front of her dress. "Which _girl_ are you?" He says unclearly, looking annoyed when she remains confused. "On that silly little Team of yours, the super hero thing. I'm correct in remembering Wally saying you're on it?" Rudy pauses and looks her up and down before turning away, muttering as he goes back to collecting plates. "... Have to be. None of the girls at his school ever showed any interest in him. Doesn't even have a drivers license—"

She's doesn't know if she's supposed to respond to the bitterness of that last part and forces herself to speak, her head shaking slightly. "Oh. Yeah, I'm on the Team."

"So which one are you?" Rudy continues gruffly. "The alien? Or the one with the magician's uniform?"

She can feel herself blinking stupidly at him as he turns to her expectantly, hands on his hips and looking stern again. "I—" She stutters out, not sure how to react to his unimpressed tone, and instead doubles her grip on plates, her muscles beginning to strain under the weight. "Neither. I'm Green Arrow's... I'm an archer. I don't have any powers."

"You don't have any _powers_?" Rudy repeats with a loud snort, the edges of his mouth twisting up into a mocking smile that tricks her into being sincere, her own lips half raising in response for a moment before he lets out a loud peel of rude laughter. "Kind of puts a damper on the whole _superhero_ thing if you aren't actually _super_ , doesn't it?" He sneers, looking her up and down again. "No powers... So what would that make you? The _brawn_ of the group?" He lets out a snort again. "Must be a pretty weak Team if a little girl like _you_ is their heaviest hitter!"

The second he says it she can feel her stomach tighten, blood beginning to pound loudly in her ears as she bites her own tongue, trying not to say anything snapping back ( _or even worse, what's at the forefront of her mind—_ _that's she's killed plenty of men, that she doesn't have a problem with killing another one right now_ ) and instead waiting with a straightened back for him to stop chuckling. "... It's a good Team." She says evenly, trying to steer the topic back to a more comfortable place. "Wally was one of the founding members, wasn't he?"

"If by founding you mean kidnapping that freak _Superboy_ and forcing us to put a roof over his head." Rudy wipes the corner of his eye before makes a gesture for her to follow him into the kitchen, his hands only burdened by the empty potato bowl. "So. I suppose bringing you here tonight was his idea? Thought his parents would like to meet his new, _normal_ girlfriend?" He chuckles out.

She blinks at the way he spits the word normal at her, as if she were a potted planet pretending to be a woman; she's never had a grown man be so off put by her before, Rudy's face twisting skeptically as she sets the huge stack of dishes on the counter, tongue clicking as if disapproving of her strength. "Wally wanted us to meet, yeah." She says plainly, trying not to glare at him.

"Hm." He sniffs, watching her shift her feet awkwardly in the kitchen; she can feel her shoulders stiffening at the scrutinizing nature of the look, and had they not been in Wally's house and had she not been talking to his father she would have half the mind to seize a plate off the stack on the counter and hurl it at him. "You two been going out long?"

There's something in the question she can't quite identify, something odd about the way Rudy leans against the counter, dropping his jaw the same way his son always does when he observes her closely, his mouth stretched into a frown as she replies. "A little over a month, I guess." She says stiffly, wondering what's taking Wally and Mary so long to come back.

Rudy seems amused at her obvious discomfort, or at the very least he lets out another snort of a laugh that sounds like he is; he places a hand luxuriously on his slightly over-large belly and chuckles once, looking at her like she's an idiot. "Oh, dear. Well, let me just cut to the chase, before feelings get hurt." He pauses, one hand reaching up to smooth the hair of his moustache. "I don't think you're a good match for Wally."

It's as if her own worst fear for the evening is quickly becoming realized; before she can stop herself her eyes are narrowing, a wrinkle popping up over her nose. "Excuse me?"

Rudy's laugh finally dies out, his hand tugging once at his trousers to hitch them up before he bends at the waist, opening the dish washer and beginning to cram dishes into it in a half-hazard manner. "Well, I don't mean to be frank my dear, but my Wally… I mean you've seen him. He's not exactly... _A man's man_. Ever since the whole _"Kid Flash incident"_ in the garage he hasn't— He hasn't been developing the way Mary and I want him to. The kid spends all his time up in his room now, working on _science_ instead of football, can you believe…" Rudy trails off for a moment before straightening, looking at her with a smirk on his face. "I'm sorry. But the last thing my Wally needs is some sort of _butch gal-pal_ showing him up in front of the boys. It won't do. It's not good for his self-esteem."

She can't believe what she's hearing; can't believe that Wally's father has the nerve to look her in the eye and tell her that she's not good enough for his son, that out of all the damn things that are wrong with her, out of all the sins she's committed _(she's lied, she's stolen, she's murdered for fuck's sake)_ that the one thing Rudy West pinpoints as wrong with her is that she's _too strong_. And suddenly it all makes sense, Wally asking her to clean herself up, asking her to wear a dress… She feels ridiculously like a show dog, all dolled up and trying to hide its flaws before the judges. "I—I don't really know what to say." She says truthfully, not trusting herself to speak her mind without starting to utter countless profanities.

"You don't have to say anything, dear." Rudy tells her, addressing her as if she's a child. "I'm just glad we understand each other."

She can hear her phone vibrating pocket of her jacket, still hung on the hook by the door; it's probably one of the girls asking how the evening is going. Ignoring it she glares at him, beginning to snarl. "… I understand it. Doesn't mean I agree though."

Rudy's just opened his mouth to retort when Wally and Mary come crashing back into the kitchen, still laughing with each other; not looking at either of them Wally extracts his cellphone from his pocket, blinking at the message on the screen and smile faltering slightly. "Perfect timing, actually. Artemis, check your phone, Aqualad wants us back at the Cave for—" He cuts himself off as he glances up, eyes flying between the smugness on his father's face and the blotchy redness on her cheeks, tasting the energy in the air as his mother bustles past him, repacking the dishes in the dishwasher in a way that actually makes sense. "… Uh, what's going on?"

The way he says it tells her that he already has an inkling of what's going on, as if this isn't the first time his father has pulled aside someone he cares about and been openly unfriendly and rude. Rudy beats her to the punch, reaching forward to clap her too-hard on the shoulder. "Nothing, my boy. Just having a little chat with your friend."

Wally's eyes linger on his father's fingers as they squeeze painfully tight on her shoulder before falling away, and nobody in the kitchen needs M'gann's telepathy to know that it's a silent message, warning her not to say anything. Even Mary, whose smile has been constant the whole night, is suddenly frowning and looking tense. "Artemis?" Wally asks in the low dangerous tone she hates, eyes scanning her crossed arms and hunched shoulders.

"It's nothing, Wally." She tells him, avoiding his eye. "We should get going."

There's an awkward silence in which Mary clicks her tongue, finishing with the dishwasher and moving as if to embrace her, holding her at an arms length and seeming to deliberately place that two of them between Wally and his father, as if hoping to form a barrier. "Oh now really, that was far too short. Next time you'll have to get her earlier, remind my little Wally you know, he's always late—"

"What did you say to her?" Wally speaks loudly over his mother, much louder and angrier than she's ever heard before, eyes narrowed at his father. " _What did you say_?"

"Its okay, Wally." She blurts out, and feeling ridiculously like some sort of housewife as she breaks off from Mary, voice quiet and speaking quickly as she lays a hand across his arm. "Come on, we have to go—"

"Now really." Rudy huffs behind her, and she can practically feel his moustache bristling. "You watch your tone—"

"Come _on_." She says louder, trying to talk over the two of them as she half glances back at Mary; when Wally doesn't do anything other than lean around her to keep yelling she braces a forearm across his chest, shoving him insistently backwards. "Thanks for dinner—"

"—What did you say?"

"Nothing that matters, you heard the girl—"

"You're welcome, dear." Mary says back, not bothering with yelling as she extends a hand behind her, grabbing Rudy wrist and looking completely miserable. "Please, do come again..."

* * *

When she finally manages the get the door shut behind them Wally's still seething, swearing under his breath as he rakes his hands over his forehead, oblivious to the disheartened expression on her face as she watches him, fingers still wrapped around the door handle. "I can't believe him." He snarls out, rubbing angrily at his hair. "I can't—" He seems to notice her as she takes a few steps towards the stairs, quickly stepping in front of her and taking her by the shoulder. "What did he say? I'm so sorry, he always does this, it's just how he is—"

She has it in her to glance once at the slightly manic expression on Wally's face before she finds she doesn't want to see it, instead focusing on a car parked across the street. "It doest't matter, okay?" Can we just leave?"

"Artemis, of course it matters—"

"Well it doesn't matter _now_." She says gruffly, jerking out of his grip and shoving him a little too hard out of the way; she hears his back hit the column of the front porch, some snow shaking from the roof at the impact as she starts stepping clumsily down the stairs.

Wally stares after her for a few seconds before she hears the loud clunk of his boots against the steps, the salt on the walk crunching loudly under his feet as he jogs up beside her. "So what? My Dad's the asshole and somehow _you're mad at me_?"

"I'm not mad." She grits out through her teeth, lying. "God, can we just— Look, can we just talk about this later? Kaldur needs us for a mission."

She ignores the frustrated sigh he lets out, his breath steaming up in front of his face. "Oh _right_." He says sneeringly. "Kaldur. The mission. That's what's important here, not our relationship or anything. Yeah, whatever. Fine."

" _Fine_." She snarls back.

* * *

Wally and her don't say another word to each other the whole walk to the zeta tubes. The night has been such a disaster that she doubts there's anything left to say to each other, ever; there's a low whistle when they zeta into the Cave followed by a few comments about how she's dressed, all of which quail when the two of them sport matching glares, silencing their Teammates.

Kaldur seems to take his cue from both of them, choosing instead to launch into business rather than exchange pleasantries; at once he's cutting the awkward looks the rest of the Team exchanges short, turning to the large screen behind him. "Today has been a good day." He tells them all, fingers jamming against his keyboard. "I have finally heard from S.T.A.R labs in Metropolis City. It has taken them nearly a month to go through their destroyed inventory, and a last we know what has been taken."

With an odd amount of dramatic flair—she looks to her left and sees Tula watching intently beside Garth, and suddenly the over-the-top movement of his hands is explained—he hits a final key, and suddenly a huge image is being projected into the air in front of them. It looks like some sort of cellphone to her; tiny, flat screened and seemingly simplistic, clad in metals and soft grey encasings.

"… Is this supposed to mean something to us?" Connor asks, breaking the silence in which Kaldur looks at them all expectantly.

It's odd, watching Kaldur's lips quirk in acknowledgement of such a wry comment; yet, she has the impression that he's trying to appear charming rather than ruthless. "It should now." Kaldur says clearly, and suddenly he's back to clicking keys, the image blurring up between all of them and submerging into scrambled, unfamiliar letters. "When I visited Atlantis several months ago my King and I returned not only with full stomachs and good tidings. We returned with a precious piece of genetic material, which we deposited in S.T.A.R labs— the "squid," as you all took to calling it— which, if you all remember, was taken by the Light months later and manipulated into Starro-tech, the pieces of genetic material used to completely control the Justice League on New Year's Eve."

"Okay." She cuts him off, glancing around at everyone and willing Kaldur to cut to the chase so she can get on with storming off to her bedroom in peace. "So they took the little box now. What does that have to do with the squid?"

Kaldur's jaw drops, gradually growing more serious. "It is much more than simply a little box; in response to the stolen echinoderm sample, S.T.A.R labs has been working on counter technology, capable of tracking Electro Magnetic Field surges it and other materials similar to it release as they regenerate. This is their prototype, intended to be capable of tracking and following such surges, thus making it possible to track stolen pieces of technology."

Beside her Wally's brows shoot up. "Electro Magnetic Field... Don't ghost-hunting crazies monitor those whenever they're trying to prove the presence of the undead? Would that make the squid actually some sort of... I don't know. Ghost plasma?"

"It's not just ghost-hunters that can make use of EMF machines." Zatanna says frankly, glancing at Wally when he snorts. "Whenever any type of magical or alien energy is released it can leave behind traces of EMF surges; even our zeta tubes leave imprint that are similar in wave length whenever they're activated… So let me guess. While S.T.A.R labs simply wanted to keep track of their goodies, our pals in the Bialyan army decided they'd rather—"

"We are not sure exactly why they stole it." Kaldur finishes for her, looking stern. "But that kind of technology is certainly troubling in the hands of the Light. Theoretically, should they successfully use the device, it could become possible for them to track the use of zeta tubes, locating members of the League, ourselves, our families, not to mention find more sources for Starro-technology... Even though still in the developmental stages, this device could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. If I recall similar technology, though magic based, was used when Ocean Master committed an act of terror against the United States some years ago—"

"In New Venice." She finishes for him, mouth jumping ahead before she can fully remember the memory she's calling on. "I mean— right?" She says, a little unnerved by the fact that everyone is so quiet. "It used to be a little ocean front town in Southern Florida. Ocean Master was able to use his magic to track Aquaman's location, and he decided to submerge the city in an effort to wage war against both him and the surface world, right?"

She can feel several people blinking at her, the surprise on Kaldur's face borderline offensive. "... That is correct." He says very slowly, dropping his chin to survey her. "But I must admit, it happened long before I was born." As if looking for help he glances towards Garth and Tula, brows pursing. "And I have never been to the actual city— My mother did not care for it, did not like new life being built on all the forgotten bones of the surface dwelling."

Tula shakes her head. "Nor have I or Garth. It is painted as a tourist city, like that of your New York. Excellent cultivation of the Mystic Arts, however."

She catches herself interrupting again, shaking her head. "There's a book on the city, here in the Cave. I remember reading about New Venice—isn't it supposed to be one of the leaders in maintaining ancient magic and technology in all of Atlantis? Like, lots of ancient relics and what not that unlock mystic power?" She pauses, looking around. You don't think... Is Ocean Master a member of the Light? He couldn't be, you know... Trying to plan something again? Just using a more technological way to go about it?"

Kaldur's mouth twists into a frown. "I suppose anything at this point is possible." He says, breaking eye contact to look at them all seriously. "I am assuming we are all in agreement that the relation of two such terror incidents, caused and inspired by the acquirement of Electro Magnetic Field tracking technology is troubling. Perhaps..." He trails off, looking grave. "Perhaps this calls for more serious action."

There's a definitive shift in the energy in the room, all of them growing more serious as Kaldur pauses, jaw clenched and thinking. "We must tread carefully. I need not remind you all that the United States is at war. Any carelessness on our part, any misplaced footing, could be read as an act of aggression on behalf of the Justice League. I much emphasize the importance of your _playing by the rules_."

As if pulling himself out of his own thoughts Kaldur's back straightens, looking almost like a general dressing his troops. "Now that we know exactly what is missing it is time to form a plan, set up defenses. Tula, Garth— If you are willing, I must ask you to briefly to act on behalf of the Team and alert King Orin to provide a warning, perhaps even scour Atlantis' libraries and laboratories for further information in regards to Ocean Master's attack— try to find links between what happened in Metropolis. Miss Martian will accompany you, if you wish. I am going to debrief Batman and whatever other League Members he deems fit, and decide how to go about altering the President. Zatanna, Kid Flash, Superboy, Rocket, Robin— visit S.T.A.R labs, I'll send Red Arrow your coordinates and he will rendezvous with you there. See what you can discover about this device from its creators, see how close they were to actually completing it. If you find any information, forward it before you pursue. Artemis—" She feels her stomach clench up excitedly, she's never been hauled out for a solo mission before, this is just what she needs, exactly what she needs after such a terrible night, _she needs some action_ —

"Find that book." He tells her sternly, ignoring the way her face quickly falls into a furious looking frown. "I know you are enthused. But the book intrigues me, perhaps it will come of some use. Please." He adds the last part almost warningly, chin dropping as she glares. "You may rendezvous with Team coordinates when you finish."

"Whatever." She hisses.

* * *

It's borderline humiliating, watching the way the Team excitedly buzzes around the room, and knowing full well that there's not a shot in hell she'll get to be a part of it; ignoring the way Wally turns towards her, as if to say goodbye or offer some half-assed words of comfort, she spins on her heel and stomps off towards the back part of the building.

She only makes one stop, and that's to allow herself five full minutes alone in her bedroom in which she rips Zatanna's dress off her body and crumples it uncaringly in the corner of her room. She has the strong desire to scream, to smash a few of the more fragile articles in her bedroom and instead she settles for violently stripping herself of everything she's worn that night, scratching her thighs as she drags her underwear off herself _(and it's mortifying to even look at the tiny little stretch of lacy black fabric, the ridiculous hope when she put it on that maybe tonight something would finally happen)_ and replacing it with a fresh pair, yanking on a clean tee shirt and her usual jeans, her breath sounding maniacal as she twists her hair into a pony tail.

So this is her function now. _Artemis Crock: Team Librarian_.

She's still fuming when she enters the library, some of her anger and frustration immediately quailing when she looks at the sheer height of all the bookshelves around her—even though she practically lived in here a few weeks ago she's still surprised by the fact that she managed to read through nearly a dozen of the shelves front to back. She supposes, even if she can't remember the exact title or the author, that this gives her at least a place to start, a slightly narrowed range… Huffing, she rounds the corner of her most recently completed shelf, setting to work.

It's mind numbingly boring, staring blankly at book covers and occasionally extracting one to rifle through its pages, and before long her awe at the task ahead of her fades and is replaced by the sourness she felt before… The evening had been awful. And the worst part of it was that it wasn't even Wally's father that ruined it; No, even if he was rude it's not exactly like he was saying anything new to her, like she hadn't thought the same sentiment and repeated over and over to herself dozens of times... She already knows she's not good enough for Wally. She already knows they aren't a good match, even if it's for a different reason than the one Rudy's archaic mind has conjured up.

But none of that had mattered before. And it still hadn't, not when she had allowed M'gann and the others to pick at her appearance, hiding the flaws she always thought were there but never really imagined she needed to be ashamed of; it hadn't mattered that much either when she felt intimidated by his family, had looked his father in the eye as he had looked her up and down and seen through the act she was trying to don. It didn't matter, nothing did, because doing all those stupid things had been for Wally. She thought she was doing it because it was important for her to meet his parents because he wanted them to get along... Instead he had wanted to impress his father, wanted to prove that he was more than the disappointment Rudy clearly thinks he is...

 _Because that's the difference. She likes Wally just fine the way he is. For every part of him that's annoying there's another part that she can't live without; she wouldn't change a thing, if she had a choice._

 _Wally just... Doesn't feel the same, she supposes. Not when it comes to important stuff._

There's no other way around it; this past month together, the constant picking at her to open up, the asking her to dress up tonight despite the fact that he didn't look anything special when she had met him... It's all just been another grooming process, _a different kind of vigorous training than her father had put her through, but training none the less._ Because that's what Wally does, isn't it? He's always been like this, always messing with things until they're perfect; straightening souvenirs on the shelf, finding the right chemical formula to create the correct type of explosion... How much longer is she supposed to under-go this process until she's perfect? Is she ever going to be? Wally had taken her there to show her off to his parents, another test just like her father's that she needs to pass... She feels like an idiot for putting on a dress for him, for allowing herself to be primped, for pretending to be something she's not, for even being stupid enough to think that being someone's girlfriend would be even in the realm of possible for her. Instead it's just another thing she's failing at... _Stupid, stupid, stupid..._

She pulls herself out of her thoughts just as she grabs a book from the shelf, ears perking at a noise the next isle over. She pauses, peering through the hole she's made to the other side, brows furrowing. "Hello?" She calls, wondering if she's scaring a wayward mouse.

She actually jumps when Wally's face pops into the tiny window of space she's made to see through to the other isle, her book flying from her arms and clattering against the carpet. "Uh, hey." He greets, grinning sheepishly as her cheeks flood red, disappearing before she can reach through the shelf and throttle him.

"God." She says to herself, ignoring him as he rounds the corner and comes to a staggering stop beside her, instead bending to pick up the book she's dropped. "What are you doing here?" She asks his sneakers, sending the rest of him a dry look as she stands.

"I figured the rest of the Team could handle a quick trip to S.T.A.R. Labs." He says, forcing his face into a smile. "You and an entire library, on the other hand… Uh, you know. It's a lot of books." He adds the last part quickly as her eyes narrow, glaring.

Truthfully the last person she feels like talking to right now is Wally; she had liked being alone, had liked thinking, and she can't do any of that if he's standing in front of her and trying his best to smile endearingly, walnuts radiating off his hair… Forcing herself to deepen her scowl she jerks a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to a row of shelves that she knows doesn't contain the book she's looking for but are far enough away for her not to have to talk to him. "Fine, Baywatch. Look over there."

His brows raise slightly at the old nickname, mouth dropping his ridiculous smile as she brushes past him, walking a few paces away to deposit the book she's grabbed onto a nearby table just for the sake of putting some distance between them. "… Uh." He says dumbly, turning slowly to face her. "... Are we just not going to talk about what happened?"

"No." She says stubbornly, stalking past him again to pursue the shelf once more.

Wally hesitates for a moment, fingers tugging on the end of his sleeve nervously. "Look… I know tonight was awful. My dad… I've said it a thousand times, he's an asshole. He doesn't understand—"

"Wally." She sighs, angry about even being forced into talking, not glancing at him as she extracts a few more books. "Your dad wasn't the problem, okay? And it doesn't matter what he said." She says quickly, knowing without looking that he's opened his mouth to cut her off. "It wasn't anything I hadn't thought before."

She finally looks at him just as she fills her arms to the brim, his shoulders hunched up as he shoves his hands in his pockets. "Okay." He says warily, brows furrowed. "So what's your problem then?"

He sounds almost accusatory, as if the whole evening is her fault; she can feel her jaw dropping as she tries not to snarl back, struggling to smoothen the wrinkle over her nose. "I don't know. You, I guess."

Wally blinks once at her, looking so surprised that she suddenly can't look at him, brushing around him again to place more books on the table. "What? What did I do?" He pauses. "Okay, maybe I could have asked you a little better if you wanted to meet them—"

She cuts him off, voice cold and not even looking at him over her shoulder as she starts spreading her selected books out on the table. "This isn't about that, Wally, okay?"

"Okay. _Good_." He says back firmly, scoffing. "Because if it was— I mean, excuse me for trying to turn this into something _real_."

For some reason her hands slip, one of the books she's been placing tottering off the pile and slamming down loudly against the top of the wooden table; the noise seems to bounce off the shelves around them, oddly loud despite the fact that she can hear her own pulse, loud and angry, in her ears. " _Real_." She repeats, feeling herself go almost unnaturally still for a moment, lungs hardly daring to draw breath for a few long seconds before all her muscles stiffen, forcing her to turn slowly to face him. "You don't think this is real?"

 _It's about the worst she's ever felt in her whole life; she can actually feel her chest tighten, can actually feel her heart as it clenches and snaps off into pieces… Wally doesn't think this is real. Wally doesn't believe in her, or her feelings, and she's been an idiot to think they can get out of this without talking about things—_

Even to her own ears her voice sounds icy, almost mechanic, her eyes narrowed and glaring; Wally, to his credit, looks properly taken aback. "I—" He stutters out, trying to back track.

"What happened to _wanting us to make it_?" She hisses, eyes wide. "What— did you even mean what you said before? Or was that just something you said so I'd come tonight?" She snarls out, one hand rubbing over her face angrily. "... God, Wally. Can you just stop? Please?" She bursts out, without the energy to look at him but knowing that he's opening his mouth to argue. "Can you just stop treating me like one of your stupid experiments? I'm not this thing you can keep picking at and prodding until I'm to your liking."

Wally shakes his head at her, looking exasperated and annoyed. " _I know that_ , Artemis. I didn't mean—"

"I don't care what you _meant_!" She sighs back, almost reaching behind to her start throwing books at him. "For someone who wants this to be _real_ you sure as hell aren't thinking about what that means for both people in this relationship, I mean—It's not fair that I'm the only one who has to change for things to work between us. That's not what I signed up for! What about you, what about— What the _hell_ was that thing with your dad about? How come you aren't fixing that—"

"Artemis." He says lowly, glaring at her but not saying anything else.

"What?" She bursts out, blinking hard and refusing to cry on top of everything else. "... I'm sorry. I'm just... I'm tired of feeling like I'm not good enough, for you, Wally. And I don't care if that's _not what you meant to do_ , it's how I feel. I hate that you can't just let stuff sit, you can't just let me come to terms with stuff by myself, why we always have to do things at your goddamn _fast pace_ — and why, even though I've told you a thousand times that I'm _not at good this stuff_ and that I'm better with going _slow_ , why I'm still the one stuffed into Zatanna's _fucking_ dress that I can't walk in and why after telling you I didn't even want to meet the guy that I'm having your father look me up and down and basically tell me that I'm a cheap substitute for the kind of girl you should actually be with... I'm so sick of this, it's not fair, it's—" She had to stop herself when her voice breaks. "I hate this. I hate that I'm always the one who has to change for you. I hate— I hate you." She spits lowly at him, ignoring the way his brows furrow and his lips part in shock and hurt, looking as if he isn't following her train of thought and how she arrived at this conclusion, only knowing that what she's saying is hurting him.

" _I hate you_!" She repeats louder, the only thing she's yelled at him all night, not caring if she's acting hysterical. "I hate you for not thinking this is real, I..." She hears herself draw in a rattling breath, lower lip quivering and voice much more quiet when she speaks. "You're the realest thing I have, Wally. You're... You're the only person whose ever come back for me." She rubs once, impatiently at her cheek, smudging the trail a stray tear is cutting through her make up. "Why else would I try this hard for you? You're the first person I... _You're the only person who's ever bothered sticking around for me_. I've never had that, never had anyone who... That I..." She doesn't quite know what she wants to say, her throat bobbing angrily before she shakes her head, as if to clear it. "... Whatever. Just leave me alone, okay? I have stuff to do."

She doesn't look at Wally as she brushes past him again. "A-Artemis." He says softly, one hand reaching out to try to catch her about the elbow.

"Don't." She says when he touches her, jerking easily out of his too loose grip. "Just go." She says in an undertone, finally returning to her position of pursuing the shelf.

She ignores Wally when he remains motionless, jaw tight and opening after a few seconds as if to say something; she can't bring herself to look at him, can't bring herself to do anything other than stare angrily at the row of books in front of her unseeingly, hands clenched so tight she can almost imagine the skin splitting. Out of the corner of her eye she watches Wally wipe his nose loudly on the back of his hand, her lungs refusing to inhale any of the walnut scented air he stirs up as he starts walking.

She reaches up as he passes behind her, eyes blinking rapidly; she recognizes a book cover, the deep emerald green of the spine coupled with the golden ribbons text. She's just placed her fingers around it when her whole being stiffens, the breath she's holding stuttering out of her lungs as she feels lips pressing against the fleshy pulse point between her neck and shoulder.

"I'm sorry." Wally whispers, his breath so warm against her that for a moment she forgets to be mad— _forgets much of anything at all, actually_ — her grip tight on the book as she drags it from the shelf, clutching it protectively to her chest.

She shudders as he keeps pressing wet kisses into her skin, her neck tilting back of its own accord to offer him more of herself. "Don't." She breathes, not quite meaning it when she feels his fingers reaching under the hem of her shirt, so hot on her bare stomach as he presses into her, mouth trailing up to her ear and forcing her to hear a shuddering breath that feels as if it's warming in between her legs rather than the side of her cheek. "Wally..." She murmurs, hating how ragged she sounds as he turns her towards him.

When she feels him press his lips to hers she loses it slightly, the sound of his groan into her mouth both numbing and infuriating her. "Stop—" She blurts out, shoving insistently on his chest when he doesn't listen. " _Stop_ , Wally." She repeats, panicking slightly when he still doesn't release her, doesn't oblige her head turning, tongue dragging over the corner of her mouth. "Stop it!"

"Wally!" She pushes him, way harder than she should, way harder than she did hours ago on his front porch; suddenly the book she's been holding is smacking against the carpet and the shelf across from her is rattling, Wally's neck seeming to snap back against an edge as she pins him there, her forearm against his wind pipe. "Y-you can't just kiss me and expect things to be okay—"

" _Well what am I supposed to do then_?" He chokes out angrily, making an odd sort of rasping noise when she removes her arm, the two of them panting and seeming to fall apart at their very edges. "Tell me what you want, I can't leave like this—"

"I want you to leave!" She snarls back, running her hand over her face.

Wally winces when he finally stands properly again, hand rubbing at the bruised line her pushing has no doubt left on the back of his neck. " _I can't._ We both know I can't."

"Why not?"

For not the first time she actually wants to hurt him and knows exactly how she would, if it were any other person and not annoying, unbearable Wally West glaring daggers at her. " _Because I can't_ , okay?" He snarls, and somehow despite the unwavering fury that she seems to be shrouded in she can see the glassiness in his eyes, the way his jaw seems painfully tight. "I'm not stupid, okay? I mean, look at you." He gestures desperately at her. "I know guys like me don't end up with girls like you, I know I'm not as like... You know, as you are. I know I only get one shot." For some reason he glances at her a little helplessly, mouth stretching into a pathetic smile that sends her stomach twisting almost painfully. "... I just don't wanna lose you, okay? I don't want to walk away without knowing that I did everything I—" His voice breaks and suddenly he won't look at her, his ears glowing as he glares at the ground.

She doesn't know why but suddenly she's the one whose embarrassed, as if it was wrong to push him away before; more to break the tension than anything she forces herself to speak, weight shifting uneasily on the carpet. "... I don't think you get just the one shot." She says quietly, watching as he wipes his nose on his shirt sleeve, still not looking at her, not even when she takes a few steps closer. "... Not with me, at least." She pauses, ducking her head slightly when she's less than a foot away, still unable to catch his eye.

"I'm sorry." He says again, shaking his head. "About everything. I didn't mean to make you feel... I didn't mean it. This is real— _this is real for me too_."

He glances up at her through his lashes, which she's just now noticing at dark red, like his hair. "Wally." She says his name quietly, waiting patiently for him to lift his chin a fraction before she leans in, fingers pressing lightly on his jaw.

He's oddly still beneath her when she kisses him, only moving enough to accidentally knock his skull against the edge of the shelf again; had it not been for his hard exhale against her cheek and the warmth of his jaw beneath her fingers she might have been able to convince herself he was hardly there at all, his lips unmoving on hers. After a long moment she pulls back, her fingers knitting between his hair, hardly far enough away to do more than look him in the eye before she takes a step back.

She doesn't know what she meant by it, how she thought kissing him would make things better; she feels awkward, Wally still unmoving from where she shoved him against the shelf. More to avoid looking at him than anything she bends to retrieve the book she dropped, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear when she straightens. "You can... You know. Stay. Or go, if you want to."

As if he's been waiting for her to say something along those lines he suddenly stands up straighter, fidgeting with his layered shirts for a moment to get them to sit properly on his shoulders. "Okay. I guess, uh... I'll go, then."

He glances at her once, hand pushing his fringe off his forehead and pausing at his neck for a moment before dropping; for a half a second she clenches her fingers around the faded green book cover, half expecting him to kiss her good bye or at least hug her like he always does. Instead he shoves his hands in his pockets. "Bye."

 _For some reason she remembers rain; she remembers the wetness of the sand and the feeling of icy ocean water seeping into her sneakers. She remembers silence, remembers her upturned collar scratching against her skin and bandages coating her fingers; bandages he had helped put there, two nights before._

 _"I'm going in." He muttered after a long while, breaking the nearly ten minute silence between them, back already to her when she had glanced at him. "You coming?"_

 _She had shook her head. "No."_

 _He had sent her the same look as the night before in her bedroom, eyes bloodshot and jaw dropped and memories of the exercise still fresh in his head; for a moment he had moved towards her, as if to embrace her, touch her, before he had continued on his path back towards the Cave. "Don't stay out too long." He had yelled back, pausing before he repeated her earlier sentiment. "You'll get sick."_

 _She had half turned, as if to chase after him, as if to say something. Then she had frowned, turning back to the water._

And maybe this was what Wally had felt a few minutes ago, that powerlessness when she had turned her back on him, that sensation she had felt on the beach of wanting to do more but not knowing how; she thinks she understands the mild panic, the heart pounding finality of the moment, the sensation that maybe this time, _this time things really might be over_ , and stupidly she forces her mouth open, speaking without thinking. "Wally!" She yells after him, even though he hasn't even rounded the corner to leave the book isle yet.

He hardly pauses, looking back at her over his shoulder warily. "Yeah?"

"I—" For one wild moment she almost blurts out that she loves him, but before the better part of her can say anything remotely romantic or worthwhile she hears herself stuttering. "I—I don't hate you, okay? I didn't mean it, either."

There's a moment, less than a half second, where something in Wally's face shifts; before she can even begin to wonder what it is or what it means she feels the familiar startlingly fast breeze whip across her skin.

As if knowing what is about to come, her eyes close.

* * *

It's not gentle, the way he kisses her; despite the fact that he's grown better at his stopping in the past few months he still practically crashes into her, the whole of his weight slamming her into the shelf. Almost immediately she's winded, the books around them rattling and several even falling to the floor as all the breath is knocked out of her; she feels her lips part beneath his, the whole of her oxygen popping over her tongue and into his mouth. "Sorry—" He pants out between kisses, sucking hard on her lips as she dazedly tries to keep his feverish pace. "You okay?"

She's just drawn the breath to respond when he nudges her feet apart with his own, forcing her legs to spread for him and pressing his body as close to flush against hers as they can get with clothes still on. As if from outside herself she hears the barely-there moan that seems to blossom in the back of her throat, and rather than waste her breath she catches herself nodding against his mouth, hands raking through his hair and pulling him closer.

 _She still stands by what she said before_ — _kissing won't make it better. But perhaps it's the best place to start._

Neither of them are being particularly kind about touching each other, not when there's still so many hurt feelings between them and they're both not sure if the fight is resolved—his hands are like iron on her waist, so tight she's sure they'll leave finger shaped bruises along her ribs, his mouth suckling hard on her tongue. She feels her cheeks reddening, can feel her body responding to him as he shifts his leg, her back arching when he unknowingly touches her the right way and a groan sounding in the back of her throat, teeth biting down sharply on his lower lip until they both pull back, hissing and breathing heavily.

"Artemis." He pants out her name, one hand leaving her waist to grip the edge of a shelf, watching curiously as she reacts to him pressing harder into her. In an almost feral way she feels her hips roll in response, her leg hitching up over his hip to keep him tight to her, biting the inside of her cheek when she sees Wally's pupils blow out rapidly, his Adam's apple bobbing as she feels the sudden hardness that's pressing against her.

"I know." She says, even though she doesn't, watching his head loll back as she rolls her hips again, stretching up to press her mouth to his neck.

 _Because maybe it doesn't matter, not now. They're always going to fight, she's always going to be insecure, and they're always going to figure out a way to work past it. They're Artemis and Wally, that's what they do. They fight and they get over it. None of that is new, but this is—the new feelings he's pouring through her, the way he's suddenly forcing her to pull back, the way he's kissing her as if by pouring all his raw emotion into her they'll somehow be able to sort things out—_

Wally groans into her when she forces her tongue to swipe over his lips, one hand clenching her waist and the other hitching her leg still higher, pressing the two of them closer in all the right ways and forcing the both of them to pause for a moment, breathy half moans shooting up their throats and into each other's mouths. She feels her eyes nearly roll out the back of her head as he leans into her, his length pressing against her core and his hand running up her thigh, fingers not stopping until he's cupping her rear.

Suddenly it's as if there's too much clothing between them, her fingers running down his shoulders and forcing the ridiculous extra layer he always seems to be wearing down his arms before returning to the back of his neck, clawing at his back until he gets the message: _clothes Wally, we're taking off clothes._ She gets as far as tugging his shirt over his head and sending him a wry smile before he's suddenly attacking her, lips pressing so hard into hers that she can feel them pulse half in pain and half in want; before she can even properly pull back to gasp out the sensation is gone, his mouth nudging at her jaw until she turns her head.

"W-wally…" She stutters out his name in this ridiculously high pitched voice as he finds her neck, all lips and teeth as he bites down once, _hard_ , on her pulse point. All her air seems to hiss out between her teeth when he immediately runs his tongue over it, pressing swift kisses over her skin and apologizing for his over eagerness before suckling again, tongue tracing a vein as it flows up behind her ear before letting out the same breathy pant that had very nearly undone her a few minutes ago.

It annoying but ever so endearing when he pulls back, fingers barely curling under the hem of her tee shirt and teasing the lines of muscle on her stomach, eyes finding hers with a questioning gaze that slows everything down all together. "Uh..." He gets as far as saying before his ears promptly turn red, not quite sure what he wants to ask, his eyes still a little hazy from the heat of the moment.

 _She knows what he's trying to say: is this okay? Where's the finish line here? What's our end game?_

 _It's a little off putting, the fact that she doesn't have an answer. She just knows she doesn't want it to stop._

She doesn't wait for him to find the right words, always found the idea of asking permission for every little thing silly anyway; before he can do more than stutter slightly she leans back, yanking the hem of her shirt upwards.

Her hair is ruffled when she emerges but she supposes it doesn't matter— Wally's no longer looking remotely near her face anymore. It would be almost funny, had the moment not been so serious: his cheeks oddly reddened and looking at the expanse of grey fabric and underwire coating her breasts with slightly widened eyes. It takes a lot of her self-restraint not to say what she wants to say _("Need a minute, Wallman?")_ and simply drop her shirt to the floor in a way she hopes isn't too teasing. And maybe it's a little cruel; the slow, almost deliberate way she reaches behind her unclasp her bra, especially in face of the hardness now stretching wide across the front of his jeans.

 _She's had a pretty awful night, she figures she deserves to have a little fun._

Wally goes crimson at the sound of her bra unclasping, his eyes suddenly leaving her breasts as she begins dragging the straps down her shoulders as if trying to be a gentleman and look away as she undresses. "Wally." She says, trying to sound kind as she reaches up to drag his face back down to hers, not wanting his nervousness to slow things down.

It takes three rough kisses against his mouth before he seems to unwind slightly, pulling back to brace his arms against the bookshelf, effectively boxing her in so as to get a better look at her. She can feel herself growing almost embarrassed at the way he looks at her, hard glances in between languid kisses— _his pupils blown out like some sort of feral animal, breath halting inside his chest, every muscle tensed with excitement_ —but forces herself not to hide from him, forces her arms to stay firmly around his neck as he stares at her. She doesn't know what she's trying to prove to him, doesn't know if this is just another thing that she wants him to accept without judgement or if she's in some way trying to prove something to herself. Either way she decides to stop looking at him in the face, her eyes falling to his bare chest.

She reaches for him when he kisses her again, her index finger tracing the barely there scar the bullet left beside his heart; instantly she feels him shiver, goose pimples erupting all over his skin and lips practically vibrating against her as he pulls back, nose barely grazing hers. She can hear the hitch in his breathing, can feel his eyes as they leave her breasts to simply watch her curiously, to focus on the feeling of her fingers as they trace the layers of muscles and freckles; up to his collar bone, down over one nipple—as she does this she feels something tense in his back and he leans into her, one hand clenching the edge of the shelf—fingers tracing the bumps of hard muscle on his abdomen before twisting the trail of hair below his belly button between her forefinger and thumb, nails scratching his skin—

Wally lets out a slightly strangled groan when she touches him through his jeans, head ducking down for a moment to watch as she strokes the length of him through his jeans. She catches herself breathing heavily as she tightens her grip against his exposed edge, the scent of walnuts hitting her hard across the cheek as he shakes his head; before she can do anything other than almost moan in excitement his lips are back against hers, pressing hard but unmoving before pulling back, muttering low and quick when she starts fumbling blindly with his belt. "Babe..."

"Shh, Wally."

 _They don't have to say so many words to each other, not in tender moments like this. She had been humiliated and overreacted, he had been confused and spoke without thinking. Now more than ever it's clear, what they have it real, it's more real to either of them than anything outside the library—_

She pulls herself back into her own head when she hears herself moaning, Wally's tongue trailing down her throat and pausing to suck once on the bundle of nerves that joins her neck with her shoulder. She nearly cries out in relief when she feels his fingers trailing up her sides just like she did to him moments ago, hesitating for half a second before grasping her breast in his palm and squeezing tenderly. She can't stop herself, not when the heat between her legs is this hot and he's finally touching her the way she wants him to; selfishly she's abandoning his belt altogether and covering his hands with hers, guiding him as he feels her and trying desperately to show him what she needs.

Wally pulls back with surprise when she gasps, looking confused and then immediately intrigued when he sees the cloudiness in her eyes, the redness on her lips as she guides his hand, her nipples hardened as he pinches them once in the webbing of his fingers before rolling them between his thumb and forefinger. Even now he's a scientist, experimenting and observing, eyes flickering rapidly between her face and her breasts as she pants out like a wild animal; suddenly something changes in his face, and without asking questions he ducks his head down.

She has a moment to feel his hot breath on her other breast before suddenly she's moaning his name, his lips encasing her nipple and suckling it into his mouth, tongue swirling and feverish and teeth gently nipping, trying to mimic the more precise movements of his fingers. She can't stop her fingers from knotting through his hair, hips bucking once, twice against the hardness pressing tight against his jeans as he drags his tongue in the dip between her breasts, breathing ragged against her. His teeth graze her nipple a little too hard as she bucks for a third time; never one to miss an opportunity Wally catches her, fingers slipping between her legs.

"Oh, _God_." She hears herself say; the touch, even through the thick material of the jeans, forces a ridiculous panting moan from her mouth as her head lolls back. This is what she's been wanting for weeks, months now, this touch— this _feeling_ , the gentle petting of Wally fingers on her, unskilled but eager to learn as he watches her reaction, adjusting his movements as she shifts her hips in wanting.

She's just reached for him again when they both hear it: a noise, a dozen shelves over, most likely near the entrance of the library. Instantly they both freeze, her hand tight on Wally's length and his fingers pressing anxiously against the button that would remove her pants, eyes locked on each other with mirrored panicked expressions, both listening hard.

The seconds go on and the noise doesn't repeat itself, but the longer the pause the more it occurs to her that there's less of a chance of resuming things the way she wants to; cheeks reddened she moves her hand slightly, hopefully stroking him. "... It was a mouse." She says confidently, leaning in to kiss him again.

Wally indulges the thought long enough for him to return her kiss, nearly making her groan out in frustration when he pulls back. "Probably, but..." He pauses, looking as if he hates what he's about to say. "Maybe this isn't the best spot for what we had planned on doing. Remember the couch the other day?"

He makes a fair point, even if it makes her want to claw her hair out of her scalp when he gently plucks at her wrist, removing her hand.

* * *

 **AN: Another crazy long chapter!**

 **Q &A:**

 **Q: Will there ever be a "smooth" chapter? One that isn't as intense and makes me go on the edge of my seat?**

 **A: First, it makes me happy to hear that you're engaged with the story! But I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Personally I try to include something in each chapter that is either interesting/relevant to upcoming events/keeps the plot moving forward. It's just my writing style; I don't see the point of uploading a chapter if nothing exciting happens and I've never been one for whole chapters that are nothing but fluff. If you are referring to the very up-and-down nature of Wally and Artemis' relationship, that is something they, like all couples, will grow out of as they mature; these two are only 15 and 16, and the rest of the Team is still at the height of their teenage hormones too. I guess one of the take always from this chapter is that they have quite a ways before that happens!**

 **Q: What's the update schedule now that you're done exams?**

 **A: I haven't quite figured it out yet myself; I'm planning on slowing down for a bit so I can enjoy the holidays and spend some time stock piling some more chapters so they're ready to be edited and posted in the New Year. The goal is still ultimately to update once a week, but we'll see how that goes once I start up school again. To make a long answer short: I recommend clicking the Follow button, that way you will receive an update whenever I post.**

 **That's it for now folks. Enjoy your holidays and please read and review!**


	12. Old Teenage Hopes

**AN: Wow! Back from what turned into a slightly longer break than expected... I have some house keeping to do but I'll save that as usual for my author's note at the bottom. Enjoy!**

 **Picks from the playlist: Keep Breathing by Ingrid Michaelson; 1234 by Feist; Atop a Cake by Alvvays.**

* * *

She can feel Wally's eyes on her as she clasps her bra, watching curiously as she pins the plastic hooks together just below her breasts before twisting it round to sit properly in the center of her back. "What?" She asks almost gruffly.

 _And maybe her annoyance at their stopping is showing; she can still feel her wanting for him pressing against the scalding lines of muscle he had touched, can still feel the sensitive point between her legs throbbing and aching for him, stifled beneath the clothing she's forced to cover herself with..._

Wally blinks once, still looking a little dazed as he draws his eyes away from where she's adjusting herself so her breasts sit evenly in the cups of her bra. "Nothing. I don't know." He doesn't see the confused look she sends him as he disappears behind the collar of his shirt; when he emerges his hair is mused and his ears are as crimson as ever. "... Don't take this the wrong way, or anything." He says warily, adjusting his sleeves and waiting until she's yanking her own shirt over her head before he continues. "But you're... You're so beautiful, Artemis."

For some reason she's caught off guard by the compliment, her fingers fumbling slightly with the hem of her shirt and tugging it so hard she's sure she's stretched the material out of shape. "Uh, right." She says awkwardly, wondering for a half second if it would be stupid to try to return the compliment.

It feels safer to roll her eyes and turn her back on him, and that's what she does.

It takes them a while to clean up the isle they've trashed, replacing fallen books on shelves and righting what they've rattled in their heat. It takes even longer for her skin to feel almost cool to the touch and she's caught off guard by the goose pimples on her arms, as if her body is instinctively missing Wally's closeness and his warmth.

Still, she finds the book almost exactly where she remembers dropping it, nearly a foot from the place where Wally had crashed into her. The deep emerald of the cover seems too bright for the dingy carpet when she picks it up, the golden text on the cover hardly faded as if its been too long since the oils of finger tips have softened it.

 _New Venice: The Documentation of All Drowning Seas._

* * *

They've hardly even rounded the corner towards the exit when the source of the earlier noise becomes obvious; through a thin slotted window on the library doors she can see Kaldur on the other side, hand braced against the handle and in deep conversation with Red Tornado, wobbling the hinge in the intensity of his speaking. Silently thanking whatever cosmic forces that prompted the interaction she picks up her pace, oddly outstripping Wally and arriving at the door first.

She hands over the book to Kaldur with an almost childish amount of satisfaction, as if she were in grade school and turning in a homework assignment she worked particularly hard on. "Excellent." He tells her, milky eyes looking bright as he surveys the book. "That certainly did not take you long. Or—" He pauses as Wally emerges from the library behind her, the door creaking loudly on its hinges as it swings open and closed. "Ah. I suppose good help never goes amiss."

As he says it she catches his eyes straying downwards and away from her face; just as she feels the familiar warmth of Wally settling a few inches beside her she remembers the over-eagerness of his biting about her neck, remembers how she had hissed as he had broken her skin and how he had pressed wet kisses and suckled against the fleshy joint of her shoulder to soothe her... It occurs to her all too late that he's probably left a bruise behind. "Yeah." She mumbles, and it's about as obvious as she's ever been in her whole life when she tilts her head to the side, dragging her pony tail over her shoulder to hide the wound as she glances at Wally. "It does."

 _She catches his gaze and there's something she can't quite understand in the half smile on his face; it reminds her so much of so many moments before, back when he felt like one giant unknown rather than just a few small, mysterious pieces. Whatever it is on his face it's is undefinable, as if the green irises blinking once at her slowly hold something soft and tender, yet another thing about him that she doesn't understand (like his fear of losing her, like his unconditional kindness, like why he picked her out of thousands of better, less broken girls to always run back to) but desperately wants to. And maybe it scares her_ — _though not, she tries to think positively, as much as it used to_ — _this lack of understanding, this bumpiness they keep encountering that threatens to tear them apart. But she wants to try._

 _She just isn't quite sure how to go about doing that._

When she finally glances back at Kaldur he's smirking at her, and for a moment there's absolute silence in the tiny hallway; she can tell he has at least an inkling of what exactly they've been up to, murky tongue poking out to lick his lips as if debating whether or not to say something on the matter. Resolutely she drops her smile and glares, refusing to even acknowledge the mechanic swiveling sound of Red Tornado's head as it turns to glance at either of them, Wally fidgeting beside her impatiently and huffing slightly before speaking. " _Okay_ , book found, Kal. What next?"

The Atlantean's brows furrow once at her before he decidedly looks away, smirk dropping off his features as he falls once more into seriousness; with a wave he sends Red Tornado off as they begin to walk, directionless, down the hallway.

Kaldur rushes them through the updates of various teammates, making it obvious within a few minutes that the examination of S.T.A.R Labs didn't exactly lead to anything hopeful. "The Team arrived back at the Cave almost a half hour ago— I believe Robin was looking for you, Wally. He had a personal matter he wanted to discuss."

"Cool. Come on, Babe—"

Kaldur cuts him off with a slightly stern look, hands folding behind his back. "I was hoping to discuss something private with Artemis. Perhaps she would be willing to meet with you later."

She can feel her cheeks blush crimson, something in the knowing look on Kaldur's face making her nervous, as if she were a child anticipating a scolding from its parent. Beside her Wally's brows shoot up into his hair, expression a little quizzical before he shrugs. "Uh. Okay?" She's more than relieved when he decides to forgo his usual goodbye kiss and instead touches her, almost unnoticeably, about the small of her waist. "... See you later."

Her and Kaldur don't look at each other, heads instead turning to follow Wally's progress down the hall; it's predictable, she thinks, the four or five steps he takes at a normal pace before suddenly kicking into a burst of speed... Or perhaps she simply thinks so because she's used to it. Either way she still closes her eyes against the sudden back-draft of air, her pony tail whipping out behind her and settling after a second.

When she finally gets the courage to glance back at Kaldur he has one brow raised at her, mouth back in that annoying smirk; she's suddenly very aware that her pony tail is no longer covering the mark Wally left on her neck, but she'll be damned if she's going to give him the satisfaction of trying to cover it. Instead she narrows her eyes, ignoring the lingering redness of her cheeks. "... You wanted to talk to me?"

"You two seem to be on better terms." Kaldur says plainly, still smirking. "Am I to take it that sending him to the library was the correct course of action?"

She her eyes widen stupidly, cheeks setting off in her embarrassment. "You sent him after me?"

"I merely suggested it. I too have spent plenty of time studying inside the library, I know as well as you do how extensive its works are— I take it the help wasn't unwelcome?"

She can feels her lips threatening to burst into a series of mortified stutters; somehow she manages to contain them, mouth thinning into a straight line for a moment before she decides what she wants to say. "Congrats, Kal. You're matchmaker of the year. Can I go now?"

The corners of Kaldur's mouth quirk up at her snarling, and she gets the distinct sense that he's quite satisfied with himself. "Not yet. I have been wondering— what are your plans for when you finish high school? Have you considered applying to any colleges?"

It's about the last thing she's expecting him to ask her, and stupidly she feels her scowl drop from her face, brows raising. "I— Well, I don't know. I haven't been like, really looking at anything. Why?"

Kaldur hesitates, those few seconds long enough for her mind to burst into curiosity. "Because you've intrigued me, Artemis, and the rest of the League is in agreement. Have you ever considered... A Future? With the Team, or perhaps in time with the League?"

"I—" A little oddly she glances after Wally, as if hoping to see her own surprise mirrored in the vacant spot he's left beside her. "I mean, not really. I've thought about it, or whatever, but it never really seemed like it would turn into anything. Are you being serious?"

Kaldur nods at her, and she sees a small flash of overly rounded teeth as he smiles at her. "I am. You are perhaps a bit young now—you will be 16 in July, yes?— but if you are interested, I would be willing to put in a good word for you... When the time comes."

"I— Wow. Yes, please." She grins, stretching her skin so tight she can feel her cheeks aching.

"Excellent." Kaldur grins back, and for a half second the two of them are smiling at each other like a bunch of morons before he turns, nodding at her to walk down the hallway beside him. "I am glad of your enthusiasm— I believe after New Years Eve the League sees as much promise in us as I see in you; it is only a matter of time before more young heroes start being shunted our way and more of the older members of the Team are promoted upwards..." For some reason Kaldur trails off; when she glances at him his tongue is running over his lower lip again, an odd habit that she's never seen him do before tonight. "I was wondering, perhaps, now that you know the League is watching more closely, if you would be interested in taking a leadership position in the continued investigation of what happened in Metropolis? Tula has been intrigued by its happenings as well; she's just begun scouring League archives for further information pertaining to the terror attacks on New Venice and Metropolis, searching for further links between the two so as to piece together a full report for the League—"

Her footsteps falter for a moment, the bottom of her sneaker catching slightly on the carpet. "... Tula's working on Metropolis too? Isn't this... You know. Supposed to be information kept only within the Team?" She interrupts, glancing at Kaldur with narrowed eyes. "Besides, wasn't she supposed to be in Atlantis, with Garth and M'gann?"

To her surprise Kaldur blushes, unfamiliar splotches of deep purple coloring his cheeks and leaking down his neck, splattering unevenly along his gills. His tongue darts out unexpectedly to moisten his lower lip again, and for the first time she realizes that it's slightly swollen. "... Tula decided to remain behind." He says simply, avoiding her eye.

* * *

She catches herself rubbing tiredly at her eyes a few hours later, gaze straying away from the dingy League archives she's been scouring on a laptop to glance at the time in the corner of her screen. It's a little after one in the morning and she can't remember another day in her lifetime feeling longer than this one.

For some reason she feels an odd sort of disconnect with the girl she woke up as this morning; it's as if in the span of a few hours she's outgrown her, overstepped her. It's hard to imagine beginning her day by being worried over something as stupid as meeting Wally's parents, hard to find that part of herself that donned a dress and allowed make up to be smeared along her cheeks. She feels a tenfold more grown up, a hell of a lot older than simply fifteen; she wonders if this is how Dick, or even Kaldur, feel all the time, knowing that their future is so obviously intertwined with the Team, with the League itself. As she thinks it she jolts slightly, pulling her eyes back into focus and trying to find the spot she's left off in her reading on the screen.

Maybe it's a bit of a stupid thing to be proud of; she knows as well as anyone that things like this are never truly promised, never really a sure thing— there's just too many moving parts, too many unknown variables. But it feels like a big deal to her, going from suspected traitor for the better part of a year to someone who's playing a key role in an actual Team-led investigation. That has to mean something? Right? It means she's finally proven her worth, proven herself, finally— _finally_ — earned some trust...

And maybe it doesn't matter that she doesn't exactly know what qualifies her for this sort of thing... It's not like it's as important as being Team Leader, where credentials must be considered and something as sticky and dark as her past probably wouldn't be tolerated. But maybe this is better than that; this isn't directing people or policing behaviors and squabbles— this is action, _this is validation_ , this is a guaranteed spot on the Alpha Squad, when there's actually enough people around to form one. This is Kaldur, _her closest friend_ , looking her in the eye and telling her in so many words that he sees her future. He sees potential, he sees someone worth keeping around—

 _She's never had someone look at her and see that before._

She feels her pride tight at the back of her throat and for some reason she has to force her eyes to focus hard on the pixels she's been staring at to stop the annoying burning she feels hot along her lashes.

That's not exactly true, she supposes. There's Wally, as there always is— _sweet, absolutely annoying and wonderfully horrible Wally_. He's always seen the best of her, hasn't he; always been there to pester her into believing in herself, always there to nudge her elbow and grin at her as if he's known all along that good things were coming. He's always seen a future for her, for the both of them, together and happy and with each other and the Team... And that's what he had meant? He wants them to make it— _it's real_. It's real, it's real...

And it is, that much she knows is true, as true now as it had been when they were so close in the library, his fingers between her legs and her eyes clouded with the sudden realization of how she can't lose him, _won't lose him_ —

She feels her eyes burning again and manages to distract herself by reading a few lines on the screen before she's pulled out of her own head by a sigh; she'd almost forgotten Tula was there. They're hauled up in another one of the Cave's ridiculous conference rooms, similar to the one that held Red Arrow a little less than a week ago yet somehow brighter, less threatening to her eyes; when she glances around a little wildly she sees the Atlantean sitting oddly straight in her chair, hands splaying out in frustration over an assortment of papers and the book she had retrieved hours ago.

"I am not sure I understand." Tula sighs, fingers flipping a little absently through the edges of a few sheets of paper; she can't stop herself from glancing down at the movements of the overlong, slender fingers, dainty oval nails smoothing creases and fixing imperfections in the parchment. For some reason watching the other girl's hands makes her suddenly self-conscious of her own ragged cuticles and bitten nails, and she catches herself curling her hands into fists on her keyboard to hide them.

They've been working in relative silence since she first joined her in the room several hours ago. Despite herself she feels a slight hesitation towards the other girl, her good first impression being marred by the fact that Tula has been bothering Kaldur's good judgment; she still hasn't forgiven her for the unknown joke that somehow prompted Kaldur to casts suspicions on her so recently...

As she thinks it she feels the pride she's been feeling suddenly burst, all the heat of joy flooding from her stomach and being replaced by a cold, tight twisting. Perhaps that's what this is about, his asking her to take a lead in this investigation despite someone like Dick being much better suited— it's not Kaldur showing faith in her, it's another one of his "treats," like his allowing her to interrogate Red Arrow alone; this isn't showing faith in her, it isn't a promotion, it's just another half-bribe to convince her to forgive him for his lapse of good judgment—

 _For some reason she can suddenly hear Wally's voice at the forefront of her mind, snarling the word "insecure" at her and slamming a sai on the ground at her feet. It's the same thing all over again, the same stupid problem_ —

 _Suck it up._

 _Don't be a baby._

 _Don't be insecure._

She can feel her nails digging into the crease of her palm, anger at Kaldur so pressing that she has to forcibly wrap her ankles around the legs of her chair to keep herself from rising and seeking him out to interrogate him; it takes longer than it should to become composed, to shove her insecurities inside the cage where she keeps the worst of herself, her voice still sounding slightly cold as she raises her eyes from where they've been glaring at Tula's hands. "What don't you understand?"

Whether by biological Atlantean means or simply her own Tula is a fast reader, way quicker than her by far; it's obvious by the sheer quantity that she's finished sorting through that the girl is spending no more than perhaps twenty seconds on each page before flipping onto the next, eyes seeming to scan and memorize more than simply absorb information. A little childishly she unfurls her hands, fingers working hastily as if she has a chance of catching up, _as if this is some sort of competition_. "This… tablet, that the S.T.A.R Labs developed. They created it in response to the theft of a piece of biological matter Atlantis supplied them with, yes?"

She feels her own fingers pause in the act of pounding against laptop keys, scowling into the unnatural lights of the screen. It's the third time Tula has asked her this question tonight. "… Uh, yeah. That's what Kal said."

In the few hours they've spent together she's realized that when she's thinking Tula repeats the facts out loud and frequently, often disrupting her own work to do it. She's supposes it must help, starting in the firm boundaries of fact before moving onto more abstract ideas; Tula lets out a huffy breath and instantly her otherwise pleasant scent _(lavender, sea salt, an unidentifiable moistened sweetness)_ hits her hard across the face, her nose wrinkling as she hears overlong fingers tapping once against the cover of a book.

"And this biological matter," Tula says slowly, humming again and not looking at her, "as we had already confirmed, was not a creature that was native to Atlantis, but rather to New Venice. Suspected to be a genetic relative or byproduct of whatever magical forces downed New Venice in the first place, although that is yet to be confirmed—"

"Correct." She says tersely, catching herself biting the inside of her cheek and stopping. Tula looks at her, and despite her annoyance she can feel herself being softened by the confusion in the milky green eyes— she supposes she understands, in some small way, how Kaldur could be so infatuated by Tula, especially when her amber eyelashes blink slowly, almost helplessly at her. "What are you asking me, Tula?" She says impatiently after a moment, getting tired of watching the other girl find different ways to be perplexed.

In response Tula tilts her head almost absently on her shoulders, neck cracking to the left; she's seen her and Garth do the gesture on numerous occasions, even remembers Kaldur still having the habit when she first met him— she supposes it is like an Atlantean shrug but smoother, less jarring, infinitely more elegant and charming that its counter part on the surface world.

"I am not sure what to ask really." Tula mumbles, one finger pressing firmly against her lips. She realizes, with a slight pang, that her lips look slightly reddened, swollen in the same way Kaldur's were, but before she can make much of it Tula's drawing her attention elsewhere. "Perhaps... How are such creatures simply appearing out of thin air in New Venice? Biologically, these traits the— Electro Magnetic Pulses they give off, the ability to do so must be inherited from a parent, yes? Even with the influence of magic the effect would not be permanent, it would stop working when the caster was drained of energy. If I recall that was what intrigued Atlantean scientists in the first place with your... Squid. The fact that it was so old, untouched for so long, yet had such a powerful presence of Electro Magnetic Pulses..."

It takes her a few minutes to answer, mind still distracted by the other girl's lips and wishing suddenly that Wally were present; he's the one who came up with the theory she's about to tell Tula, she knows he'll be much better at explaining it that she has a chance to be. Sighing, she momentarily nudges the laptop away and focuses on her quarry across the table, trying to remember exactly how he worded it to her.

"... Have you ever heard of an atomic bomb?" She says a little stupidly, frowning when the other girl shakes her head. "Okay, well, basically the United States and Russia were really competitive back in the day... I mean, you know the whole thing about Capitalism and Communism and the Cold War, right?" She's a little relieved when Tula nods and pulls a scrap of paper towards herself, seizing a nearby pencil. "Well, basically there was this huge fight between them, that never actually escalated into a full blown war, but both sides had built these big, deadly bombs that were designed to knock out whole civilizations called Atomic Bombs.

"An Atomic Bomb was a bomb that was dependent on nuclear fission and energy to destroy its target... But the most dangerous thing about an Atomic Bomb wasn't that it just landed and it exploded and people were killed." She pauses to draw a tiny circle, the lead of her pencil filling it with scratches of dark grey. "It lands, and there's an impact, but the real devastation is in what it leaves behind—sort of waves around the initial impact, where the closer you are you receive the most damage." She drags her pencil, drawing a another, wider circle to encase the first colored one. "If you're close enough to the impact it kills you, burns your atoms apart within seconds..." Another circles encasing these two. "Sometimes being that near the radiation can cause cancers, birth defects, prevents people from living to a certain age." A final, much larger circle to encase them all. "There's way more waves of damage than just the three, circling miles around the initial impact... The waves of radiation sometimes damage soil, prevent crops from growing, make it unsafe to live there. It doesn't just hurt people, it hurts the place they're living too."

She glances up at Tula automatically, double checking to see that she's following. "I don't really... It's Wally's idea." She says a little sheepishly. "He's better at explaining it. But— maybe he's right. Say whatever magic Ocean Master used to down New Venice, say it... Hurt the area underwater where he dragged it to? So all the Electro Magnetic Pulses—"

"Would have ingrained themselves in the ocean floor and permanently damaged the environment." Tula finishes for her, eyes narrowing slightly as her forefinger traces her lips again. "Thus allowing for the creation of new creatures like your Squid. It is an interesting theory... But your Squid is much older than simply a few decades, yes? Much too old for simply Ocean Master's meddling?"

She opens her mouth to argue; after a few seconds she scowls, going back to her computer screen. "I know that." She says, sounding childish. It had just been one of Wally's stupid ideas anyway, something he had tossed her way weeks ago when they were still obsessed with what happened in Metropolis and still too weak to do anything about it. "... Maybe he dragged New Venice onto another spot already lousy with Electro Magnetic Pulses from something else..." She suggest half heartedly.

They fall into an uneasy silence again, her eyes glaring unseeing for a few moments on the computer screen before she finally starts to read again; she's hardly made it a quarter of the way down the screen when her ears start being bothered by shuffling papers again. She has the good sense to run a finger over her mouse pad, highlighting the sentence she's stopped on so not to lose her place again when Tula speaks. "The device that was stolen was designed to track EMP's." She says plainly, not really asking a question. "To track more creatures that emitted such pulses..."

" _Yeah_." She blurts out almost rudely in the silence that follows, not sure if she's supposed to respond.

Tula hums out the same half note she's been repeating all night, not looking at her. "… And once your Squid was stolen you believe chemical engineers harnessed the power of EMP's with the intention of implanting them in people? When blended with your… Kobra Venom, was it?" Tula stops speaking again for a moment and she decides to nod like an idiot, eyes half straying back to her computer screen. "The Kobra Venom intrigues me. Does it also release such Electro Magnetic Pulses when used?"

She's just gone back to her highlighted text, just unselected it just as Tula says this; she loses her place almost immediately when she glances away, eyes narrowing. "... I don't know. I'm not sure if it's been tested for that."

"... You will pardon me." Tula says after a moment, and this time it's clear by the rapt focus of her eyes that she's actually speaking _to_ her, not just _at_ her. "Perhaps it is not my place to know such things, as I am not an _official_ member of the Team, but... Kaldur'ahm has confided several things in me. One of which is the fact that Kobra Venom was created to enhance super criminals, allowing them to battle on more level terms with the Justice League... Should this Kobra Venom actually mimic genetic potential for powers in the material of a super heroe's DNA, should the original DNA not emit Electro Magnetic Pulses in the same way...? In theory, the stolen tablet should be able to track specific heroes— even heroes who have undiscovered potential for powers in their genetics— around the globe, be able to track them much more specifically than just through zeta-beam transportation..."

For a moment she feels her whole body run cold, feels her pulse pounding hard and fast in her ears at the thought...

 _Her father would be able to find her whenever he wanted, would be able to track her down and kill her without so much as a second thought._

"I—" She starts and then stops, forcing the sheer terror out of her head and instead willing her voice to run evenly, refusing to indulge Tula at the ridiculousness of the thought— after all, _she's_ _the one supposed to be leading this investigation,_ she can't afford to fall apart when things look tough. "Kaldur shouldn't have told you all that, you're right." She says coldly. "... I'll alert the League about the possibility... But, I don't know, Tula." She says frankly, hoping her confidence in the matter will at least soothe the wrinkle between the other girl's amber brows. "This is America, super heroes like Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash... The government doesn't exactly leave them alone. Scientists in this country aren't content to let them run around constantly, unsupervised. They used get tested on like lab rats back in the day, they probably still do now. If there was something important to find they would have found it."

It's a bit of a weak defense and she doesn't quite miss Tula's frown deepening for a moment before she looks away, as if she's decided to play nice rather than argue. "Perhaps you are right." She sighs, hesitating before leaning back in her chair. "I am turning into a conspirator, it must be worrisome for Garth..." There's a rather sticky sounding pause, and for some reason when Tula glances at her she feels the skin of her arms prickling warily. "But Kaldur'ahm is worried too. I do not know if he has said anything to you, but..?"

She catches herself biting the inside of her cheek again, turning back to her computer as one hand rubs at the length of her arm, trying to smooth the bothered skin. "… I know that he's worried about the tablet being missing." She pulls out evasively, not sure if that's what she's being asked.

Tula lets out a small tinkling laugh, overtly feminine yet not high pitched. "Certainly, of course." Out of the corner of her eyes she watches as the other girl leans forward in her chair, fingers folding neatly together atop the pile of papers. "But I can sense there is something more, something he is not telling me... I have known him nearly all my life. He is my dearest friend…But he never tells me these things anymore. His thoughts, his worries…" She pauses, chin dipping and surveying her through thick lashes and flopping bangs. "He speaks most highly of you, Artemis. I could tell, even before I saw the two of you together… He cares about you very much."

She can feel her cheeks reddening. "We're close." She says vaguely, pulling her eyes back to screen and disappointed when Tula doesn't pick up on her hinting to drop the subject, instead leaning further forward to talk to her in a hushed tone.

"You joined this Team in late August, yes?" She feels herself nodding along to Tula's question, eyes unfocused on the pixels she's supposed to be staring at. "I remember, he was most excited about you."

Against her better judgment she looks away from the work she's supposed to be doing. She's a little caught off guard at the wry smile the other girl is wearing, looking at her curiously but not unkindly. "… I must confess, I thought perhaps… Perhaps there was something more, for a while. Naturally that was before I knew of you and Kid Flash. But, still… Perhaps this is petty to admit, but I might have been... Jealous?"

She can feel a pang of surprise cross her features before she can properly hide it; almost at once she hears Tula's tinkling laugh again, feeling immediately stupid at her reaction despite it being Tula's blunder. "Pardon me, I did not mean— you must understand. Kaldur'ahm and I are the greatest of friends, the dearest of— I simply meant of your new closeness; it is odd, being once so intimate with someone and then those feelings... But distance does that." There's another one of her odd pauses. "Of course."

Absently she clicks a few stray keys on her keyboard, still feeling the lingering redness about her cheeks; there's something strange in the way Tula is suddenly blundering through her sentences, something off in the way her overlong fingers begin nervously fidgeting with the papers, arranging them carefully into even stacks. She feels as if she's being prodded into admitting something, as if she's being interrogated by someone too polite to say plainly what they want of her. "... Right." She nods back warily, mostly because it feels like it's the right thing to say.

There's another brief moment of silence in which she hears her own fingers cease their typing, brain whirring ahead of her, prompting her to ask a question that's been bothering her for over a month now. "... So that's why you brought Garth then? To... I don't know. Mark a boundary with Kaldur?"

She can tell it's the last thing Tula is expecting her to say, her amber brows shooting up into her hair. When the Atlantean speaks she can hear a straight note of haughtiness there, the rounded points of her nails cutting creases into her perfect papers when she tries to laugh again. "... Perhaps we are both misunderstanding each other. Garth and I have long since been curious over the happenings of the surface world, and Kaldur—"

"I know, I know." She waves her off, for some reason embarrassed at the Atlantean's tact. "He told me. But… I also know Kaldur wasn't expecting you to bring Garth. Kind of rude to invite a guest without telling the host." She shrugs, glancing back at her computer for the sake of having something to look at other than Tula. "Maybe that's just me but... Kind of seems like you only brought Garth along because you thought Kaldur had someone else too. And I know Kaldur was looking really excited to spend some time alone with you."

Oddly the tip of Tula's nose reddens; for a moment she's sure she's about to be yelled at, flinching despite herself when the other girl opens her mouth to speak. "... Really." She's more than off-put by the quiet of her tone. "... I was looking forward to spending time together too."

For a half second she feels more than immersed in awkwardness, suddenly wishing she had M'gann or Zatanna here as a guide for what to say neck. "Yeah." She says dumbly, marking her spot on her screen again; it takes her a few moments to gather her nerve for what she's about to say next, wondering if the reaction she wants is worth such a risky bluff to get. "... But I guess you're making up for that _now_ , right?"

It's about the pettiest thing she can think to say; almost pointedly she glances at Tula's mouth, feeling an instant twist of satisfaction in her stomach when the other girl's teeth suck her lower lip into her mouth, hiding it from view. Before she can stop herself she's spurred on by that spitefulness, voicing all the nasty thoughts that have been in her head since it became clear that Tula's been meddling in her position on the Team. "And I'm only going to say this once, okay? So listen carefully." She says lowly, almost too coldly, glaring daggers when Tula opens her mouth to interject angrily. "I can understand why you want to be here, and I can understand why you might have felt threatened before. I know what it's like, feeling like you're losing someone.

"But you need to realize that you are interfering with a Team that relies on balance and trust to function. And you need to realize that that interference, no matter how insignificant you may think it is, screws up people's lives. _What you do with Kaldur on your own time is your business_." She says clearly, locking her own eyes on Tula's and making it clear that she isn't about to take her suspicions to Garth. "But when it messes with my Team, _with my family_ , then we have a problem. So you can use whatever excuse you want to be here, closer to Kaldur, and none of us will treat you as anything other than welcome. But you can't keep messing with his head. He's our leader, Tula. His mind needs to be present, _with us_ , and not caught up in whatever you're putting him through. Okay?"

By the time she's finished it comes out less fierce and more exhausted than she wants it to; it's supposed to be a warning, a clear message to stay out of Kaldur's head and away from interfering with Team matters. Yet suddenly all she can feel is the weight of her own exhaustion, the heaviness of what they've uncovered and all the emotional baggage she's carrying, and before she can even try to control it she's sounding weary, almost broken.

She doesn't see Tula's curt nod, doesn't see much when she disappears behind her hands for a moment to try to scrub the tiredness out of her skin; the only thing she knows for sure is that something in the air changes when she emerges, and somehow without verbalizing it they're both pretending to be absorbed in their assignment again. This tension between them isn't new, it's the same one-sided annoyed emotion she's felt since she discovered how easily Kaldur had believed whatever mocking Tula had done behind her back; it's just suddenly doubled, divided, but not unwelcome—it figures she would be the one to look out for Kaldur's best interests, to let Tula know that she's watching her carefully—

After a while the tension turns slightly sour and she finds herself getting distracted; more to escape the tiny room she gets to her feet, stretching. "I'm going to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?" She asks almost coldly.

This hatred isn't like that with Roy, or with her sister; it isn't even real hatred, in fact. It's just two entirely different people, with entirely different lives, forced to rub together as evenly as they can as they're joined together by one person, one purpose. It feels older, more tame and manageable; or perhaps she simply feels older, more tame, in the new found maturity her position is allotting.

"No, thank you." Tula nods her out, not even looking up from the book.

* * *

The door clicks shut behind her but she doesn't move, not immediately; rather than take further steps into the hallway she remains still, hand clenched around the door knob and mind exhausted but still buzzing with such a recent influx of confusing and tangled theories.

 _She feels as if all her emotions, thoughts, worries the past twenty four hours have pushed to the front of her mind are suddenly boiling to her very brim, threatening to spill over her edges entirely_ —

She can sense her anxiousness, can sense how her exhaustion is playing with her emotions and suddenly tempting her into crying, breaking down; rather than allow herself to crumble under the pressure she releases the doorknob, turning on her heel until her shoulder blades are pressed flat, almost painfully, against the door behind her.

 _Breathe._

And she does; as if her lungs have been waiting for the invitation to start working she feels them expanding almost achingly between her ribs. She's not sure when these odd moments between doorframes started sticking with her, when she started bracing herself between the three panels of wood to force herself to focus. She doesn't remember picking it up anywhere, doesn't remember watching Jade do it and copying it in an effort to be more like her sister... No, this is organic, biologically ingrained like her blonde hair or the naturally pointed edges of her nails, something entirely her own and entirely uncorrupted by her own existence— She hears the air rush out through her nose, feels her neck crack and she tilts it backwards and forwards, pony tail hanging limply over her shoulder as she stares at her feet, thinking hard, trying to push her emotions and exhaustion back inside herself until she's capable of working again—

"Hey." She jerks up when Wally calls out to her from the end of the hall, her head knocking back against the door before she gets the sense to abandon her position. "I was just coming to get you and Tula, Kaldur thinks it's time you both called it a night."

Her eyes narrow for a moment at the odd pace of his walking, her face splitting into a half smile despite herself when she realizes he's holding a cup of tea for her, one hand wrapped around the handle and the other cupping her mug almost protectively. "Oh." She says dumbly, walking a few paces to meet him. "Thanks. That's— that's sweet of you."

Wally glances up as she reaches him, eyes too busy trying to read the bags under her eyes and not watching when he hands her the mug. "Shit." He says quietly when he sees her wince, eyes finally looking down in time to watch as a good half inch of liquid slugs over the edge of the porcelain and onto her knuckles, burning her. "Sorry—"

There's instantly a great deal of fuss, a lot of him trying to grab the mug back from her and her trying to simply dodge the mess now dribbling onto the white cotton of her socks. It's clumsy, awkward, and not at all in the good way it had been in the library— _nothing like how it had been in the heat of the moment, when she was too lost in the seams their muscles stitched together to be bothered with hurt feelings, or fumbling..._

She manages to hit his hands away when they try to grab the mug back, holding her cup almost loftily about her shoulder; for some reason after their bumbling it goes oddly quiet between them, both of them looking at each other with shy eyes and reddened cheeks, unsure of what emotions are still furling between them and whether there's anything worth still being angry about.

 _And perhaps it's just her tiredness, her lack of patience because of lack of sleep, but suddenly she feels a surge of strange hate for him, for both of them together, and for the fact that they just can't seem to get this right._

She can't take the awkward silence, so much like the strange silence she left behind with Tula, and more to give herself something to do to fill the emptiness between them she glances down at her tea sodden forefinger, hardly thinking before placing the length of it in her mouth, slurping what he's spilt there off her skin entirely.

Immediately she knows it's not the right thing to do; she makes the mistake of glancing at Wally as she does this, eyes locking on his and catching her off guard by all the emotion written there. Suddenly his ears are reddening and he's staring at her mouth with such intensity that the slight popping of her lips releasing her finger sounds borderline lewd; it's a tenfold more awkward when she looks away, wiping her hand embarrassedly on the denim of her jeans before shoving her it in her pocket.

"So, uh." Wally starts, throat catching before he has to clear it, gaze now on his feet instead of her as if she's too indecent to look at. "How's it going in there, anyway? Find anything interesting?"

"Okay, I guess." She says honestly, her eyes drawn to the thick line of muscle on his neck as he nods at his feet. "A few things I need to talk to Kaldur about, some things to double check but... You know how it is."

Wally nods again, still looking sheepish, and she decides she'd rather hide behind the rim of her mug than keep looking anxiously at the messiness of his hair as it brushes across his forehead. Ignoring the heat of the tea she slugs over half the cup back, frowning slightly when she gets the courage to look at him again and discovers he's still avoiding her eyes. "... Okay. Well... I guess I'll just go tell Tula we're done for tonight. Thanks for the tea—"

She hardly even turns before Wally looks up at her; he's not even touching her, not even doing anything to stop her from leaving, but for some reason something in his face forces her to freeze, muscles and joints and cartilage in her legs stiffening into stillness. She knows that look, knows it all too well— _it's that same look he wore in her bedroom after the Exercise, the same one he wore their first day together on the beach, the same one that always seems to punch her in the gut and force her to glance back at him, however warily_. _It's the same one he always wears whenever he wants to say something but can't_ — her eyes narrow as his mouth half opens, brows knit tightly together and apple eyes fixed on hers, searching for something lost inside his head that he can't quite get out.

She allows him a few seconds of staring at her before she grows impatient, her own nervousness biting and twisting in her stomach until she hears herself huff. "Wally?" She sighs, watching as his mouth closes, eyes dropping hers again and trailing downward.

And maybe her tone is a bit too cold for the way he's looking at her, maybe it only comes out like that because suddenly she knows exactly where he's looking, knows that he can see the bruise he's left on her neck; she can see his throat bobbing, can see by the way his eyes shift and focus hard that he's remembering their closeness, remembering the breathy mewls he had pulled out of her, remembering all the broken pieces their heated bodies had tried to mash together to fix.

She doesn't flinch when he reaches for her; to anyone else it would look as if he were clapping her on the shoulder, as if he were wishing her well. But she feels it, the way his thumb strays across the taught skin of her collar bone, the way it presses against the mark he's made; there's something unknown and therefore alarming on his face again, something hard and terrifying in that it makes her whole body flood with heat, makes the frantic twisting of her stomach seem to refocus between her legs. As he touches her, tracing the indents of the bruise his teeth left behind she feels completely frightened, both of losing him and of staying still beneath his fingers— ridiculously her toes flex into the floor, forcing her not to move, forcing her to simply shiver as he touches the mark he's left on her...

 _Her lips part, a slight rush of air slipping over her tongue as she remembers the pain of his biting; even in the tenderness of the touch now she recognizes it for what it is, what it was intended to be in the moment_ — _Wally making a claim on her, marking her as his..._

"Just in case, you know. I wasn't clear before…" He breathes out, voice catching again. "I didn't mean what I said, you know that, right? This… You and me. It's real—"

"—I know—"

"And I just want to make sure you understand— I didn't mean to make you feel, I don't know, like you weren't good enough. With meeting my parents, or whatever." Wally pauses, glancing down to watch her fingers as they tighten around the handle of her cup. As if burned he retracts his hand, sliding it into his denim pocket. "I just— You saw my Dad. He's... Hard to please. I just wanted to get you in and out of there in one piece, and I get it, it blew up at me, I just really wanted you to meet my mom, she's—"

She can see him working himself into a bit of a rant and decidedly she cuts him off, finding suddenly that she doesn't want to hear an explanation; it's a weird sensation, the way Wally's mouth freezes under hers as she presses her mouth to his, forcing lips misshapen with speech to still. She feels the cup pressing between her breasts, forcing a distance between them before she pulls back, surveying him through her lashes. "I know." She says, even though she's not sure she does.

She's exhausted; tired of being awake, tired of thinking, tired of trying to sort things out with Wally. And she supposes that even if she wasn't so drained she still wouldn't try to fight him off when he reaches for her; she feels as if she's suddenly long since outgrown trying to resist him, trying to fight off what she knows she wants. Despite the fact that they're frayed around the edges and very nearly falling apart half the time she does need him... All she wants in the world is more of him him— _more of his kisses, more of his body pressed against her and less, way less clothing next time—_ and when he pulls her flush against his chest she allows him to tuck her head beneath his chin, her eyes closing when she feels his familiar warmth and the walnut scent clinging to his skin.

 _It is real_. She repeats inside her head. And it has been, ever since he stumbled into her life clad in swim shorts and a sunblock smeared nose... She's been unable to shake him, unable to loosen the grip he felt he had a right to take on her reality; she's decided long ago that this boy— _this stupid boy_ — was meant to hold her like he is now, like he did under the Bialyan sun, like he did when they were lost and alone and falling apart and she found comfort in the gentle green eyes of a stranger. Of all the hate she's known, of all the abandonment she's endured, _this is real_ , even if they can't quite put into words yet what _this_ is. Because some feelings, like the happiness he brings out in her, like the feeling of his thumb as he presses it against the small point on her back, _just can't be faked_. It doesn't matter anymore, the things they say to each other during their fights; she's done over thinking it, done sabotaging herself and ruining the only thing in her life that means anything to her.

 _She's done with being insecure._

She doesn't stop herself from pressing her lips against his collar bone, one arm snaking around his neck to pull him closer.

* * *

The first two weeks of April seem to fly by almost as quickly as January did, although in an entirely different fashion; instead of exhaustive meetings the days are filled with unexciting patrols, her evenings spent trying to make up for all the school she's missing and continued research and theories about where the tablet from S.T.A.R Labs was taken. Soon it becomes an asset that she requires so little sleep, and before long she's scoured the entire League archives twice, coming up with nothing useful and becoming doubly frustrated.

 _She doesn't know how she feels about all this new trust and responsibility, but she thinks she likes it. It feels good, being useful._

She likes it too, that Wally insists on keeping her company during her late night work sessions; rather than being jealous over all the time she's spending working he's oddly supportive in a way she wouldn't have counted on him being when they first met. For the first time since they got together things seem more settled, yet different from the quiet tenderness that so frightened her before.

She's not quite sure how to explain it, what even marks the difference in her mind. She just knows it feels easier to breathe if they try to forget who they are, easier forget that they're anything other than normal teenagers as they stay curled beneath the blankets of her bed reading, or walking alone through the docks of Happy Harbor, away from the Team and from the Cave. In many ways she feels as if she's borrowing moments from another life, from two different people living on another timeline who are unburdened by heroics; as much as she lingers on the strangeness of the thought she also indulges it, ignoring her homework in favor getting lost in the tracings of Wally's fingers as they press patterns into the sensitive point behind her ear and wondering what would happen if they were simply two kids who met by chance, if they ever would have gotten together without having so many things try to tear them apart...

 _But it doesn't matter_ , she supposes, _to think of what could have been or what might have not_. There could be a thousand universes, a thousand lifetimes that contained the two of them, and the only one of them that would matter to her is the one where they're together as they are now: specifically, the one where Wally is asleep beside her, snoring so loudly that she's having difficulty focusing on her math homework.

She's just lost her focus in the middle of problem twenty for the third time when she sighs, leaning back against her propped up pillow and nudging him with her elbow. "Wally." She pauses, watching him fuss slightly beneath her comforter, one hand flopping out in a dozy attempt to remove her and getting caught under the blankets. "Wally, if you're sleeping you have to go."

There's a rule at the Cave— _an unspoken rule, but a rule nonetheless_ — about sleeping over in each other's rooms. She knows from watching Connor and M'gann sneaking around in the early mornings that generally it's frowned upon by the mentors to spend the night together. She's witnessed Canary's infamous reprimanding first hand and has no desire for either her or Wally to fall victim to it.

Wally rolls over, one hand sleepily thrusting out from underneath the pillow he's claimed and clawing for her; she nearly swears when he knocks the book out of her hands, unknowingly scattering half of her homework as he grabs at her waist, pulling himself closer until he's pressed flush against her hip and making it nearly impossible to get any work done as he keeps pawing at her, trying to force her into lying beside him. " _Baywatch_." She scoffs almost sternly, knee bending and only managing to prod him once painfully in the ribs before he's hooked a hand behind it, dragging her leg over him and not stopping until she's laying flat on top of him.

"I'm completely awake." He mutters, tightening his arms around her when she tries to sit up again, one hand pinning her face into the shell of his shoulder under the guise of smoothing her hair. He ignores the pointed look she tries to send to her homework that's now scattered everywhere. "I think you're confused, you're clearly the tired one here. I mean, I don't blame you. It's—" She glares when he lifts his hand, making a great show of checking his watch before suddenly his face falls almost comically. "Oh."

He no longer looks half asleep, his eyes suddenly rapt and focused as he stares at the digits for a few too-long seconds; he makes a sudden movement to hide the time from her, but before he can even get his hand fully under the blanket she's seizing his wrist, dragging it until it's at her eye level. _April 13th, 2011. 1:37 am._

She looks at the numbers for a long time, trying to scavenge in the depths of her mind for some sort of significance. "Oh?" She says after a while, letting Wally's limp hand slip between her fingers and crash beside her on his stomach.

"I—uh, nothing." He shrugs, rubbing his face and emerging somewhat sheepishly behind his fingers when he realizes she's still looking at him. "Okay, you're gonna think it's weird, or whatever but... Tomorrow is M'gann's birthday."

"Oh." She repeats again, less questioning and more confused. "... Why would I think that's weird?"

Wally shrugs a little jerkily and finally lets her roll off of him, one of his arms bending to rub behind his head as he props himself up on his pillow. "I don't know. Because I was so nuts about her, or whatever. Before." There's not even a second of pausing. "But I mean, I was no where near as nuts about her as I am about you, Babe."

She almost repeats the word "Oh" again and has to stop herself, blinking a little dumbly at the way he adds the last part, as if she's supposed to be jealous or angry that another girl had his attention. She's never really thought about his old crush on M'gann; even when it was at its most annoying she never really cared, not really, as long as he wasn't being careless and getting the rest of them into trouble. But it feels like so long ago, like from someone else's life, all these forgotten memories of his one-sided flirtations; it's as if they belong to someone else, another person who's hand isn't resting on his chest, feeling the rapid beating of his heart under their fingers.

She splays her hand flat against him, thumb smoothing the wrinkles of his tee shirt and pausing almost unnoticeably on the scar she can barely feel but knows is there. "Relax, Wally." She snorts, noticing his red ears. "I'm not the jealous type."

"Oh." It's his turn to sound a little stupid. "... Good."

There's a few moments of silence in which she's almost sure he can hear the cogs inside her head turning, and despite the fact that she's just said otherwise she's suddenly a little curious. "... Pretty impressive, knowing it off the top of your head, though. Were you going to, like, throw a party for her or something?"

"Uh." Wally says unintelligently, glancing at her before looking firmly at the ceiling. "Okay, this is the weird part. You know that show _Hello Megan_ , right?" She nods. "So after that whole thing happened in Quarac... I must have watched every damn episode of that show. I don't really know why, I didn't even really like her like that anymore but... It was important to her, I guess. And Megs and I have always been close, even when I was being an idiot—"

"Get to the point, Wally."

"Well there's a birthday episode of the show, right? It was the last episode they filmed before they realized the show was going to be cancelled, so it's right before the finale— anyway. And in it Megan's mom decorates the whole house with pink balloons, pinks streamers, cake with pink icing. It sounds like an eye sore or whatever, but I know Meg would really like it. And there's this whole other plot to the show, where Megan is trying to set her two friends up by playing spin the bottle, but she just can't get the two in the closet together—"

Wally trails off, grinning a little vaguely at the ceiling; for some reason her chest feels oddly strained and she doesn't know why. "So... You were going to throw a whole _Hello Megan_ themed birthday party... For some girl you didn't even like anymore?"

Wally hesitates and then turns his head towards her, brows furrowing as he tries to read her expression. "It sounds weird when you say it like that... I don't know? Whatever, it's M'gann..."

Wally trails off and stares, ears still blushing, at the ceiling; suddenly her voice feels tight in the back of her throat, constrained by some sort of emotion or affection she can't quite identify for the boy beside her. "So what?" She asks when he glances at her, voice sounding a little thick and distracted as she makes a show of tugging her covers up to his shoulders. "Just because you have a girlfriend you can't throw her a party anymore?"

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Wally looking surprised. "Well, no... I mean—"

"Because I think you should." She sounds so firm it's almost threatening, her fingers perhaps pressing a little too hard against his chest as she smoothens her blankets over him. "She's turning eighteen, right?"

"Technically I think she's forty-some in Martian years."

She scowls at his precision, nudging him teasingly. "Whatever. Come on, we might as well, you know Connor isn't going to think of anything as good as your _Hello Megan_ party. Besides, it's an excuse to celebrate."

"And you're fine with this?" Wally asks almost suspiciously, as if waiting for her to change her mind.

She shrugs, pulling her math homework towards her from where he's scattered it. "Sure. Just..." She hesitates, wondering if she's going to sound too bratty. "Just do something cool for my birthday too."

* * *

She's immediately surprised by how difficult it is, actually coordinating a surprise birthday party. If she recalls correctly it was M'gann who coordinated Wally's party last November; she remembers the Martian marching around the Cave with a clip board in her hands, roping all of them into doing their part in making sure decorations were being hung, a cake was being made, and Wally remained mostly oblivious despite his obvious hinting at wanting his party to be surprise. A little reluctantly she passes the majority of the responsibility onto Wally— _it was his idea, after all_ — and decidedly spends the next day or so hovering, unexpectedly anxious, watching to make sure he does everything right.

The actual planning feels more like the organization and structure of an undercover mission than that of such a girlish birthday party; it feels ridiculous, almost goofy, using their radios to communicate the party's existence and force their teammates into fulfilling tasks. Twice she catches herself in the heat of annoyance snarling at Dick over her communicator to do his part— _for some reason he's been moody over the past few days, doubling up on sarcastic remarks and unhelpful comments_ — and twice she wishes the party wasn't a surprise and that she could simply call M'gann in to coordinate the planning.

Wally insists on dragging her along to a party supply store the night before M'gann's birthday under the guise of needing a "female opinion" in regards to themed decorations; it becomes painfully clear within a few minutes that she doesn't know the first thing about decorations or parties or anything remotely feminine. Against their better judgment they both grab anything pink and disgusting looking off the shelves and she catches herself grinning like an idiot in the balloon isle.

Only M'gann and Connor go to school on her birthday; despite the fact that she's sure she's not the only one dangerously behind in her school work everyone works past their own bad tempers and insists on skipping class to help set up. They spend the better part of the afternoon putting up decorations, baking a cake, covering almost every available surface with the words, _"Happy Birthday,"_ and trying to make their living room somewhat resemble the set of _Hello Megan._ It feels borderline strange that in the midst of all their research, in the middle of all their conspiracy theories and investigations that time could slow for something as simple as a birthday—but it's M'gann's birthday, Wally reminds them all when tempers get a bit heated at around noon, and she would do the same for any of them no matter what else was happening.

Just before three they all coordinate on Zatanna's count, anxiously fidgeting and waiting around the zeta tubes for M'gann and Connor to appear. She's not exactly sure why but she's nervous, as if for some reason M'gann will be anything less than delighted with what they've thrown together. When she glances to her left she sees Wally craning his neck to look round the room, checking and double checking everything from the sprinkles on the cake to the presence of her Uncle J'onn and other League members.

His head is moving so quickly he may as well be a blur of ginger hair; for some reason watching him sends an odd pang through her stomach and without thinking she cuffs him about the shoulder. "Relax, Kid. Everything's perfect."

"Right. Yeah. Perfect." He repeats, glancing at her once before going back to checking the rest of the room. "You don't think maybe I should run back and inflate a couple more balloons? The kitchen is—"

Suddenly the zeta tubes whir to life and her throat is cracking with laughter before he can even finish worrying, all of them screaming out like over excited children as Connor and M'gann piece together in front of them, arms weighed down with school books. "Happy Birthday!"

Unsurprisingly M'gann jumps, which promptly turns into less of a jump and more actual flight, her whole body suspending and stiff and battle ready. There's a few seconds where they're all laughing and her mouth is falling open in a delicate "o" shape before suddenly she's squealing, jumping into Connor's arms with such force that he can't do anything but drop her school books and wrap his arms around her waist.

She's just about to surge forward, arms outstretched to pull the martian into a hug, when suddenly lips are crashing against lips; it's embarrassing, awkward, and more to give herself something to look at other than her two friends sucking face she turns blushingly to Wally.

She's a little surprised by what she sees there: a mixture of complete shock, annoyance and for a half second— _ridiculously her stomach pangs, her own heart beat loud and hot and making her nauseous_ — something like jealousy contorting his smile into an unbearable looking grimace. It's only there for a moment, so brief she's not even entirely sure she's really seen it, before it retracts back into his features, hidden in the blushing red of his ears as he looks pointedly away from the suckling noises she hears behind her.

 _What the hell was that?_

Despite never thinking of it at all, ever, Wally's old crush on M'gann is suddenly the only thing she can focus on; suddenly she's being slapped across the face with old memories, of him cradling her unconscious body as they battled Red Torpedo, joking about mouth-to-mouth, even things as stupid as his hinting for a birthday kiss all those months ago— it's stupid and she knows it is, but still she feels her whole body heat up with annoyance, feels her muscles clench as she narrows her eyes at Wally's face, trying to find that half-second of jealousy buried beneath her skin.

Wally glances at her just as the squelching sound of lips leaving lips seems to echo through out the room; she's not as quick at hiding her disdain as he is, and before she can look away from him his brows are raising, looking bewildered. "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing." She tries to say sincerely, because it is nothing, _she knows it's nothing, this is stupid_ , there's nothing even remotely logical about getting jealous over something that happened so long ago—

 _If it was so long ago, then why did he remember so easily?_

Wally turns to her, brows knitting together and opening his mouth as if to repeat his question when suddenly he's being cut off by a loud squeal; M'gann has flung her arms around Conner's neck again, voice so high pitched soon only dogs will be able to hear it. "Connor! I don't even— How did you manage to pull this off? Thank you!"

She feels a second pang in her stomach as Connor glances a little helplessly in their direction; beside her Wally's ears go slightly pink, hesitating for a moment before he forces a sincere looking smile on his face, surging forward. "Yeah, 'atta boy, Supey! You sure know how to throw one hell of a party!"

And there it is, right there, the one thing that quails her jealousy— Wally's a good guy, she reminds herself. The type of guy who thinks of oddly specific themed parties for his friends months in advance, who skips school to throw it together last minute. He's the type of guy who worries about there not being enough balloons in the kitchen, who arranges the sprinkles carefully on the icing of the cake, who goes through all this effort for some girl he doesn't even like anymore and still allows her boyfriend to take the credit.

 _Wally West is a good guy. And she's being a jealous idiot._

 _She needs to get more sleep._

She hears herself let out a slightly stupid sounding sigh, as if this is some sort of a relief, before she realizes she's the only one not rushing forward, not fighting to give M'gann a hug. "Happy birthday, Green Cheeks!" She hears Wally laugh, wrapping an arm around the martian's shoulders.

She makes it a half-step before she's forced to watch him plant a rather roguish kiss on her cheek.

* * *

It's hard not to enjoy herself, even if she is a little bothered by Wally's expression and the fact that she can't figure out what it meant. She tries to smile when M'gann blows out her candles and ignores the way her stomach seems to twist recklessly around the birthday cake she's forced to eat. Suddenly the easiness of the party seems to swirl outside of her, beyond the seemingly clouded cage that she feels her own mind pulling her inside; someone hands her a drink and for the first time in her life she catches herself wishing for the cutting taste of hard liquor to bite across her tongue.

It's stupid, to be worried about Wally and M'gann. She knows it is. But it doesn't change the fact that things have been so precarious between them lately, doesn't change the fact that she's still undoubtedly not good enough for him, no matter what he says.

 _It doesn't change the fact that M'gann is beautiful and soft and undoubtedly the kind the girl his father would want him to be with._

 _Is that why he pursued the martian in the first place? Is pursuing her instead some sort of rebellion?_

It takes her a second to feel Wally's hand when it plants itself on her shoulder; before she can even properly look around he's propelling himself over the back of the couch and beside her, waggling his brows at her once before addressing the room as a whole. "And what kind of _Hello Megan_ party would this be," He starts, smirking around at the Team, the lone survivors of such a girlie party that somehow managed to choke out every adult before seven o'clock, "without a little Seven Minutes in Heaven?"

M'gann squeals as the rest of them groan, and she privately thinks that if Wally ends up in the closet with another girl she's going to lose her mind altogether.

* * *

M'gann and Wally walk them all through the official _Hello Megan_ rules of spin the bottle; it's a lot of showboating and unexpected laughter and she's sure had she not suddenly been worried about Wally's feelings for the other girl she would have found it quite endearing. After nearly five minutes of babbling and Wally arranging them all into a circle she gets the gist: they're to take turns spinning the bottle and whoever it lands on is the person they're stuck in a closet with for seven minutes. It sounds pretty stupid to her— _she does have a boyfriend after all, and for anything interesting to happen it's going to take more than seven minutes for her to enjoy it_ — but everyone else seems excited, so she goes along with it.

M'gann goes first, and before she even finishes setting the empty wine bottle into a proper spin she thinks she hears Zatanna whisper something beside her; they're all unsurprised when the bottle lands on Connor and they all pretend not to be grossed out when they see the two of them emerge after the allotted time, hair mused and lips swollen.

The bottle yields some entertaining results, she supposes. Kaldur and Zatanna, Wally and Connor, Raquel and Garth. She knows well enough that not all of them are exactly making the most of their time in the closet, but half of the fun is in imagining the possibility of the coupling that might be happening.

Dick's in the middle of laughing when he spins the bottle with such force that it nearly jostles his glasses off the end of his nose; there's a moment when she can clearly see his cerulean eyes peaking at her over the shaded lenses before they disappear with a jerk of his head. She hasn't even finished looking away yet when she hears several teasing catcalls and Wally's loud, "Oh, man..."

She jumps jerkily from where she's sitting, promptly leaning away from where the bottle is pointing almost dead center between her and Zatanna.

"That's me."

"That's Zatanna."

She doesn't blame everyone for the sudden ripple of laughter that shoots nervously through the room when they both speak—Zatanna's glaring daggers at her as if it's her fault that bottle is stuck nearly down the middle between them and she's sure she looks ridiculous, with her cheeks blushing maroon and her whole posture shifted backwards as if there was a snake between them rather than a bottle. "It's Zatanna." Dick says back confidently, nodding and already getting to his feet as if it's a done deal.

She actually wants to leans across the circle and throttle Connor when his eyes suddenly narrow, lower lip jutting out slightly with thought. "I don't know. It looked more like Artemis before she moved away."

" _Dude_!" Wally hisses, voice trailing into a slightly high pitched whine. "That's my _girlfriend_."

"So?" Conner counters, shrugging at Wally. "You and I went in there and nothing happened."

For some reason Wally blushes bright crimson at the tips of his ears, sputtering ridiculously for a moment. "I— that's different."

Privately she thinks Zatanna could make much better use of time in the closet with Dick than she ever could, but somehow her unfounded annoyance at Wally flares up to the front of her mind and turns her whole mood sour. "God, guys." She sighs, hating that her cheeks are blushing red. "Can we all just decide?" She snaps.

There's a predictable amount of squirming as she's forced back to her previous seating position; in typical fashion with such a large group there's some squabbling, some mediation on Kaldur's behalf, and particularly sticky moment when Garth makes an odd comment about Dick simply taking the two of them with him that comes out sounding slightly lecherous. Finally it's Raquel who puts them all out of their misery by fetching a measuring tape from the kitchen, and soon it is without a doubt that she is, in fact, closer to the bottle than Zatanna.

Someone hushes her when she swears but Dick simply shrugs, looking as if it doesn't really matter to him either way. "Hey, Rob!" Wally calls out after them as they stalk off to the kitchen pantry, looking stern. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do—wait, no, that came out wrong—"

Before she can do anything other than snort the door is shut behind them.

* * *

The pantry is cluttered, overfilling with various kitchen supplies and a few select non-perishable items M'gann likes to use to bake; she doesn't often stick around for meal times at the Cave but she supposes it has to be kept well stocked to feed such a rotating and ever-growing selection of hungry mouths.

"Are you even going to talk to me?" She asks Dick dryly, shifting slightly from where a shelf is digging into her back. The whole closet can't be more than a few feet wide, the addition of shelves forcing them little more than a foot apart. "Or are we both just going to pretend this isn't actually happening?"

There's no real light in the closet save for the blinding bright of Dick's phone screen; she can see him glance up from where he's been scrolling absently, grinning at her and for some reason still wearing his sunglasses. "That would imply that something actually is happening. You know, other than you putting as much space between us as you can and pouting."

"I'm not _pouting_." She tells him childishly, crossing her arms and nearly toppling a bag of flour from the shelf, glaring when he snorts and goes back to his phone. "... How much time do we have left, anyway?"

There's a brief pause where she can see the reflection of him switching applications on the lens of his glasses, his fingers moving too quickly for her to see in the half light. "Six minutes and twenty seconds." He tells her moments before she figures out how to read it backwards.

"You have an actual timer going?" She snorts. "Thanks for that, Rob."

Dick shrugs, and what little she can see of his face tells her that's he's unbothered by her teasing. "A couple minutes in a closet doesn't change that fact that you're dating by best pal. And happen to be one of my best friends. Besides, you're not exactly my type—"

"Whatever." She cuts across him, feeling odd about his explanation and shrugging it off with a slightly exaggerated waving of her hand. "Can we just... Talk or something? If I have to do another five minutes of this awkward silence—"

"Technically we still have to do another five minutes and fifty seven seconds—"

"How's school, Rob?" She talks over him, voice so loud she's sure it's carrying beyond the shut door and probably making the rest of the party snigger. Huffing slightly when all he does is snort she changes her tactic, talking more conversationally. "Seriously though. How are you doing? I feel like we haven't talked in a while."

There's a half second where she registers that the silence between them changes; suddenly Dick is clicking the lock button and shoving his phone in his pocket, plunging them into total darkness. "... Fine." He says seriously before he charges on, and she can tell immediately that he's forcing himself to keep the conversation light. "Good, actually. I heard about Kaldur letting you take the lead on the Metropolis thing. That's a big deal, probably not right now, but the Team is getting bigger all the time—kind of marks you out as useful while it's still noticeable."

"Yeah." She says carefully, wishing for the light of his phone again so she could better read his face; it's difficult, trying to figure out what he's hiding from her, so much so that she actually abandons her post of cowering beside the wall, as if getting closer to him will help her understand. "Thanks. But— I mean, how are things? School's good? I don't see you around there much."

"To be fair, you hardly ever go."

She feels herself squint into the darkness at his joking, listening hard to his forced tone. "... How's Bats?" She pushes, deciding to try prodding one more time.

There's that tense moment of silence again, and she actually blinks when she feels him sigh warm air onto her face; he's gotten closer without her realizing it, forcing her to taste the sweet scent of cake frosting still lingering about his mouth. "Wally's right, you are stubborn. Not as bad as him, but still..."

"Are you going to answer the question?" She asks dryly back, ignoring his jibe and uncharacteristically forcing herself to keep talking, leaning against the wall opposite of where she thinks he's standing. "... All those raging fourteen-year-old hormones making things extra tense at the Bat Cave?"

He doesn't say anything but she almost fools herself into seeing his mouth stretch into a smile, a slight disturbance in the air telling her that he's shaking his head at her teasing. " _Ha ha_ , very funny." Dick snorts, and even though she can't see it she imagines him pausing to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "… Nah. It's nothing like that. Not really, anyway."

He pauses again and she can feel herself begin to lose patience, even more so when he pointedly takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time, clicking the lock button again before she can read the reflection on his glasses. "Come on, Dick, don't be a baby. What's the problem?" When he doesn't do anything more than sigh moodily she tries a different approach. "Fine, whatever. I'm not like, your mother or anything. Can you at least tell me how much time we have left?"

"...Bats is the problem." He blurts out after a moment, sounding oddly ruffled. "And we have four minutes and thirty four seconds."

"Oh." She says dumbly, blinking in the darkness for a few moments before she decides to take a page out of Wally's book. "... Do you, uh, want to talk about anything?"

Dick shakes his head again and she fully braces herself for him to turn down her offer and plunge them both back into the awkward but bearable silence; stupidly she's surprised when he starts talking low and quickly, as if he's been waiting to let all this out on some unsuspecting party. "… Ever since The Exercise a couple months ago… I don't know. I haven't been so keen on… _Everything."_ He glances back at her, and she thinks she sees him look sharply at the confusion on her face, as if he can see better in the dark despite his glasses. "I don't really know how to put it. Before… Before I couldn't wait to get older, to—you know—become him. And now… I don't know. Lately there's been a lot of pressure… A lot of pressure to start training more intensely. To outgrow the Robin mantle and take on a new one."

She doesn't quite know what to say and instead bites the inside of her cheek, thinking hard. "… But I mean... You're still only fourteen. What's the rush?"

"That's just the thing, Artemis." He sighs. "For Bats it's like… It's like handing over the deeds to a family business. Ever since he took me in he's kind of been... Grooming me, or something, and I guess he thinks I'm getting close to being ready." Dick pauses again, and this time she gets the sense that he's actually just realizing what he's said to her and what it means. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't dump all this on you— I just... I read your file. I know that you know what it's like..."

She feels her jaw tighten, her fists clenching up without her noticing— Yes. _She knows, she knows exactly what he's talking about and how hard it can be, being forced into a mold of a person you simply aren't going to grow properly into_. "... You want advice?" She says, sounding almost severe before she remembers she's trying to comfort, not channel past rage at her father. "... You don't have to be who he wants you to be. You can be— You can be whatever, Rob."

Rather than lift Dick's spirits she suspects she's only dampened them; she can hear him sigh again, can hear what sounds like nails scraping against scalp as he runs a hand through his hair. "I know, Artemis, I just... He's like a father to me. He took me in when I— I had lost everything. It feels like I owe him, I guess. If he wants me to take over for him, become the Dark Knight, to get a Robin of my own so when the time comes I can keep up the legacy too… There's no other path I can take. And I just don't know if I'm up to scratch, you know?"

"… Dick." She says without knowing what else to say, and unthinkingly she reaches for him, hand grabbing first at the cotton sleeve of his hoodie before pulling him forward into a hug; it's a little off putting, the fact that without her noticing he's grown—she's suddenly very aware that he's at least her height, maybe taller.

"I just… I've seen it, Artemis. That part of him that is Batman… It's fucked up." It's unnerving, feeling the muscles of his cheek move against hers as he swears— she realizes that she's never heard him do so before. "And I don't wanna be that. I don't wanna drag some other kid into this, even if it is to save them. I just… _I don't want to grow up._ "

His arm reaches up behind her, not to hug her back but to instead swipe pointedly under the lenses of his glasses before he pulls away, leaving her gripping him tightly by the shoulder. "… I hate to break it to you, Dick, but we're all getting older." She says not unkindly, still squinting and trying to see his face in the darkness. "But you should know that all of us... We don't care what stupid name you decide to go by. We're always going to have your back... I'm always going to have your back, okay?"

She hears him let out a snort that sound oddly congested, and even though she can't see his expression she releases him and looks away, as if afraid to see him crying. Sometimes she forgets how young he still is, forgets how hard it must be to manage adult-feelings of trauma compacted into such a youthful mind. It takes him a second or two to pull himself together, clearing his throat loudly. "Very impressive with the whole sentimental thing. You could give Black Canary a run for her money."

"Right." She sneers out, relieved when he sounds half-normal again. "I've been practicing."

"Clearly." He chirps back, voice sounding lighter from the other side of the pantry. "So now that we've dealt with my issues, how about we talk about the elephant in the room—" He pauses, as if waiting for her to interject. When she doesn't she can practically hear him smirking at her. "Really? Come on. You've been glaring daggers at Wally and M'gann all night."

She can practically feel her cheeks glowing in the dark she's blushing so hard, and pathetically she can only think of one childish response. "Was not."

"Was so." Dick sneers back, snorting.

She hesitates, and suddenly she thinks she understand why Dick burst out so easily before; there's something about the darkness of the room, the intimacy of the space, that makes her feel as if nobody in the whole world will ever know what she's about to say, not even Dick. "... I know it's stupid, okay? So don't laugh. But... You don't think Wally might... still have feelings for M'gann?"

She flinches when Dick lets out a loud peel of laughter, and she's sure that everyone else outside can hear it too. "You're kidding." He snorts out between chuckles; there's a loud clunk in the dark, as if he's just thrown his head back and accidentally slammed it against a wall. "Oh my God— is this still Artemis Crock I'm talking to? Did another girl walk into the closet without me noticing?"

For some reason his use of her full name sends her cheeks off, and suddenly she's fighting the urge to reach through the darkness and punch him about the jaw. " _Don't be a_ _dick_ , Dick."

"I'm sorry— I just, come on. _Boy advice_? Since when do you need boy advice?"

She hears herself make a disgusted noise in the back of her throat, not sure if she's annoyed by his continued laughter or by the fact that he's right— she usually knows how to keep annoying guys like Wally under control _(granted, she's never had to keep one under control for this long)_ and the fact that she's doubting herself probably isn't a good sign. "Whatever." She scowls when his laughter fades into a series of snorting chuckles. "Forget I said anything— and don't tell him either!"

"I can't believe you even asked me that." Dick chortles, and she doesn't miss the fact that he doesn't swear to silence. "I mean— I know I've known Wally longer than you have, but have you even met him? You routinely swap spit with the guy, did you even bother getting to know him first?"

She catches herself pulling back her upper lip to expose her canines as if to threaten him, realizing all too late that he can't really see her face. "I thought I asked you not to be a dick."

Something in her voice seems to force him into seriousness; all too quickly his chuckles die out and they're back to silence again, her eyes squinting glaringly through the darkness and trying to find him. "Listen." He says after a moment and immediately there's an odd energy to his hesitation, as if he's trying to find the right words for what he wants to say. "Wally's been my best pal for years. I've been forced to bear witness to some pretty awful attempts at getting girls, and yeah, a lot of them were like M'gann—"

"Great start, Rob." She sneers.

"Then let me finish, Crock." He cuts her off, using her last name in a way that forces both a surge of unpleasantness and affection through her stomach. "Listen, Wally's an idiot. Girls like M'gann... I mean, she's great. She's pretty, and sweet, and fun but... She's not what's good for him. I mean, we all remember how awful it was, watching him hit on her. I'm pretty sure countries like Bialya use it as an obscure form of torture."

She catches herself snorting at his joke. "God. He was so persistent it made me want to puke."

Dick chuckles again, this time softer than the unabashed youthful laughter of a few minutes ago. "He made everyone want to puke, pretty sure." He laughs. "The point is... I don't think you have to be worried about anything, okay? I know for a fact... All that stuff with M'gann, with other girls, it was like a game for him. Like a way of proving something to someone." _She catches herself thinking of Wally's father and quickly stops_. "But it's not a game with you, okay? You're the most— the, uh—whatever he might have felt a couple of months ago... Let's put it this way." He stutters out the end of his sentence, somehow managing to pull himself together in the half second of silence he allows himself. "There's only one girl Wally loves at this party. And she's stuck in this closet."

For some reason it takes her several seconds to actually process what Dick is telling her; it's as if upon hearing the word _"love_ " her brain suddenly stutters to a halt and dribbles stupidly out of her ears. Before she can properly come to her senses she can feel her heatbeat, hot and tight and pounding anxiously at the back of her throat and making her feel as if she's about to vomit when she speaks. "... Wally doesn't love me." She says quickly, practically sputtering. "U-unless he said something?"

Dick must be able to see the shock on her face because he lets out another rude sounding snort. "Geez, would you relax? You know what I mean; you don't have to be jealous."

"I know that." She sputters back too quickly again; she's suddenly aware of the fact that her lungs have stopped working, her ribs aching as she draws in a shaky breath. "A-and I'm not."

Dick chuckles, the sound making her aware that he's gotten close to her again; she feels herself squinting when he checks his phone, his screen illuminating the foot wide space between them that's quickly being occupied as he takes a step closer. "Yeah, yeah. But just in case you are— We have less than ten seconds left."

It's as if alarm bells are going off in her head again; ridiculously she actually catches herself bending slightly as if to adopt a defensive pose, like she's expecting a sudden invasion of grabbing hands and moistened lips. "Dick, _I swear to god_ —"

She senses him reaching for her in the darkness, and before she can even get it into her mind exactly how to kick the hinge of his jaw clean off his skull he's grabbing her hand; she gets as far as making an outraged noise in the back of her throat when she realizes he's pressing his lips against the knuckles fighting to break free and slam against his nose.

"... Oh." She says stupidly, blushing when he snorts into her skin and practically throws her hand back at her.

"Time's up." He cackles.

* * *

 **AN: It's good to be back. I'm realizing right as I post this that this chapter is kind of an unintentional recap of what's been going on and where I left things before the holidays... Well, hopefully it's a nice way to ease you all back in after such a long break.**

 **Q &A!**

 **Q: What's the updating schedule for the New Year? Is anything set in stone yet?**

 **A: Unfortunately after a week or so of classes it's looking like my course load this semester is going to be quite a bit heavier than the last, so I would expect updates no quicker than once every week and a half. However, I've decided to go back to my old rule of _the more reviews I get, the quicker I post._ If I recall it was a system that worked really well and kind of allowed me to speed up my updates as the story demanded it; that way if I left the story on a cliff hanger people could actually force me to post the resolution quicker, and with slower chapters I could allow myself an extra day or two before I posted the next. Works well for me!**

 **Q: What would you consider a high enough number of reviews to get you to post quicker?**

 **A: At one point when I was getting 20 or so reviews every chapter and I would consider anything around 25-30 reviews and private messages significant enough to make me drop everything and start working on editing the next chapter. However because of the fact that over time reviewers drop off more and more, I'm down to about 5-10 reviews and messages per posting. I would consider anything more than that significant enough to force me back to my computer.**

 **Please read and review!**


	13. Heart Beat So Fast

**AN: Enjoy the update!**

 **Picks from the Playlist: Holy Ghost by BORNS, Ribbons by Ingrid Michaelson and Something Vague by Bright Eyes.**

* * *

Her cheeks are bright red and she's still sputtering half-empty threats when the door to the pantry bursts open; suddenly both her and Dick are peering a little stupidly at the intrusion of light, and as if she's been caught in the act of doing something wrong she steps away from him, elbow bumping against the corner of her shelf and knuckles still burning angrily from where he kissed her.

"Time's up!" Even though she's squinting into the brightness of the hallway unseeingly she knows it's Zatanna speaking, can hear the familiar sharpness hidden in her teasing tone.

"Thank God." Dick sighs, shouldering around her and sending her a playful smile before turning to someone she can't see. "You certainly have your hands full with that one, don't you?"

She's not surprised when she emerges and finds Wally, arms crossed and glaring at his best friend with reddened ears. "Yeah, yeah. As long as they're my hands and not someone else's." He glances at her as she approaches him, her stomach twisting as he tries to read the expression on her face. "Zatanna and I are next."

"Oh." She says a little blankly, caught between lingering feelings of jealousy, embarrassment and shock at what Dick's just told her; before she can say anything more intelligent she hears the sound of the pantry door shutting again, Dick and Zatanna no longer accompanying them in the hallway. "... Sorry, Baywatch." She says after a moment, trying her best to grin at him. "Looks like you've been swapped out for a newer model."

The corners of his mouth quirk up when he smiles, as if he's relieved to see she's acting somewhat normally and no longer scowling at him like she was earlier on in the evening; almost leisurely he wraps his arms around her and somehow doesn't manage to read the whirring of emotion and panic wailing around inside her head. "I don't mind." He says seriously, leaning in to kiss her.

There's nothing off about the way his lips fit against hers, but suddenly she's stiffening at the intimacy of the contact; it's too familiar, too caring, the way his fingers hardly brush against the small of her waist, the way he sighs softly into her mouth. All at once she hates Dick, hates what he said to her and any truth there is behind it and how she's suddenly reading too much into the way his mouth feels on hers, her eyes refusing to close despite his closeness and staring, as if frightened, at the blurred dots she knows to be his freckles.

He pulls back, and as usual she's not quite fast enough to hide the muddled expression on his face. "... What?" He asks, the grin on his face dropping suddenly. "Oh God... You and Dick didn't, like, _you know_ — in the closet? Because that means according to the transition theory that now I've—"

"Don't be an idiot." She sneers when he starts looking panicked. "Nobody kissed anyone, on purpose or through transition." The back of her hand burns slightly at the lie, and in the look of relief that passes over his features he doesn't notice her rubbing her knuckles along his sleeve, as if trying to ride herself of the sensation. "Bet Zatanna's doing more than her part to make up for what a disappointment I was, though."

As if they were listening to her words there's a sudden pounding on the pantry door, as if Dick and Zatanna are standing on the other side banging their fists like idiots against it and letting out overtly sexual moans. "Yeah, well. Who says they're the only ones who have to make up for lost time?" He starts, grinning when she grimaces at the noise and turns crimson. "Come on. Nobody's going to miss either of us for a few more minutes..."

Despite everything she smiles when he pulls her face to his, trying her best to ignore both the noises behind them and the fact that her heart is suddenly thundering in her chest.

* * *

She moans when Wally shifts his weight on top of her, forcing his hips between both of hers. He has no idea what he's doing to her, no idea how sensitive that point between her legs is, how suddenly hot she's getting beneath his feverish skin as he grinds against her, the hardness in his jeans pressing achingly against her thigh.

"Oh, _god_." She catches herself sighing, Wally's lips stretching into a smile as he presses a wet kiss against her jugular, one hand skimming the bottom of her tee shirt and thrusting inside, pawing at one of her breasts through her bra.

She loses patience when he licks a line up her jaw and blows warm air in her ear, one of her hands wrestling out from where he's pinned it against her mattress and fitting along the curve of his neck, skimming his skull and burrowing into his hair for the purpose of yanking his mouth off of her. "I don't remember saying it was time for a study break, _Wallman_ —" She starts to say almost sneeringly, not even finishing her sentence when his mouth reclaims her. Because they had been studying, truly; she can hear the crinkling of her notebook papers as he hitches her knee up and presses her closer, can feel the edge of one of his text books digging into her back...

She doesn't know why they even bother studying together; even before they were dating they were distracting each other with their bickering. Now it's just—

Wally pulls back from the kiss, breath still warm on her lips and nose barely skimming hers; there's a half second where he looks her in the eye, lower lip twitching as he exhales in a moment of hesitation. As quickly as it happens it also passes, his head ducking and mouth kissing its way down the side of her face.

 _Dick had said that Wally was in love with her._

As she remembers the conversation she feels her stomach twist with nervousness, her clouded eyes suddenly pulling into focus at the partially deflated balloons shoved unceremoniously in the corner of her room; they're just as pink and disgusting as they were almost a week ago. It hadn't been her idea to keep them—she had been strongly advocating simply popping them as they were cleaning up— but M'gann had insisted they all hold onto them until the helium inside them finally spoiled and Wally had glanced at her and whispered, _"Souvenir,"_ and she hadn't the courage to say anything sneering back because she was still reeling over the fact that—

Well, _Dick had told her that Wally was in love with her._

Even now she's not sure how she feels about it, not sure how she's _supposed_ to feel even. Certainly from a practical stand point she can understand it— they spend quite a bit of time together, they make each other laugh, and there are plenty of moments _(like this, she thinks, as his hand slips inside the shell of her bra and his softened callouses skim her nipple)_ that make her want him so badly she wants to scream out in frustration. The logic of the situation isn't was bothers her.

It's how... _Sure_ , Dick had sounded when he told her. The confidence he had said it with, as if he had heard it with his own ears come out of Wally's mouth. How often has Wally talked about loving her? Does he tell everyone? How long has he known, with complete confidence, that he loves her?

 _(And is that what all those pauses means? All those little ones where she can't quite read the look on his face and he simply opens and closes his mouth like a trout_ — _is that what he's trying to say? That he loves her? Because those pauses have been going on for ages now_ — _)_

 _(But this is the boy who has a hard enough time deciding on pizza toppings_ — _how can he be so sure of something so serious? So unyielding? Love is something you can't take back once it's out there; it's permanent, scarring, leaving etches on skin like sais or arrows or the sharp points of javelins_ — _)_

 _(And Oh, God, what if he tells her he loves her? What is she supposed to say to that? Because she's not going to look him in the face and lie but she very well can't say nothing... Is there a polite way of telling a boy you care about him so much you could die but you aren't IN LOVE with him, because in her experience anytime she loves someone they leave or they get hurt and she ends up crying alone in her bedroom for five years with only the characters of her favorite books for company and Wally can't leave, her, he can't he can't he can't_ — _if she's alone again she's going to die, she can't go back to being that person_ — _)_

Almost unconsciously she feels herself grip him tighter as if worried he'll vanish into thin air from on top of her, suddenly aware of the fact that she's started holding her breath as if to ward off the invading panic from her lungs. Wally licks up the column of her throat just as she forces her lips to part and draw breath, and somehow the sensation seems magnified; without knowing why her hips buck against him and her mouth shoots out a hoarse sounding moan, so feral that she actually feels her cheeks redden when he repeats the movement curiously, tongue dipping down to tease her collar bone.

 _Focus._

 _He's not leaving, nobody's leaving_ —

"Wally." She says warningly when his hand leaves her breast, snaking around her waist and trying to fumble between her and the mattress to tend to her bra. It takes too much effort to smooth the wrinkle over her nose and force all her worries to the back of her mind _(because she's caught dangerously between wanting to kick him off and wanting to rip his clothes off,_ _)_ and perhaps a second too long for her to curve her mouth into a gentle smile, one hand pulling at his hair until his lips are off her neck again and he's looking her in the eye. "You have an exam on this in two days."

It's hard not to feel her chest tighten when he lets out a playful groan which sounds a little too real to simply be teasing, the back of his head pressing against her hand as if hoping she'll go back to running her fingers through his hair; when she doesn't he lets out an annoyed huff, lower lip protruding. "You're killing me, Babe." He sighs, ignoring her when she nudges his shoulder, trying to get him to roll off her. "Come on— this is Biology! Technically, _technically_ , you're helping me study the—" He runs a hand down her side, carefully letting his fingers stray along the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips. " _Female anatomy_."

Had she not had a whirlwind of thoughts pressing against the back of her mind she probably would have laughed at the wild wagging of his brows; instead her mouth quirks up and this time she practically throws him off in her exasperation. "You're an idiot." She rolls her eyes, gesturing for him back to his work. "If your test is so close I don't see why you wanted to study together— You know we always distract each other."

"Doesn't matter if we're together or not." Wally sighs almost frustratingly, looking annoyed about going back to his school work as he reaches for his text book. "Either you're here and I can't stop looking at you or you're gone and I can't stop thinking about you."

She feels a pang run through her stomach at his words; hands tugging the hem of her shirt until it sits evenly on her hips as she stands, putting a little distance between them as she stalks off nervously towards her backpack. "Laying it on a little thick there, Baywatch." She tells him warningly, not looking at him as she bends over to examine her bag's contents. "… Shit. You might have to settle for that second one."

Wally glances up at her from where he's settled back onto her bed, one elbow propped up on her pillows. "What's up?"

"Left my English book at home. I wanted to finish it by tomorrow… I'll be back in like a half hour, I'll run home and grab it."

There's a pause in which Wally's gaze follows her as she grabs a jacket off her chair, eyes narrowed. "… How about I come with you?" He asks her.

She hears herself snort as she loops the leather over her shoulders, leaving it unzipped as if hoping to later tempt some spring air into wafting warmly over her. "You're just trying to get out of studying."

"Am not."

"Are _so_."

" _Am not_."

She hesitates, hand on her door knob and glaring at him from across the room. "… My mom's home." She says evenly, hoping to scare him into backing down.

"So?" He grins, getting up from her bed and crossing the room all before she can blink. "Come on, you've met my parents—"

"—and we all know that went _so_ well—"

"So why don't I meet yours?" He pauses when she looks at him dryly, brows raised. "Artemis, you do realize both your sister and your dad have already tried to kill me multiple times, right? How much worse could your Mom be?"

She stares at him sceptically for a few seconds, mind racing and trying to find some way of getting around this. She doesn't know why she's so afraid of Wally meeting her mother… After all, he's right—she has met his parents. But still, she can't shake the feeling that doing so will cross too many lines, blur her life with the Team and Wally with that of her life with Paula, as if suddenly she's two different Artemis' that can't be together should something awful happen...

 _But,_ the frightened part of her still tucked inside her head thinks, _she can't think of anything about her that's more replant than her home, can't think of anything about her so obviously entrenched in evil and hate_ — _it's not like it's a romantic place to be, not like he'll suddenly burst out with his feelings in the middle of her smoke stained living room where he knows she spent her childhood being beaten half to death_ —

Finally she sighs, securing the straps of her backpack over her shoulder. "Whatever. Just don't be an idiot about this, okay?"

Wally lets out a delighted hum and she resigns herself to defeat.

* * *

She wonders immediately if it's a mistake, backing down so easily and allowing Wally to follow her home; as usual she's caught between wanting to pull him closer and wanting to shove him away, wanting to speak her mind and remain silent. She wonders if maybe the crumbling walls and dingy carpet will say more than enough for her.

 _But maybe it's a good thing, bringing him here, reminding him who he's bet his money on; she's the girl that comes from half-lit hallways and police sirens, who lives and dies by the muggy Gotham air and the way the dirt of the city seems to cling to the folds of her skin. Maybe he needs the reminder of how broken she is, of how gentle he needs to be as he takes her hand and drags her on this adventure too quickly behind him._

It's strange; neither her nor her mother have spent very much time together since the New Year, both of them too busy with their collective lives to somehow manage to collide together more than once or twice a week for tea and exhausted looks across the kitchen table. She plans to enter the apartment at a break neck speed, as if hoping to allow Wally little more than a few seconds for awkward conversation with her mother and perhaps a stray look at the walls that aren't as blank and void of color as they once were before they disappear into the late afternoon drizzling again.

Instead this plan quickly goes to hell when she bangs the door open and drags Wally in behind her; she realizes before she even finishes with the rain soaked laces of her boots that her mother is rolling down the hallway. "Uh, hey." She calls out, glancing at Wally warningly as he bends to tend to his shoes, silently telling him to stay still and shut up.

Paula stops rolling almost right in front of them, her brows shooting up into her hair as she glances between her and Wally; it doesn't take much more than a second to register the bewilderment on her face, no doubt wondering why her daughter _(her sneering, spiteful, cold-hearted daughter)_ is dragging a completely normal looking boy through her front door.

Wally ignores her warning look entirely as his face bursts into the dumbest grin she's ever seen. "Hi."

There's one full second of stunned quiet on her mother's part, and deciding she'd rather die than spend another second with her mother looking at her with such surprise on her face she finishes hurriedly with her boot laces. "We're just here to grab a text book, then we're leaving." She says quickly.

Paula seems to snap out of it when she start running full force towards her bedroom. "Who's your friend, Artemis?" Her mother calls after her when she practically twists an ankle side stepping the wheel chair and racing off down the hallway without another glance.

She's already in her bedroom and can practically hear Wally's smile as he steps forward, probably extending a hand the way his mother taught him. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Crock. I'm Wally West."

Paula's delighted laugh tinkles down the hallway, light and happy and so unlike anything she's ever uttered in Artemis' presence as of late. "Oh, darling, you're sweet. Call me Paula. Do you go to Gotham Academy as well?"

Wally locks eyes with her when she emerges from her bedroom, already racing back to the doorway where's he's still shaking her mother's hand. "No Ma'am. I, uh…"

There an awkward silence, and she finishes for him. "Wally's like me, Mom." She says plainly.

Paula blinks twice before a wide smile crosses her cheeks, as if out of all the things her daughter has accomplished it's dating a superhero that makes her the proudest; the expression is ill-suited to her features, making the prison-worn skin look almost waxy rather than attractive. "Oh, lovely." She grins. "Would you like to stay for tea?"

Before she can even open her mouth and say that there's _No way in hell that's happening, Mom,_ Wally's kicking his shoes off. "Tea sounds great."

* * *

Paula adores Wally.

And Wally adores Paula, or at least she thinks he does; she's almost a little offended at how easily the two warm up to each other after it took so many months for her to tolerate either of them. But suddenly Wally is helping do the dishes and putting away plates in the top cabinet that neither of them can reach, and the Vietnamese music always playing is being asked about; suddenly her mother is prompting him to sing along teasingly and Paula is laughing while she shakes her head and tries to teach him proper pronunciation. For the first time in a long time the little Gotham apartment feels full of life and people and happiness.

 _It scares her, and she hates it._

"Mom." She groans when Paula reaches across the kitchen table to rewind the tape again, insisting that Wally tries once more to say the line he keeps fumbling with _(and she's only mildly horrified, because Wally has no idea what he's actually saying and his singing is grossly out of tune.)_ A little peevishly she taps her pencil against her open notebook, trying to remind Wally that he has a test that he hasn't finished studying for. "We have homework to do. Shut the damn music off." She sighs, grabbing Wally's cup from his hands _— it's over half empty, she tells herself, he'll need a refill soon and she isn't dumping his barely cold tea down the drain out of spite_ _—_ and getting up to stalk towards the tea pot.

Paula pretends to glare at her and mercifully turns off the tape. "Watch your mouth, young lady." She says sweetly _(and Wally doesn't know why the two of them are smiling and can only look a little bemusedly between them, unaware that there have been far worse words said around her kitchen table)_ switching from the tape player to the radio for the evening news.

"Whatever, Mom _—"_ She says almost cheekily, glancing back at Wally and frowning when she realizes he's no longer paying attention to either of them, his head turned sharply towards the radio.

" _—r_ _eports have confirmed nearly a dozen mass break outs in meta-prison facilities across the country, many of America's worst terrorists and super villains now running rampant across all fifty states. A full list of the escapees is said to include Icicle Senior and Junior, Captain Cold, Poison Ivy, Sportsmaster—_ "

She hears Wally's cup shatter against the floor, and realizes all too late that she's no longer holding it.

* * *

The silence in the kitchen is loud yet it's nothing compared to the thundering of her blood against her ear drums. Paula fumbles with the radio dial and twiddles it all too late, and before the reporter can even finish they're all wincing at the sound of broken static.

She feels Wally's old tea seeping through her socks, staining the white fabric. Paula's voice is high pitched and terrified, and rather than attempting to comfort her daughter she hears her announce to the kitchen as a whole that she's going for a walk.

 _—_ _But Paula doesn't walk, her father had made sure of that—_

The door slams shut and Wally stares at her.

She hears herself mutter something distantly but doesn't quite process what it is; she hardly feels glass crunching into her feet as she turns on her heel and sprints towards the bathroom.

 _Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck_ —

Instantly she can feel the cold sweat spreading all over her body, can feel the way her fingers and toes feel as if they're numb yet still swollen with so much blood that they're aching and tense as she pounds her feet against her carpet, can feel the terrified bile beginning to kick up at the back of her throat _— but she won't let him see that, won't let Wally see her fall apart like she always does—_ She hears him call her name just as she reaches the bathroom, slamming the door shut so hard behind her that she rattles a few loose articles perched on the sink, muddled fingers fumbling with the lock. She needs space, she needs a second to breathe _—_

 _Except she's not breathing. Her lungs aren't working, her lips aren't parting to let anything inside her; whether from panic or lack of oxygen she can feel her vision beginning to blur, can feel the muscles of her knees shaking and can feel the scar on the back of her neck throbbing louder than the radio static in her kitchen, louder than any of her thoughts, as if it too knows—_ She opens her mouth as if to sob, as if to try breathing again, and suddenly she can taste her father's cigarette smoke on her tongue; before she can even screw her eyes up in disgust she's gagging, knees buckling and giving out to allow her to crouch over the toilet, mouth spewing out a mixture of tainted saliva and bile.

 _He's out._

 _Sportsmaster's out, and she's as good as dead._

Wally's calling her name again, almost hesitantly, sounding too far away to be standing outside of the door; it's suddenly as if he's afraid of her, as if he's scared of getting too close. Still feeling nauseous she reaches up to flush the toilet, eyes unable to focus on the vomit she's spit up as it disappears down the drain, scar aching but not blocking out the sound of the static in the kitchen abruptly being turned off.

 _Focus..._

 _A plan._

 _She needs a plan._

She forces herself to pull in a breath through her nose, this time her own sick overpowering the smell of Lawrence's cigarettes as she pushes herself off of where she's been slumped against the toilet bowl; her hand drags across her mouth, pulling the messy remnants of vomit off her chin before it clatters against her stomach. She's sweating so much she can feel the back of her tee shirt sticking to her skin, her rickety mind trying to pull together information despite her anxious state.

 _Okay._

 _What does she know?_

 _... Sportmaster is out of prison. Her father, her abuser, the man who drove Jade away, the man who sent her mother to jail, is walking the streets again._

 _... She put her father in prison. She betrayed him, humiliated him, and her and the boy sitting at the kitchen table are part of the Team who ensured he'd be locked up for months on end._

 _Lawrence will want revenge. He'll want someone to bleed for what has happened, will remember the way she had kicked him square in the jaw and the Team who had him locked up for the first time in years. She knows that she's in trouble, so is Wally. And the rest of the Team._

 _... But so is Paula._

 _... So is Jade._

 _She feels herself draw in a staggering breath, and even though it's all of them versus her father she still feels overwhelmed, unprepared; by now she knows not to underestimate her Lawrence, knows not to think lightly of a man with endless resources and no moral conscience. She's in danger, Wally's in danger, her friends, her family, everyone is suddenly threatened and she sitting here useless, she's_ —

She's crying. She's vomit covered and crying, unaware of the sudden wetness of her cheeks until she feels her own tears dribbling off her chin, warm even on her feverish skin and landing in large droplets on the swells of her breasts; without knowing how she got there she suddenly realizes she's managed to curl her shaking muscles and bones and tendons and filth into a ball on the floor of her bathroom, mucus and tears and old sick getting caught in the end of her pony tail. Her hands, missing the habit from the winter, start desperately clawing at the healed skin around her cuticles, wishing for some part of her to peel off and release.

 _... Wally is in danger._

This is what really scares her. Suddenly it feels as if her own heart is being ripped out of her ribs, feels as if she's staring at his ghostly pale face bleeding out in the streets of Metropolis all over again; because Sportsmaster will find out, he always does, he'll find out that this boy is her weakness and then he'll kill him and make her watch. _He'll carve out Wally's heart with his javelin and force her to hold it as it fires out a few too fast dying beats. He'll kill this boy because he knows it will kill her, and only when he's broken every last piece of her through him will he give her the pleasure of being murdered..._ She hears herself panting, hears the gross sobbing noises she's making before she stops drawing in breath all together, wondering if it's possible to drown in the mixture of tears and phlegm rattling in the back of her throat. It's hard, trying to contain the screams of anguish she's threatening to cry out with, because here they are again, they're back to the beginning and it's too dangerous, _too damn dangerous for Wally to be in love with her—_

Her scar is still throbbing, the blood pounding almost painfully in her head as she yanks at her hair, trying to force herself out of her own panic; a little too savagely she pulls her head between her knees, her legs knocking violently against her temples and forcing her teeth to clatter loudly together in her ears.

She bites her tongue, hard; instantly she can taste her own blood in her mouth, can taste the memory of Wally's gunshot wound gushing past his lips and down her throat when she had kissed him, and suddenly as if she's been standing at the ready this whole time the girl from Metropolis who's built a fortress inside her seems to grab her by the shoulders, bracing her.

 _She's not going to lose Wally._ _She refuses to lose Wally._

A strange sense of calm overcomes her as she feels the familiar, wild hands sinking their nails into her heart, the feral part of her squeezing between the bars of the cage she keeps it in and seeming to fill her with its emptiness, with the cold calculation and hatred she operated under when she first joined the Team. She feels her breath coming in steady again, her knees still pressing tightly against her temples as she swallows a mouthful of her own blood, thinking. That's what she had promised herself, when Wally had turned his back on her and told her to make up her mind; she had sworn to protect this boy, sworn not to run from him anymore. She had promised to keep him safe from the horrible parts of her that would veer up their heads to hunt him. Leaving him now, even for his own sake, feels a lot like going back on her word.

 _... This is a game of kill or be killed._

 _And she's decided that Lawrence Crock won't be the only one playing._

It's as if the girl from Metropolis has been ready for this moment for far too long, her feral lips curling into a sneer as she unfurls herself from where she's been coiled, waiting; suddenly there are stolen Bialyan rifles being loaded, bullets ready to be fired into knee caps and sharpened arrows being pulled from her quiver. The fight is coming, her lips are snarling back to bear her canines and this time she's going to rip out her father's throat. She's done being a terrorized little girl, afraid of the dark.

 _But if this is going to work, if the girl from Metropolis is going to fight back, she needs a plan._

 _She needs to make sure Wally is safe._

She needs... She needs to be Artemis, for just a little while longer. Maybe the feral part inside her needs to wear her skin for just a few more moments, needs to make sure that the ever moving piece that is Wally West is contained, compartmentalized, shoved into a far back corner where he can't see or be seen, where he won't have to witness the murder of her father and the murder of the person he's in love with in the process...

 _The feral girl is calling Artemis into battle, and her fight is pretending nothing is wrong._

And maybe it's crazy, the way her hands are numbly rubbing her tears off her face but her mind suddenly feels clear... or maybe she's simply losing it all together, to think the best solution to the problem is to pretend nothing has happened, to simply not acknowledge that her murderous father has no doubt started his hunting for her, has probably spent the past months imagining all the ways he's going to peel her skin off her skull and shove the brittle pieces of her broken fingers into her eye sockets.

 _Maybe crazy is her only option. Maybe it always has been._

 _After all, being with Wally probably wasn't her sanest decision._

It's only been a few minutes since she came into the bathroom, her panicked mind making it feel like hours; still, she takes her time pulling herself together. When she finally gets to her feet it feels almost rhythmic, as if this were just a step-by-step process: _wash her face, scrub the vomit and make up from her cheeks, brush the sick out of her mouth, re-tie her hair, stare in the mirror, do her homework, protect Wally, protect Wally, don't die, don't die, don't die, murder—_ When she emerges from her bathroom she doesn't feel like herself; she feels as if another person all together is inhabiting her body, forcing her to put a spring in her step and twist her mouth into a maniac smile.

Wally's on all fours when she enters the kitchen, one hand filled with the shattered pieces of his cup and the other scrubbing at her tile with a tea towel; upon her entrance he gets to his feet, one of his fingers bleeding slightly from where it's caught an edge of the glass. "I, uh _—_ " He pauses, blinking at her, and she knows immediately that whatever effort she's put into looking normal has gone to waste; she can still feel herself sweating, her lips swollen from where she's bitten them to shreds. "I tried to clean up, I couldn't find the garbage though."

"Underneath the sink." She says, and despite the odd smile on her face her voice sound completely void of emotion.

Wally hesitates, eyes narrowing when she sits back down at the table. "... Are you okay?"

"I'm great." She says through her teeth, swallowing another mouthful of blood.

* * *

"... So we're just going to pretend this isn't happening?" Wally asks, one hand straying across the table to press against her pen, stopping the anxious tapping she's been unknowingly drumming against the table.

It's been almost an hour since her mother left. In the silence of the kitchen she can hear Gotham sirens wailing; each time they draw a little too close to the walls of the apartment her shoulders raise like the haunches of a wolf, half expecting her father to come bursting through the door.

"Nothing's happening." She says blankly, trying not to glare at the page in her book she's been stuck on for almost twenty minutes now. She wishes there was a polite way to ask him to leave her alone, or even ask him to please go back to being silent and pretending to study like they've been doing for the past half-hour; the happiness that filled the kitchen seems so far away now, like it happened in another place so much different than the one she's currently inhabiting. "I mean— nothing's changed. I-it doesn't matter."

Wally pulls his hand back and drops his eyes down to his textbook, brows furrowed. She makes it another ten seconds before she's tapping the pen against the table again. "Talk to me, Artemis."

"... Wally." She says almost too quietly, screwing her eyes up as her scar pounds along loudly with the beat she's banging into the edge of the table. " _Don't_. Can we just— study? Please?"

He pauses and then sighs, reaching out to grab her hand this time, fingers wrapping around hers and forcing her to release the ball point. "Tell me what you're thinking. I mean, what does this mean for—" He pauses, glancing down at her hand. "Babe, you're ice cold..."

She's not surprised to hear it; even though her skin is still feeling feverish with panic she's coated in buckets of freezing sweat, the dampness clinging to the small point of her back and forcing clamminess in the webbing of her fingers. "I'll go grab a sweater." She ignores the way Wally's eyes narrow when she extracts her hand from his.

She nearly screams when she hears his chair sliding out from the kitchen table seconds after she leaves the room, actually considering turning around and trying to knock him out when she hears him following her further into the apartment, into the darkened corner that is her bedroom. She doesn't want to look at him, doesn't want to talk with him, doesn't want to answer the dozens of questions he's bound to keep asking her— _What does it mean now that's Sportsmaster is on the loose, what does it mean for them?_ She can practically feel him waiting for her to make plans to ditch him, can feel him gearing up for another battle between them, another tug-o-war as she fights to ignore the beginning of their inevitable falling apart and he tries desperately to force them back together.

She's already at her chest of drawers and riffling through the crinkled pile of pullovers inside it when Wally pokes his head through her bedroom door; even with her back to him she can sense the way his eyes rake over the room, examining Jade's abandoned bed and her Alice in Wonderland poster as if he's mentally checking to make sure it's how he remembers it. She can hear the sound of fingers tapping a little anxiously at wood, can hear his stalled breathing as if he's about to start badgering her, hears the sound of her bedroom door being clicked shut behind him and for once her mind works fast enough.

In some sort of weird attempt at avoiding things she yanks two crinkled sweaters from the drawers. "Navy or Green?" She shoots at him.

"... What?"

" _Navy_ or _Green_." She repeats, turning back to him and holding two different sweaters in her hands, her eyes slightly buggy as they stare at him with a strange intensity. "You asked what I'm thinking before—I'm thinking about which sweater I should wear."

She doesn't fault him for the stunned expression that crosses his face, brows shooting up in surprise before they furrow as the whole of his face stretches into a grimace. "... Your Dad escaped a security center designed to contain a hoard of super-criminals." He says very slowly, looking like he thinks she's lost it entirely. "... And instead of talking about it you— you want my opinion on which _sweater_ you should wear?"

She nods violently. "Yes."

"Artemis—"

" _No_." She hears herself yell, a lot more haggard and broken sounding than she means to; her voice must be a lot louder than it sounds to her because Wally jumps slightly, looking as shocked as if she's just slapped him when she waves her sweaters more insistently. "I know, Wally, I'm aware of what's happening. _But just because it's happening doesn't mean I have to deal with it, okay?_ " She snarls, running out of breath before she can finish yelling, voice cutting off with a feral pant. "Can we just... Can we just pretend we're normal teenagers for a second?"

"... I don't really—"

"Please!" She bursts out, and it's the first time she's really begged something of him; impatiently she raises a sweater filled fist up to her eyes, brushing away tears that haven't fallen yet. "... I can't do this right now, Wally." _And it's true, the girl from Metropolis isn't ready for another battle just yet; despite her loaded guns and blood stained fingers she can't quite bear to talk about it, not when her strategy is so precarious._ "Just pretend with me for a bit, okay?"

It's about as pathetic as she's ever felt, standing there waving pullovers at him and trying not to indulge the panic that's threatening to spill over her edges or the lurking presence beginning to linger in the cartilage of her joints. For a moment Wally's mouth opens, and she's almost sure that he's about to protest or argue with her; then suddenly his lips are sealing into a straight line and he's nodding, looking much older than sixteen. "Okay. _Normal_... I can do that."

She doesn't miss the way he walks, deliberately at a slow, regular human pace across the room, eyes not straying to the pile of arrows so recently sharpened on her desk. When both his hands extend to cup her chin it takes a lot of her effort not to crash into him, the feral part of her not trusting the closeness that would come with finding the hollow in the center of his chest and burrowing herself inside it. "... You look beautiful in green, Babe." He says very seriously, eyes flickering between hers before he leans in to press a kiss to her forehead.

That's what undoes her; in the midst of her half-assed pretending she can't stop herself from feeling the unnatural warmth of his lips, can't entirely turn off the strangled sounding sob bubbling out of her throat. More than anything she wants an escape, wants outside of her own invaded body and back in the happy hours of before— _not just those in her kitchen, but those in her bedroom, with notebook papers flying and the only worry in her head being the fact that this amazing, whole, wonderful boy might be in love with her_ … She wants to get lost in him, drown in him and all the feelings he has for her that she can never reciprocate, and maybe that's why she suddenly pulls back, looking at him dangerously. " _We're normal_." She repeats, feeling her features hardening.

"... Right." He says uneasily, brows furring again; it's the first time he's seemed like he's actually afraid of her— but, she reminds herself, she isn't exactly Artemis anymore.

She feels herself hand over her body entirely to the desperate Metropolis girl, the one with the plans and the action and the ferocity only a dying woman can summon; as if he senses the change Wally's throat bobs, taking a step back and looking around a little wildly as if trying to find something to distract the two of them from the way her blood is suddenly thundering in her ears and sending feverish heat over her skin. "... Uh, here. You put that on and I'll put this away—"

She almost snarls like a wild cat when he ducks around her, taking the navy sweater that's been hanging limply in her hands and refolding it a bit too quickly, walking towards her set of drawers. "My mom isn't home." She says lowly, registering in the back of her mind that the words sound threatening rather than enticing; Wally, for his part, suddenly stiffens at her words, all the muscles of his back growing taught before he continues with placing her sweater back inside the drawer. "... What do you think _normal_ teenagers would make of that?"

The drawer shuts and a muscle in Wally's neck jumps when he turns back to face her, the green sweater dropped on the floor behind her as she stalks towards him. "Uh…" He says dumbly, ears reddening. "I don't know."

"I think I do." She breathes, and he seems to have about enough restraint to take the smallest step backwards, his back hitting her drawers and jostling it against the wall.

He lets out a hiss of breath when she reaches for him, her nails digging against the side of his neck and fighting against the way he's trying to extract himself from her lunacy, looking as if he's trying to contain himself when she rakes her hands through his hair. "A-Artemis, _what the hell_ —" He gasps out, wincing when her nail catches on the side of his face.

" _Shut up_." She whispers back, pulling his face to hers. It's ravenous, the way she kisses him, her teeth reaching out to bite him and her nails no doubt leaving reddened lines along his scalp; still, she finds it endearing that he can't resist her, a strangled moan bursting out of his mouth, warming her lips before she presses her mouth hungrily against his.

She forces as much of herself as she can into the kiss, as if somehow Wally can lick up the better parts of her that she's leaving behind and somehow save them for later—she needs fast, she needs a little pain, she needs the small gasp that escapes his mouth when she mashes him up against her dresser, his fingers clenching against its warbled edges and trying to press loose drawers back in place when they rattle open.

"Babe—" He gasps out, groaning when she refuses to release him, her nails digging down his neck and her tongue licking the enamel of his teeth. She hears the swear he mutters when he finally escapes, her teeth breaking the skin of his lower lip as he snaps his jaw back, panting as she jerks his head to the side and starts attacking his neck, deliberately trying to leave marks. "W-What..." He breaks off, moaning loudly when she starts palming at the stiff point of his jeans, lips firing out a gasp when she's a bit too rough with his not quite hard length.

She gets about as far as fumbling with the belt on his pants before he seems to realize what's about to happen; just as she's getting to her knees in front of him he jerks back, jostling her dresser and attempting to stop her hands as she tries to yank his pants down his legs. "Whoa." He pants, shaking slightly. "Artemis, slow down."

She doesn't sound like herself when she lets out a snarling laugh, giving up when his jeans are barely more than hanging loosely off his hips, her eyes staring hungrily at the stretch of blue cotton that's barely containing him. "That's rich, coming from _you_ —"

Wally lets out a grunt when she starts pawing at him through his underwear, looking like he hates himself when he finally grabs her wrists. "I mean it, Artemis!" He says a little too loudly, yanking upwards until she's forced back to her feet when she doesn't stop trying to touch him. "What's wrong with you?" He gasps out, and when she makes the mistake of struggling against him it's immediately embarrassing how easily he pins her wrists behind her back, catching her off guard and managing to spin her on her heel until she's the one pinned against her drawers, her wrists aching under the tightness of his grip and her lower back digging into a painful edge of her dresser.

Despite everything she can still see the wanting in his eyes, can still feel the heat that's coursing through her veins at his closeness to her; through the pain of being shoved so tightly against a mess of edges and knobs she can still feel the way he wants her, can still taste it in the haggard breaths he's panting against her cheeks. And she's surprised too, at how badly she wants him back— she can feel it in the tightness of her jeans, can feel the way throbbing parts of her are mashed up against seams of denim and cotton and wanting to be ripped apart at their stitches...

 _She decides the girl from Metropolis isn't a girl at all. She's an animal._

"You're acting like a lunatic." He snarls at her, pressing so tight against her that his breath his hot on her face and she can feel him, still hard and pressing achingly against her thigh. "Just— tell me what's going on, slow down for a second—"

She can't stop the frustrated noise that bubbles up in the back of her throat, anxious to revel in the intimacy of him inside her mouth rather than in the terror of her new plan or the animosity of the person waking inside her; it's not the right thing to do but she tries to kiss him again, her lips claiming his for a second before he's jerking his face back from hers, snarling and pressing her tighter against her drawers. "Really?" She barks, letting out a sneering laugh as she opens her thighs, hating that she enjoys the way his whole body tenses as she rubs against his barely hidden shaft, a muscle jumping in his jaw. " _Slow down_? Is that really what you want?"

For a second she's not entirely sure what he's thinking; maybe that he wants to hit her, maybe that he wants to spin her around and bend her over and take her altogether. Either way it takes too long for those violent impulses to leave the corners of his eyes, his breath still panting in her face when he releases her wrists, shoving himself off of her. "Yes." He grits out through his teeth, stalking across her bedroom and running his hands through his hair.

"You're lying." She sneers almost mockingly, because it's easier to be mad at him than hate herself.

"Of course I'm lying!" Wally yells at her, whirling back to face her; as if on cue his belt buckle jostles and they both automatically glance down to where he's sticking out of his barely undone jeans. "How could I not be, I mean—" He trails off, ears still crimson but seeming a little less angry as he re-buttons his pants "... You know I want you, Artemis. But look at you right now, Babe, you're not— I can't just… Not now. It feels like taking advantage."

"I _want_ you to take advantage!" She bursts out, hating that he's suddenly calm, no longer looking at her with clouded eyes and growing hardness between his hips. "God, can you just— be a normal guy, for like five seconds? Why are you always so goddamn nice to me, anyway, _I don't deserve it_ , I don't—" She snarls, practically in hysterics. "I don't want to talk, okay? I don't want to think, I just want us, _I want you_ —"

Stupidly she charges forward, forgetting that he's done playing their pretend game of normalcy and forgotten superpowers; before she blinks he's vanished from the spot in front of her, the gust of air that follows pushing all her hair in front of her eyes. As if she's drunk she hardly skids to a stop, ankle twisting around the post of Jade's old bed and sending her crashing into her book shelf.

She cries out when she hits it, eyes stinging with tears as edges press against her ribs and her head smacks with a dull thunk against the wall; she can feel her cheeks stinging with embarrassment as several articles crash to the floor, the air in the room finally stilling as Wally skids to a stop behind her. "Artemis—" He starts, freezing when she whirls around to glare at him, practically shaking with rage and humiliation.

"Get out!" She screams at as she paws behind her, unseeingly grabbing a book and hurling it across the room at him, growling when he easily doges it.

 _"Babe—"_

She reaches for another book and then several more, snarling and shaking as a sob bursts out of her throat when she misses him again and again, the speed of his movement sending her hair whipping about her face and making it nearly impossible to see. "Leave!" She screams, throwing things blindly around the room and chasing his too-fast figure as if hoping to attack him.

She's just managed to wrap her fingers around the lamp on her bedside table when he grabs her from behind, one of his arms wrapping so tightly around her waist that she's lifted from her feet and the other trying to stop her from tossing the lamp across the room. Predictably there's a violent struggle that involves plenty of swearing and crying on her part before his fingers manage to pry her off, and more out of spite than anything she elbows him as hard as she can in the stomach, taking too much pleasure in the way his breath puffs out into her ear. For a second all his muscles tighten in response, and before he can set her on her feet he's accidentally dropping her.

She's too upset to support her weight and doesn't care when she goes crashing to the floor, her head knocking with a jarring painfulness against her bedside table and nearly toppling the lamp Wally's just put there; she doesn't know why but the shock of the pain is what does it again, what forces the feral creature inside her to be tamed for a moment and suddenly she feels almost normal, her head aching and her skin goose pimpled and her mind no longer fogged with violence or murder but overwhelmingly with shame, _humiliation_ , both at what she's been thinking and what she's done.

She can hear things over the sound of her pounding scar again, can hear the gurgling way she's drawing in breath, can feel her muscles spasming and shaking, and behind her she can hear Wally wheezing, diaphragm aching as he bends over at the waist, trying to force himself to breath properly again as he drags his head up to pant at her.

"Artemis—"

"Please, Wally." She says quietly, hating how broken and pathetic she sounds as she begs again, her eyes screwed up so she doesn't have to look at him from where she's lying on the floor. "Just go."

There's a hesitation before she feels the familiar rush of air, hears the sound of the window behind her opening and the clattering of the fire escape. She doesn't know why she bothers opening her eyes again, why she's surprised to see the trashed remains of her bookshelf or hear the sirens of the Gotham night filling her bedroom. All she knows is that when she stands to look out her window she doesn't really expect him to be gone.

* * *

She has enough time to look for one long moment into the smog of the Gotham city lights before her phone rings; sliding the glass pane shut she reaches into her back pocket, registering the name _Oliver_ flashing wildly across the screen before she flips it open. "Yeah?" She says shakily, sounding badly congested.

"I have your mother." The voice through the other line says, and for a half second she almost tricks herself into hearing Sportsmaster in Green Arrow's voice; before she has enough time to be properly afraid he's charging on and speaking too quickly for it to be anyone else. "I'm coming there now for you. Is Wally still there?"

"... He left." She mutters, trying not to let the silence be too telling before her mind sudden jerks, old habits and ancient paranoia flaring to the front of her thoughts. "Wait, how did you know where I am? Or Wally? Did Paula tell you?"

In response she hears a dry sounding chuckle through the phone. "Tracer in your phone, Sweetie, so the League can track you through cell towers. You have to be sharper than that to outrun us." He pauses. "Although Paula told me about Wally, I can't take credit for that..."

Even though he's trying to be charming and comforting his voice still sends a renewed sense of anger and fear running through her; her fight with Wally has got her thinking illogically, gotten her furious at the whole world and firmly avoiding her own whirlwind of emotions. "Y-you put a tracer in my phone? Without telling me?"

"Course I did, Kaldur asked the League to as part of your revamped security a couple weeks ago; put one on your Mom's chair too—" He starts, cutting himself off before he can babble. "I'm in my car right now, stay in the apartment, okay? We don't want either of you alone there now that your father's out, not just yet—"

"I can take care of myself!" She snarls, and before he can even finish his sentence she's slamming her phone shut.

She's no better off than she was all those months ago, when she was just some kid with a sneering gaze and a hunger to prove herself; she's back to being a weak little girl that her boyfriend has to protect and her mentor has to send into hiding— nothing's changed, she's still her father's _Baby Girl_ , still the daughter he can frighten with ghost stories and with a few well placed punches to the cheek...

Despite the shock she can still feel that feral presence inside her, can still feel the death grip the girl from Metropolis has on her through the bars of the cage she's back inside; without thinking she gives into the wild impulse still burning inside her, her fingers hardly noticing when she extracts the battery from the back of her cellphone, preventing Oliver from following the trail of pings her service provider would leave that would lead him to her. Blindly, she turns on her heel, grabbing her leather jacket off the back of a chair and yanking the hood up to hide her hair. As if knowing what she's about to do, she spots her worn out sneakers by the door, still sandy from the late summer afternoons she would spend sprinting along the Happy Harbor beach.

Her father was right about her.

 _She's a born runner._

* * *

She doesn't know where she's running to, or why she's running even; the streets of Gotham City are slick with the rain that's pounding against the pavement, and she nearly slips three times when she rounds corners a little too sharply. She wonders only briefly how much trouble she'll be in for disobeying a direct order from a member of the League.

She tries not to waste time on regrets, on worrying, on much of anything at all; her head feels oddly blank as she forces her feet to pound too hard against the sidewalks, every second strike to her heel sending a dull pounding up the length of her leg and lingering in her spine. She tries to ignore the sensation, tries to ignore even mapping where she's going in the city— she wants to get lost, wants to hide, wants to outrun what's coming for her _(either inside her own head or out of it)_ and simply exist unburdened for a few more moments...

Because that's what this is. Her father coming back, hunting her; it's a burden that she's been living without for months, one whose weight she's no longer strong enough to carry. She's been borrowing time from another person, stealing moments from another girl who doesn't have to second guess her blonde hair or double count her arrows; now that her past has come back to haunt her and dismember her and bury her in an unmarked grave under an overpass all over again she's suddenly realizing that she'll never, ever, be strong enough to fight it off entirely.

Her jeans are soaking wet, damp denim sticking to the creases of her knees and slicing into her thighs as she runs, but she won't stop— she'll never stop running, never, no matter how much her lungs ache or how much phlegm she coughs up, no matter how many head lights flash at her as she spits mucus and dribbles it down her front...

She rounds another corner and this time her shoulder catches on something; she hears another voice cry out as she's sent stumbling, a stray paper bag of groceries and an umbrella clattering to the ground as she collides with the edge of a building. She hears a predictable amount of Gotham choice swearing as she stumbles, hard, to the ground.

"What the fuck is your problem?" Someone snarls at her as she tries to get to her feet; she's hit her head more than once tonight, this time her impact on the pavement leaving her dazed and slightly dizzy— _but_ , she thinks thankfully, _the pain seems to be sending the Metropolis girl into hiding, as if despite her tough exterior she's afraid of truly getting her hands dirty, and suddenly the fingers that are holding her through the bars of the cage pull back, leaving her shaking and panting but free._ "... Are you alright?" The gruff voice asks hesitantly when she does little more than wobble on the ground, bracing herself on all fours. She winces when someone yanks her hood off her head, her pony tail becoming instantly soaked as it falls down her shoulder, pooling in a puddle of rain and filth between her palms.

"Jesus Christ, _Artemis_?"

She jerks her head when the guy bending beside her says her name; her vision is still a little wonky and the rain is coming down hard, forcing her to squint. "Roy?" She snarls out.

"What the hell are you doing here?" He asks her, looking clean shaven and shocked as he tries to help her to her feet; still shaking and out of breath she hears herself let out a feral sounding hiss, jerking away from him when he tries to help her up and accidentally hammering into the building she's just collided with again.

" _In Gotham City_?" She snarls, pressing her palm against the wall and trying to force herself upright; her muscles are still twitching from the intensity of her running and won't quite let her manage on her own. "I live here, asshole. What the hell are you— _Oh my god_." She cuts herself off when the corner of Roy's mouth twitches upwards. "... You're seeing her. _You're seeing Jade_?"

She must sound hysterical because his smirk only half flickers up; as if he can sense there's something bigger going on he bends to pick up the groceries she's spilt, hands fumbling with a half opened container of some sort of pre-made pasta dish. "Come on, _Sweetheart_. Answer the question." He pauses, glancing once at a broken jug of milk that's leaking all over the sidewalk and not bothering to pick it up before he looks her in the eye. "... Seems like a weird place for a jog. You running from something in particular?"

"I—" She starts, not knowing how to finish. "... No."

Roy replaces the umbrella over his head, not bothering to share it with her as he steadies his jostled bag of groceries. "... You've always been a shitty liar, you know that? I don't know how anyone ever thought you were GA's niece." She must have grimaced at her mentor's name because suddenly his eyes narrow, watching as she shakes and keeps trying to get properly to her feet. "... What? Is he trying to con you into dinner or something? Trying to play the whole daddy-dearest act again?" He pauses. "... Are you drunk?"

"No." She says quickly, his last words stirring the memory up in her mind _(Roy drunk on her couch, Jade in her kitchen and making her tea and all her hatred for the Cheshire Cat mask hissing to her surface)_ and suddenly making the spasm of fear she had felt hours ago for Jade feel out of place, oddly rooted deep inside her, so much so that all her muscles clench in discomfort, at last allowing her to stand steadily, free from the wall. Stupidly her toes flex against the pavement, telling her to turn on her heel and start running again as her stomach squirms, weaving tightly around one word: _Sisters._

Before she can stop herself she realizes she's panting again, words tumbling out of her mouth before she can pull them back inside her. "Look— can you just tell Jade something? From me?" She says quickly, the words tasting bitter on her tongue as she takes a couple steps back wards, as if trying to sneak away. "She'll probably know in a few hours anyway, or whatever, but... Can you just warn her that Dad's out of prison? Just let her know, please?"

"What?" Roy stiffens when she says it, but she doesn't stick around long enough to read the shock on his face; he only has time to yell out her name angrily before she's sprinting away, unable to be called back.

* * *

She runs until her muscles are aching and there's a soreness in her bones that she doubts will ever really disappear. She runs until her wet hair is matted against her forehead and her clothes are practically dripping off her, until the sun breaks the city blocked horizon and until she realizes that she's somehow managed to find her way back to her part of the city.

She doesn't want to go back to the apartment, where her mother and Oliver and maybe even Black Canary are huddled in her darkened living room, trying her cell phone every few minutes and mentally rehearsing what they're going to yell in her face when they finally find her— about how she's being reckless, how she's being as impulsive and illogical as she was when they first found her running wild on the Gotham streets and living in chaos and homemade arrow-heads. She can't go back to that, can't face their disappointed looks and concern...

 _Going to the apartment means facing the fact that her father is really out, and somehow seeing her own fear etched in someone else's face makes it feel more real than anything planned by the feral girl inside her._

Instead she finds herself throwing the door open to an abandoned looking phone booth, exhausted fingers tapping out the digits she's known by heart for a while now.

The Cave.

 _Home_.

She isn't stupid and neither is Oliver; she knows he's probably checking the zeta tube logs, will see that she was here and will know where she was going. He'll know where to find her and he'll know that she's safe.

Still, before she thinks of her bedroom and of the sun bursting across the Rhode Island shore, before her molecules to scramble and she allows herself to give in to the sensation of weightlessness, she reaches into a hidden pocket on the inside of her jacket, extracting the cellphone battery she's somehow managed to keep dry. She hesitates a moment before popping it in, leading whatever is coming right to her.

* * *

She's not surprised when she's summoned to Black Canary's office the next morning.

Maybe she's pressing her luck, or simply being bratty, when she takes her time getting there; she can sense a glaring gaze through the security cameras as she takes an unnecessarily long route to get there, walking down winding hallways and back tracking more than once. Defiantly she makes a point to lock eyes with each one she passes, staring unblinkingly at the glowing red light that seems to follow her.

Strangely she doesn't meet anyone on her whole walk there; she supposes it's still early in the day but it's still odd, a building so full of people and so empty around her. She wonders if that's perhaps intentional, if her friends are being kept hidden from her.

She knocks once, hard, against Canary's door, glancing coldly at the camera beside it and wondering if she's still being watched. Not waiting for someone to answer her she shoves the door open.

She's also not surprised to see Oliver and Canary inside, both hovering behind her desk and talking in hushed tones; she hardly gives them much more than a glance before her eyes are pulled to a darkness in the corner of the room, lit up by only the bluish light of a computer screen. With a pang in her stomach she realizes that Batman himself is present, her shock no doubt showing on her face as the formidable mask turns her way, whatever he's saying abruptly cutting off.

"... I'll leave you three to it." He says to the room at large in his typically gravelly voice, and she feels about three feet tall when he swishes by her, and half repelled and half in awe she catches herself slouching, as if afraid of touching him or his cape despite the spaciousness of the door frame.

The door clicks shut just as Oliver's eyes narrow at her, and she's already started grimacing before he utters in a cold tone, " _Sit_."

She's expecting it, when he finally gets the nerve to yell at her; there's a lot of raving about being worried and scaring him half to death accompanied by the bristling of his moustache. She tries her best to keep a stony expression the whole while, to keep her posture rigid in the over filled chair— she only loses focus once, when Oliver waves his hand a little too enthusiastically in the general direction of her face, and suddenly before she can stop herself she's flinching, as if expecting an impact, the movement silencing him before his hand falls limply at his side and he glances a little helplessly at Canary.

"Dinah..." He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose; it takes her a second to realize that he must be calling Black Canary by her real name rather than her alias, because immediately Canary rises from her spot behind the desk and moves to fill the chair opposite her. "You take over. I need a minute."

Canary settles and almost then hesitates, one crimson lip drawing up into her mouth and being pinched for a half second by her pearly teeth before she starts talking. "... Why did you run?"

"I don't know." She says lowly; unlike most things she's ever uttered in this office it's the truth.

Canary— or Dinah, she supposes— narrows her eyes at her, leaning forward to press her elbows against her knees. "Yes you do, Artemis. You had just received orders from a member of the League— _your mentor_ — telling you to stay where you were." She says fiercely, staring her down and reminding her suddenly why Canary is one of the best interrogators in the Justice League. "... Tell me why you ran."

"I don't know!" She repeats, beginning to get frustrated. "I just did... I couldn't be there anymore. I hate that apartment, the whole place stinks of Sportsmaster— Look, I know I disobeyed orders. Just give me a slap on the wrist so I can leave, okay?"

"You don't get the luxury of disobeying orders, Artemis." Canary insists, voice steady despite the look of annoyance on her face. "You lost that the day you joined the Team. When you wear that mask, on or off duty, you're a soldier. And soldiers who disobey orders get themselves killed— Batman wanted us to make it clear that this can't be a reoccurrence in the future. You disobey orders again and you're off the Team. End of story."

She feels her mouth fall open in surprise, her lips quickly pulling back into a snarl as she tries to sit up, her backside sinking into the leather. "Off the— _God_ , nothing happened—"

"That's not what Roy said." Dinah interrupts. "He called us last night, said you looked like you were trying to outrun the devil himself when he saw you—"

A disgusted noise sounds in her throat, her nails practically clawing at her arm rests as her eyes find Oliver's. "Been talking with _Speedy_ , have you?" She snarls at him. "So what, Roy can literally be _sleeping with the enemy_ but I can't go for a jog at night?"

He scowls. "Roy's a big boy, he can handle himself—"

"And I can't?"

"That's not what I meant." Oliver raises his voice again, standing from his chair and glowering at her. "You scared me Artemis. I told you explicitly to stay where you were so I could keep you safe—"

"Why do you care?" She spits out. "I'm not your kid, or something!"

As she says it she can sense that she's crossed some sort of line; for a moment all the anger on Oliver's face drops entirely, blank eyes staring at her with hurt etched into his crows feet before his glower returns and seems to double with disgust. "... You're right. You're not my daughter." Oliver says in a cold voice, glaring at a few stray sheets of paper on Canary's desk before he clears his throat.

Despite the fact that she's still angry she feels a shocking spasm of guilt at the hardness on his face, his moustache framing a frown. "Oliver." She says, narrowed eyes widening and glancing at Dinah for help. "... I'm sorry, I didn't—"

"You're dismissed, Artemis."

She immediately bites her tongue again, reopening the wound from the previous evening and flooding her mouth with blood like it did the night before. "... Fine." She sneers, stalking towards the door and taking care to slam it shut behind her.

* * *

She calls Wally twice and neither time he picks up. She figures it's for the best, because she doesn't really know what to say.

Kaldur finds her in the kitchen when she's brewing tea, oddly not replying when she greets him and instead seizing a mug from the cupboard, holding it out to her expectantly. "You are making tea, yes?" He says stiffly.

"…Yeah." She says in a slightly dumb voice, taking the mug from his hand when he gestures to her with it, her brows raising when she lowers the kettle over the leaves he's shoved inside. "… You okay?"

"I am fine." He says back unconvincingly, not allowing the leaves to even sit for a moment before he's slugging back the hot liquid, pulling back with a wince. "… It is Tula and Garth's anniversary today." He says plainly through swollen lips.

Despite her own bad mood she instantly feels her heart sink for him, her fingers curling around her cup just so she can touch something warm. "I'm sorry, Kal..."

"There is nothing to apologize for." He sighs, trying to sip at his tea again and scowling when the steam warms his face. "… I simply thought it might be better if I spent time with someone who… Was not a guest. Unless you are otherwise preoccupied? Perhaps with Wally?"

She hesitates. "No. I'm not busy."

Kaldur's eyes narrow when she bites the inside of her cheek, and as if he can suddenly see clearly inside her head he blinks, looking serious. "… Am I correct in assuming that you heard the news of the recent prison breaks?"

She sighs; it's always been easier to talk to Kaldur. "Yeah, both of us heard last night."

He nods. "I am glad. I must admit, I was dreading the possibility of becoming the bearer of bad news. You have seemed so happy lately, I would have hated to… _burst your bubble,_ as it were."

She doesn't know why but she chuckles dryly; it's always funny to hear Kaldur try to use modern slang, especially in his thick Atlantean tone. "Well, one less thing for you to worry about then. But… I don't know." She pauses again, staring into the depths of her cup for a moment before she sighs. "... I guess I knew he wasn't going to stay locked up forever. I don't know why I'm so screwed up over it."

Kaldur simply looks at her, brows narrowing. "I do not understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"... You do not seem screwed up, in the meaning I am familiar with." Kaldur says plainly, pausing to survey her across the kitchen island. "... You are worried? Frightened?"

"No." She says almost defensively, lying quickly and hiding in the slug she takes of her drink. "I— I don't know how to explain it. I found out last night and I just... freaked out. And Wally had to deal with it, and I kind of... I kind of took off on Green Arrow in a way he didn't appreciate. I just made a lot of people angry with me in a short amount of time. And I don't really know how to fix it."

"Hm." Kaldur muses, staring at her unblinkingly above the rim of his cup. "… I am afraid I am not going to be of much help, never having dealt with a villainous father myself."

He pauses when she snorts, slugging what's left of her tea back and setting her empty cup in the sink. "Great time to develop a sense of humor, Kal."

Kaldur shakes his head at her, fighting the corners of his lips when they quirk up into a toothy smile. "Come. I believe it is finally warm enough to walk along the shore."

* * *

"So." Kaldur begins as they drag their feet through the sand, glancing upwards as a wayward drop of rain falls from the sky. "Sportsmaster is loose again."

"Yeah." She sighs, turning her head automatically to look towards the clouded horizon, watching a grey foamed wave crash against the shore before she replies. "He is."

He hesitates for some reason, as if waiting for her to say more, frowning slightly when she doesn't elaborate. "… You do not have to pretend, Artemis. It is alright to be afraid."

She feels the whole of her face pinch into a scowl, one foot reaching out to kick a stray rock, squinting to watch its progress rolling across the sand. "I'm not afraid." She lies again, as if hoping that the more she says the words the more true they'll become. "I guess I just feel... These last couple months, with the Team, with Wally… It was almost like I was free, or untouchable… I guess I just wish I had made better use of my time."

"How could you have made better use of your time?"

She shrugs. "I don't know—spent more time training? Preparing for this moment? … Or maybe just spent less time worrying and more with Wally." She swallows dryly, a stray thought occurring to her in the silence. "... I wish I had just let him kiss me on New Years Day. I wish I hadn't spent so much time trying to push him away, or being stubborn... Whatever, I don't know what I'm trying to say."

Kaldur's head swivels from where he's been gazing out towards the water, frowning. "You sound as if you are considering leaving him." He says carefully.

"No." She says too quickly, neck aching with the speed she turns to look at him. " _No_ , I mean… Of course not. I just wish…" She sighs, not quite knowing how to word it, shrugging under the scrutiny of his gaze and putting her chilled hands into her jean pockets.

"… You wish you hadn't allowed yourself to be so burdened." He finishes for her, going back to squinting towards the clouds. "Perhaps you wished you had made a better use of your time before reality set in, or that you had allowed yourself to live more fully when it was easier to do so?"

"Yeah." She nods at the water.

Kaldur looks as if he's suddenly aged a thousand years when he sighs. "I understand how it is, living the kind of life we do, the necessity of some sacrifices… But you must also understand, Artemis. You are not your family. I have fought beside you for the better part of a year now, and that could not be more obvious."

"I know that." She says impatiently, frowning. "I know, Kaldur, that's not the point—"

"I am aware." He cuts her off, looking stern. "You miss _my_ point. Your father, your sister… They are cowards, Artemis. It is why they fight for the side that they do, why they commit their crimes… The only thing you are guilty of is your own second-guessing. You forget too often how brave you are."

She can feel her scowl deepen, still glaring out at the ocean. "... I was a coward last night though. Oliver and Wally... I ran from both of them, Kal. I wasn't brave."

"Sometimes it is easier to run from those with the best intentions." He says gravely. "... I said you were brave, Artemis, not clever."

She hears herself snort out a laugh and Kaldur chuckles too, jaw dropping as he grins at his feet. "Forgive me. I have been… I have been questioning my own decisions, lately. Especially that of becoming Aqualad." His lips purse, reading the look on her face when she glances at him. "Do not mistake me—I do not regret it. I simply… Sometimes I wonder if that was my own cowardice, leaving Tula. Even my own parents…"

He falls silent again and she can practically feel her ears quirking with interest. "Your parents?"

"I suppose I have never mentioned them— My mother, Sha'lain'a, was a high priestess in the Atlantean city-state of Shayeris… My father was a surface-worlder genetically altered by the villain Black Manta, employed to infiltrate Atlantis as a water breather." In his pause she feels a small ripple of fear sound through her; even though the name Black Manta is unfamiliar to her ears she can still sense the hatred in Kaldur's voice, the anxiety just uttering the name fills him with.

"My mother is a creature of extraordinary beauty: her skin is nearly as golden as her hair—you reminded me quite a bit of her when we first met, if you will pardon the compliment. My father took one look at her and turned his back on villainy, made the deadly mistake of betraying Black Manta… He was dead not long after their wedding night." Kaldur pauses again, glaring out over the ocean. "Perhaps I am simply being a sentimental fool. Perhaps my father was also being foolish, I am unsure. Maybe I am being idealistic… Or maybe I should have stayed behind with Tula."

"Kal." She says quietly, reaching out to place an affectionate hand on his shoulder. "… Look, if things are meant to work out… They're going to work out, okay?"

"I could easily say the same about your worries." Kaldur smiles gently, not showing his teeth. "You are too good of a listener, Artemis. Why is it that whenever you come seek counsel in me it is always me that ends up seeking counsel in you?"

"Bad luck, I suppose." She grins back, glancing up at the sky when it lets another couple rain drops fall on the two of them.

* * *

Not long after Kaldur mutters something about the library and she's left alone on the shore.

The sand feels cold when she sits on it; it's a different kind of cold than in February, when she and Wally had sat in this exact spot and asked each other stupid questions to fill the time. Back then the beach still had a coating of dry snow on it, the leaves still stripped from the branches behind her. Now the cold sprinkling of late-March rain is dampening the sand, sending a chill through her skin and an ache in her leg that tells her that summer isn't quite here, not yet.

She doesn't know how long she sits there for, staring aimlessly out at the dreary water and thinking about what Kaldur had told her; how she's brave, how she lets her stubborn mind get in the way of her good heart. She thinks of his parents, thinks of the unknown soldier and his Atlantean wife, thinks of their lovelorn son. Most of all she thinks about Wally, thinks of the disgusting thing inside her that drove him away like it always does. She can still feel her, the feral girl, curled up and waiting in the cage where she keeps her, and she wonders if she'll ever be cowardly enough to release her again.

 _She wonders what she'll do when she sees her father._

Without knowing how it got there she realizes her phone is being clenched tightly in her hand, and before she can even process her whitened knuckles she's scrolling through her phone contacts.

He must be screening her calls because she only hears a quarter of a ring before it goes straight to voicemail, Wally's voice loud and happy in her ear. _"You've reached the Wallman. Leave me a message and I'll call back in a flash!"_

She hears herself let out a weak sounding laugh, the sound catching as the automated voice on the other line talks blankly at her. She hears the beep and realizes too late that her throat is a bit too tight to speak.

"—Hey. It's me." She bursts out, wincing at the barely concealed weakness in her voice; _suddenly it seems like too long ago that he was whispering those words into her bedroom door, trying to coax her into opening up and allowing him and his bloodshot eyes inside_. She wonders if he'll be able to hear the ocean through the speaker, wonders if he'll be able to tell who she's just talked to and whose advice she's acting on. As if to block it out she drops her head to her knees, pressing her phone tight to her ear.

"... I'm sorry about last night, Wally." She says after a second. "I shouldn't have... I don't know why I did it, okay? I was acting crazy, I—" Her voice catches and she finds she has to a pause for a moment to stop the wobbling of her lower lip. "You were right. We should have talked, we should have... Well, we shouldn't have been doing what I was trying to do."

The wind picks up, her pony tail streaming out over her shoulder like a white flag, and she hears herself sighing into the receiver. "... Please call me back. I'm so sorry, just please— talk to me." She finishes quickly, hanging up before she has the chance to get really desperate and say something stupid.

The water crashes against the shore and the wind whirls speckled droplets of air onto her skin. She stays on the beach because feeling cold is better than feeling nothing at all.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for all the reviews! I honestly wasn't expecting such a big response to my return, nor was I expecting so many well wishes for the semester! I'm getting around to replying to everyone, just know that I appreciate the time it takes to sit down and tell me what you think. What a great welcome back!**

 **(For those of you who are asking me questions about plot/requesting to see certain things under the Guest mantle, just know I see those too but won't reply to them on here, should they spoil the story. Thank you for your suggestions and reviews though!)**

 **Read and review, read and tell me what you want to see, or read and cuss me out for posting yet another angsty chapter. Makes me happy either way, and might just make me post quicker too!**


	14. Invisible Disaster

**AN: Another long one. I keep trying to cut down the length of these chapters and they keep running away on me!**

 **Picks from the playlist: Clouds by BORNS, Past in Present by Feist, Ghost by Ingrid Michaelson.**

 **This chapter is rated M.**

* * *

When she wakes the next morning to the sound of Gotham sirens it doesn't even take her a second before she starts looking for her cell phone; she had fallen asleep staring at it a few hours ago after she had returned home from the beach, her skin prickled and frozen from both the ocean air and Wally's icy silence. It takes several minutes of rummaging through her blankets and peeling back her sheets before she finds it wedged under the small of her back; when she finally flips it open her heart sinks when she realizes she has no missed messages.

She can hear the sound of Paula's chair as it creaks across the floorboards, the only sound she's emitted since the news broke of Lawrence's release; when she had returned home the night before she had passed the other woman, neither of them acknowledging each other beyond the tightening of Paula's fingers around her tea cup and the determined blankness of her forgotten Huntress stare. She supposes this fear, this distress that her father causing— perhaps there are some kinds of pain that are too overwhelming to speak about.

 _She's one to talk, she catches herself sneering internally. She hasn't told a soul how terrified she is, won't even really acknowledge it in the front of her mind beyond those few moments she had spent crumbled and shaking on her bathroom floor... This fear is just another thing to ball up and discard, another thing like the lonely drawer in her night table that contains all of Jade's old trinkets that must remain hidden should they stir up unpleasantness..._

Her mother's chair pauses outside her bedroom door, ear no doubt pressing against the thin wood and wondering if she's awake; she's expecting the older woman to poke her head inside, expecting the annoyingly chipper voice to prompt her into getting out of bed, far more excited than she is about her attendance to Gotham Academy. Instead there's several moments of silence before the wheels creak against the floorboards as she rolls towards the front door; as she eases it shut behind her she can hear the unfamiliar beeping of the security system Green Arrow had installed inside their apartment, warbling along loudly and being bothered by Paula's exit.

Ignoring her mother— _who hasn't once offered her words of comfort in these last few days, hasn't even looked her in the eye as if she's afraid her daughter is going to start screaming at her, blaming for her for the monster who is responsible for the blonde hair sprouting from her skull and the sun spots that blossom on her arms in the summers_ — she goes back to staring at her phone, flipping it open and closed repeatedly as if hoping a message from Wally will randomly appear.

After a while she hears herself sigh, her fingers fumbling over keys as she types out a text message and sends it before she can stop herself.

 _"Good luck on your test today, Baywatch."_

* * *

"So what," Zatanna's voice crackles through the speaker, sounding exhausted at being woken so early. "You're going to skip school and hang around the Cave all day, waiting for him to show up?"

"Unless you have any better ideas." She hears herself snarl, pinching her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she yanks a faded pair of jeans up her thighs. "I told you, he's not responding to anything else."

She's zipping her pants up when Zatanna yawns loudly, sounding almost bored by the conversation. "See, this is exactly why I don't do the whole _relationship_ thing. Far too much effort. If I'm mad at Robin we can just brush each other off for a few days and wait for the eventual horniness to—"

"Stop." She gags into the phone, pushing her hair out of her eyes and catching herself making a face in the mirror. "Don't finish that sentence."

Zatanna lets out her usual loud bark of a laugh, and despite herself she can imagine the younger girl throwing her head back into her pillow, lounging like a cat in her bedroom at the Cave. "Whatever. Also, I want to be on the record saying that this doesn't exactly sound like a _grand gesture_ on your part— just seems like another one of your lame excuses for skipping school..." She lets Zatanna's voice trail off as she sets her phone down on her bedside table, quickly yanking a sweater over her head. When she picks the phone up again the other girl is still ranting. "... And what are you going to do here? Stake out in front of the zeta tubes? You know he's probably avoiding the Cave because that's about the most predictable thing you could do, Artemis—"

"Like I said." She cuts the other girl off, ignoring the annoyed noise she hears through her phone speaker. " _Unless you have any better ideas_ , this is what I'm doing."

Zatanna lets out a low hum, a noise in the background telling her that she's shifting around in her bed. "Can exactly help you there. In every romantic comedy I've watched it's usually the guy who screws things up. Are you going to tell me what you did? Or are you just going to keep that a secret like every thing else—"

She feels herself blushing crimson, hands pausing as she reaches for her hair brush. "I... It was just another dumb fight." She lies, hating the way the other girl lets out an annoyed sounding sigh.

" _Right_ , and it didn't have anything to do with your Dad getting out which— _by the way_ — I'm super offended I had to hear about from Robin, not you—"

She snaps an elastic angrily against her wrist as she tries to pull her hair into a pony tail, catching herself sneering into the phone. "Not you too. Look, can you just— post-pone being annoyed for a few days? I can't deal with another person being mad at me."

Zatanna hesitates but seems to read something she can't identify in her tone, clicking her tongue. "Fine. In the mean time I'll just take all my frustrations out on—."

"Gross!" She scoffs, clicking her phone shut without saying goodbye.

More frustrated with Zatanna's lack of advice than anything she throws her phone across the room, glaring for a moment as it hits her bed frame a bit too hard and falls, almost pathetically, on the top of her pillow. She supposes Zatanna has a point. If Wally's really avoiding her he isn't going to be stupid enough to go back to the Cave.

She makes an annoyed noise in the back of her throat, stalking across her bedroom and flopping down on her bed so violently that her phone rattles from its spot on the pillow, sliding down and getting lost in her sheets again. And maybe Zatanna's also right... Skipping school isn't exactly a grand gesture considering how much she hates attending the Academy.

 _This isn't what she wanted. She needs to keep Wally close, needs to make sure that he's safe and not getting caught up playing the hero..._

Almost habitually she runs a hand atop her mattress, searching for her phone. As if mocking her when she opens it there's a new crack on the screen, slightly warbling the glaring words she's been staring at all weekend: _No Messages._

 _(And for some reason she remembers Wally trying to teach her how to play chess; remembers staring at the black and white checks of the board and raising an ornately detailed knight to her eyes, thumb running over the ancient wood, as sand and snow flecked as the shoreline she could see through their window. It's just like that now; except Wally is the queen and if he gets taken or hurt or damaged she'll lose, she'll lose him and she'll lose a part of herself too_ —

 _"White moves first." Wally had grinned at her, plucking the piece from her hand.)_

...She needs a way to keep him out of harm's way as long as possible, needs to rearrange some pieces and make the necessary sacrifices and keep him hidden, untouchable...

She stares at her ceiling for what feels like hours, and finally (after checking her phone half a dozen times) she realizes what she needs to do.

* * *

It's gloomy in Central City when her molecules reconstruct there; the late-spring sky seems to be composed of layer after layer of cold looking clouds.

It takes her a few seconds to remember where she's going— the last time she had visited Wally's house it had been dark out, the landmarks she spotted warbled in the half light and shadows looking odd in the middle of the afternoon. It takes her several minutes to realize that she's taken off in the entirely wrong direction, rounding through the same block twice before she's forced to stop and try to navigate through unfamiliar territory—

Finally she spots a park, sees a chain link fence and remembers the story that goes along with it _("My Dad taught me to ride my bike out there." Wally had told her that day on the beach, describing the trees and the jungle gym and the pavement trails cutting through the slight rolling of the hills. "It was a bit of a disaster, he kept getting mad when I couldn't stop falling, eventually Uncle Barry had to step in and..._ _")_ Even now as she looks at is she can hear his voice, recall the distant memory, and as if some larger part of her is more in tune to something she can't quite comprehend her head turns automatically, focusing on the green-sided house on the corner.

There's no cars in his front drive when she walks towards his house; it's the middle of the day, his parents are probably working and— she flips open her phone again, glancing first at the obnoxious _No Messages_ blaring across the bottom of the newly cracked screen before she checks the time— he's probably just sitting down to write his Biology test right now, his last class of the day before he heads home. There's no snow on his lawn anymore, hints of brittle looking grass not quite hiding the fresh greenery poking through; as she climbs his front porch she glances up automatically, unsurprised when she sees no hint of old Christmas lights.

She gets the distinct sense that the West's are a very methodical family, very routine; the kind that takes their Christmas decorations down as soon as the snow melts and refuses to give in to the temptation of leaving them up all year round, as if afraid of what the neighbors will say. As she sits resolutely on his front step she glances behind her, expecting it when she sees that the wreath on the front door that once told her _Happy Easter_ is no longer there, even the whicker mat underneath it is now simply welcoming her with plain looking block letters, looking slightly weather beaten from people wiping their feet.

She pulls her eyes away from the door, checking her phone again. It's going to be at least another hour before Wally gets home from school, and she's got nothing better to do than stare moodily up at the clouds.

 _Some grand gesture._

She lasts about five minutes before she's thinking herself in circles again, her sneaker tapping anxious beats into the wood of Wally's front steps. She's still not exactly sure what she's going to say, how many more times she can apologize for her behavior the other night... Sitting there in the silence of the empty street without even a passing car to break the quiet is beginning to make her nervous.

It's a different kind of nervous than the last time she was here, when she was simply a stupid girl in an ill-fitting dress, trying to perform a part she didn't want. Vividly she still remembers the embarrassment, remembers their fighting, remembers how Zatanna's dress, while beautiful, had made it nearly impossible to climb the steps— She's not aware of dropping her head to glare at her sneakers but suddenly she's jerking her neck up, jeans digging into her thighs as she turns back to glance at the welcome mat again, memory stirring.

 _... Wally keeps his keys under the mat._

And sure enough now that she's looking she can see it, can see the tiny bump the key chain would make as it sits underneath the _M_ , the top left corner still disturbed from when he had reached down to extract his keys this morning, probably flopping it down a little carelessly in his rush not to receive a detention for his lateness like she knows he's prone to. As little warily she glances back towards the empty street; there's no one, not even a stray pigeon, whose incriminating gaze can stop her.

And maybe it feels a little wrong when she gets to her feet so quickly— _or maybe it just feels too similar to the days before she joined the Team, when breaking and entering was something she did half for entertainment and half because she just needed to survive_ — but she stops thinking too much the second she extracts the key ring from underneath the mat.

There are three keys on the ring (she supposes for his house, garage, and some other place— perhaps his Aunt's home?) and it takes her two tries before any of them will fit into the dead bolt on his door. Vaguely she registers the girl from Metropolis quirking her head, as if intrigued by her rebellious streak, as the door swings open.

* * *

Despite the open invitation to enter she still catches herself hesitating, feet actually back tracking for a moment to replace Wally's keys underneath his welcome mat again and taking the care to smooth it properly before she stands. His front entrance looks oddly big now that there's no one there to fuss over her or usher her inside from the cold.

This time she registers the smell as she crosses the threshold, her hand shutting the door behind her and habitually locking it; it's sweet, warm, as if Mary has been recently baking something in the kitchen, intermingling scents of cinnamon and laundry detergent overwhelming her slightly before she catches the barest hint of the familiar walnut smell lingering underneath them. Avoiding the eyes staring out of all the family pictures on the walls she kicks off her shoes, taking care to shove them to the back of the front closet.

It's incredibly unnerving, how empty the house is— the shadows created by the afternoon light leaking in through the windows are acting oddly with the darkened rooms _(and for some reason she imagines Rudy making a fuss with the lights in the morning, making sure everything is off before they all leave for the day)_ and making the lines of table lamps and swells of the couch cushions look threatening. Unconsciously she avoids the dining room and kitchen, bypassing all the rooms she knows from her last visit and wandering vaguely through the living room, her eyes straying to a staircase.

 _Wally's bedroom..._

She doesn't know exactly what she's planning on doing now that she's inside his house, but she does know that she's curious; wincing slightly as the stairs creak in the silence she heads towards the second floor, pausing when she reaches the landing.

The first door she tries is a bathroom, decorated with soft pink tones and a feminine vase of sea shells and flowers on the counter, and the second is a linen closet. She suspects the final door on the left is Wally's parent's bedroom, and not wanting to intrude she glances to her right.

The door isn't even fully open and she knows immediately that she's found the right room— there's that smell again, the one that once made her wrinkle her nose but now seems to fill up every part of her, that scent of walnuts and cinnamon and boyish cologne and everything that overwhelmingly screams Wally West. For some reason, as if she's missed it, _missed that smell_ , she stands still for a moment simply breathing him in until her lungs ache.

She doesn't hesitate long though; in the strangeness of the empty house Wally's room feels like home, and rather than continue to be unnerved by the darkness and the silence elsewhere she slips inside, fingers fumbling for a light switch and back pressing against the door, blinking hard at the intrusion of light.

She doesn't know why she's surprised to see so much red and yellow; his bedroom at the Cave is decorated in the same obnoxious color scheme, but for some reason it feels more overwhelming in the tiny second floor bedroom, as if the colors _(of the bed spread, his pillows, the cushions of his desk chair, all the flash and kid flash figurines decorating his book shelves and displayed in a position of honor in the shelf above his desk)_ are pressing too hard against her sensitive eyes. It's just how she imagined, after he described it to her that day on the beach— the walls are the god awful fire truck red, and he's just as messy here as he is at the Cave. Immediately her eyes are drawn to a poster of a bikini clad blonde woman tacked crookedly beside his bed and too quickly she looks away, ignoring the way the woman's skin is wet with perspiration and her breasts are barely contained in the straining red material.

There's a stack of boxes beside his bed, labelled hastily in his pointed scrawl as _Science Stuff_ ; it takes hardly a glance in one to realize it's a collection of old experiments, filled with discard test tubes whose contents are dried in the bottom, medals and ribbons from childhood science fares, old poster paper rumpled around the edges and detailing chemical formulas she can't understand. She finds herself getting bored and replaces the lid on the box, moving on.

She feels herself wrinkle her nose at his Flash figurines atop his desk— _it looks like Wally was a fan for a while before he got his powers_ — and passes over them quickly, her eyes straying to a book shelf almost completely devoid of books. Crossing the room she feels her eyes narrow, one word immediately jumping to her mind: _Souvenir._

It looks like mostly junk to her; instinctively she feels her eyes jump to scan the book covers first, pausing on a collection of _Harry Potter_ books whose spines look hardly creased beyond the first few chapters, as if he hadn't liked where they were going but kept receiving them as gifts. The rest of it looks like garbage: a faded red button whose slogan she can't quite make out anymore but can tell by the colors is associated with the Flash, old cellphones that no longer work, chemistry sets that don't have anything inside them, a partially deflated football, a baseball glove that looks far too big for his hand, scattered photographs of his family, of his Uncle Barry, Aunt Iris—

She pauses when she sees her own face scowling back at her, her blonde pony tail immediately distinctive in the photograph; it takes a half second of squinting before she can easily see M'gann, Dick, the whole Team dressed in their civilian clothes and crowded around Wally, party hats skewed and the words, _Sweet Sixteen_ partially visible in green and white icing.

She hardly remembers the photo being taken, hardly remembers sitting that close to Wally, one finger dipping in the icing of his cake and sneering at him as the photo was being taken; it's odd to her that someone would choose this moment, mere minutes after she had told Wally that M'gann and Connor were dating and his mood considerably dampened, to take the photo. Perhaps she's simply imagining it, but she can sense the glumness in Wally's expression, can read something more in the smirk he's sending her way, his ears reddened as they both glare at each other, oblivious to everyone else's smiles.

Perhaps she's simply remembering how it was back them, how easy it had been to tease each other without confronting feelings. Maybe she's reading too much into it—

Her thoughts stop automatically when she hears a noise: the metallic clicking of a key inside a lock and the creaking of a door opening. "I'm home!" She hears Wally call out hopefully to his empty house and sounding habitual in the way his voice drags on, as if he yells this every day; and a little stupidly she braces herself, half expecting him to come zooming up to his bedroom.

Instead he moves slowly— she can hear him kicking his shoes off, locking the door, her hands tugging nervously on the hem of her sweater as he clunks through his house; she's not exactly sure but she thinks she hears the sound of his fridge being opened and it's contents being scavenged through, his mouth humming out half lyrics of songs and whistling vague tunes as he bumbles around, unaware of her presence.

She suddenly feels stupid, being here without knowing what to say; she feels as if she's supposed to have some sort of speech prepared, supposed to know what to tell him to make it better. Silently she totters on her heels, caught between the impulse of escaping his bedroom through his window and wondering if she should be perhaps lying invitingly on his bed— or maybe she should go downstairs and greet him, or—

She enters a state of ridiculous panic when she hears the tab of a pop can being cracked open, Wally's feet heavy on his stairs as she silently debates hiding under his bed and pretending she isn't even here; she has enough time to tug a hand anxiously along her scalp before he's kicking the door to his room open.

It takes him a half second to notice her; he has one hand busy helping him take a hearty swig of pop and the other arm automatically reaching out to fling his backpack off his shoulders and right at her, aiming for his desk chair. It's probably the stupidest he's ever looked, the way his eyes seem to burst out of his skull in surprise, sputtering through a mouthful of soda and dribbling a significant amount of it out of his nose and down his front, coughing and wheezing as she quickly side steps the projectile that is his bag and presses herself flush against his book shelf with a gasp, allowing it to crash wildly and knock a few figurines off his desk.

" _Fuck!_ " Wally swears loudly, still coughing and wincing at the soda dripping out of his nose; for some reason his shock seems to ground her, forcing her into seriousness as she straightens from where she's crushed against the photo she's just been looking at. " _What the hell,_ Artemis!" He wheezes, pounding his soaking chest with a fist.

"Sorry." She cringes when he looks sour, one hand plucking his shirt from where's it's now soaking and sticking to his chest. "I didn't mean to— here, let me help you—"

She takes a few hesitant steps forward, as if to take the half empty can from his hands; she doesn't miss the way Wally noticeably flinches, one hand raising out in front him as if to hold her off, his back still flush against the door. "It's fine, j-just let me—" He starts, looking a little relieved when she stops trying to get closer; instantly she can feel her heart aching, realizing suddenly that he's afraid of her.

"... Okay." She says quietly, stomach twisting and throat tight.

Wally sends her one more wary look before his face sets, jaw tight and still looking slightly nervous as he takes a few paces forward, carefully setting his can of soda on his bedside table, no doubt leaving a bright orange ring on the wood that will match the stain sopping into his shirt. He glances once more up at her, as if checking that she's still unmoving. "... What are you doing here?" He asks quickly, turning and pulling his wet shirt over his head with an almost offensive amount of modesty.

It's very hard not to stare at the freckled lines of muscle on his back, but something in the wary tone of his voice forces her to keep her eyes on his face, or at least what little of it she can see behind his crimson ears; very vividly she can see one of the marks she left on him, a dark purple bruise on the fleshy muscle that joins his neck to his shoulders. "I don't know." She says stupidly, trying to force herself to smile. "... You're always chasing after me when we get into fights. I figured it was my turn to come to you."

Wally makes a non-committal noise in the back of his throat, hands crumpling up his soaking shirt.

It's not much for her to go on, and feeling like an idiot she tries to keep the nervous smile on her face. "I just— Missed you? I guess? A-and you weren't returning my calls." She hears herself stutter when he turns round to face her, crossing the room quickly and glancing at her as he approaches his closet, ripping another long sleeve off the hanger. "... Hi, by the way." She says, unable to meet his gaze as he glares at her; she catches herself looking a little too intensely at the oddly tight lines of his abdomen and quickly looks away, glancing instead at the photo of herself on his shelf.

She hears him inhale. "... Hi." He says stiffly, and by the time she gets the nerve to look at him again he's redressing, tossing his dampened clothes into a growing pile in the corner. "How'd you get in here? Did you jimmy the window open?"

She feels herself blush again, arms crossing peevishly. "You keep your keys under the welcome mat, Wally. I didn't exactly have to try hard."

"Oh." He says plainly, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Okay, well... I have to study, big Biology test tomorrow, so..."

She feels her eyes narrow, shoulders tightening as she glares at him. "Don't lie." She says evenly. "You wrote that today."

Wally hesitates for a half second, eyes narrowing as he shrugs this off. "Okay, well, not my fault there isn't a polite way to tell someone to leave." He huffs almost childishly, neck rolling on his shoulders as he glances wildly around his bedroom. "Can you just do whatever you wanted to do? My Mom's going to be home soon."

She feels herself scowl but quickly stops, trying to smoothen the wrinkle popping over her nose. "I just— I wanted to talk. About the other night." She sighs out, hating that he won't look at her. "... I'm so sorry, Wally, I don't know what I was thinking."

Wally blinks twice, glaring hard at his bed spread. "Oh." Is all he says, ears reddening.

She can't stop herself; her instinct is telling her to fly at him, to wind her arms around his middle and pull him flush against her, to find a way to tell him what he needs to know without speaking. As if he knows what she's thinking Wally flinches again when she takes another step forward, static sounding on his carpet when he fumbles a few paces back. "L-listen. Can you just— Can you just stay there for a bit? I..." He trails off, grimacing at the way the hand she's just extended towards him crumples back to her side.

"I'm sorry." She repeats, folding her arms over her stomach again and slouching. "That was… I don't know. It was stupid, okay?" She breaks off, watching the way his jaw tightens and his teeth seem to grind together as he glares for a long moment at her, finally dropping his gaze to the ground.

"It wasn't stupid." He finally blurts out, some of the redness of his ears trailing down to his cheeks. "I mean, I get it. You were upset about your Dad and you just wanted... To be normal, for a bit." He hesitates, and when he finally speaks it sounds rushed, unplanned. "But you weren't— when you were touching me— _I wanted to, Artemis_. I wanted to do a lot of things, and I almost did. But... When we do stuff, when I touch you... I means something to me, okay? It's not just like, a game, or just something... I don't know what I'm trying to say."

He breaks off, running a hand through his hair, and she hears herself speaking quietly in the silence. "... It means something to me, too." She says defensively.

"It didn't then." He says seriously, ripping his hand from his scalp and leaving the ends of his ginger hair ruffled. "You were acting like an animal, clawing at me and— Look, I liked it, I— You were driving me crazy, Artemis. But I've told you before... I don't want to just be some guy to distract you when things get heavy. I don't— I don't want to be another thing you lock away and only take out when you need it. That's not what this is to me—"

"It's not like that, Wally." She shakes her head at him, this time ignoring the way he takes a step back as she advances on him, his back smacking hard against the wall. "You know it isn't."

His throat seems to bob quickly at her closeness, muscles tightening despite the fact that she's not even touching him; for a long moment he glares at her before he suddenly glances at his feet. "... I know, I know." He sighs, screwing his eyes shut and replacing his hand in his pocket. "I just... God, I wish I could figure out what you're thinking."

It's an odd thing to say, her eyes blinking at him confusedly for a few seconds. "... Why do you want to know what I'm thinking?"

Wally blushes, this time spreading his redness over the bridge of his nose and painting all his freckles maroon. "I-I don't know I guess I—" He hesitates, his face serious enough to scare her; there's a half second where she can practically see the whirring of the words _I love you_ passing at the forefront of his mind before he brushes them off. "I just like you a lot. Like a crazy, stupid amount, considering how much of a pain in my ass you are— I mean, I always assumed we felt the same, or whatever, but—"

His voice trails off when something shifts in her face, the hardened edges of surprise softening; as if he can read something there that she's unaware of showing he presses on, sounding worried. "... I'm not stupid, Babe. I saw your face, I dealt with you after... I don't know what you're thinking of doing but... Promise me you aren't going to do anything stupid now that he's out." He says quietly, cutting her off when opens her mouth to say something. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I know there's that part of you that... That wants to go after him, or something. Just please don't. Please."

 _He's just as afraid of losing her as she is of losing him._

She doesn't know why it's just occurring to her now; she suspects it's old habit, after years of thinking herself worthless, of having others shove it in her face. But suddenly she's remembering the desperation on his face when he had grabbed her in Metropolis, how he had allowed her one second to fire her arrow before he had pulled her to safety, how he had used is own body to save hers, how all the blood that poured out of him was poured out for her— and more vividly than anything she remembers the fluids bubbling at the corner of his mouth and the tears leaking down the side of his face, how the world around them was falling apart and he had been drowning inside himself _and he had tried to say her name, just her name, just feel her on his mouth one last time in some small way_ —

Maybe she's not the only one fighting to keep one of them safe. Maybe she's unknowingly attacked her closest ally, somehow bitten into his skin with the emotional debris of friendly fire...

Maybe there are three players in this game of chess she's been playing with her father. Maybe her own queen is playing the game like a pawn.

 _Maybe she needs to keep a closer watch on him than she thought._

As if he's worried by her silence Wally's voice picks up again, rambling slightly as his eyes switch between hers. "And I'm sorry I've been... Avoiding you. I don't know why I did that, I just thought..." He hesitates when she frowns, words stringing together so quickly that she's having a hard time understanding his babbling. " I don't know what I thought. It was just hard, not knowing what you were thinking, and I guess I was a little... Freaked out after everything, because you were so not yourself, you know? And now that I'm thinking about it you probably thought I dropped you, and I didn't Babe, I swear—"

"Wally." She cuts him off, and this time she ignores both his wincing and the tightening of her stomach as she reaches for him; despite her deliberate gentleness he still grits his teeth, as if expecting her to start scratching and biting him again as she places her hands on either side of his face, her thumbs hardly touching the swell of his cheek bones. "Relax, okay?"

"Sorry." He blurts out, still sounding nervous. "I just— after last time— It's just hard to think with you this close."

As he says it his eyes shift a little wildly, still not trusting her to behave with the wild girl inside of her; feeling her brows furrow she lets go of his face, going back to not touching him as she glances down at her feet. "... I don't even know how to apologize for that." She sighs, feeling herself blush again. "I... It's just that you're so easy to get lost in, Wally." She mutters with an embarrassing amount of honestly. "And maybe that time I was— I don't know. Using you, a bit. But it's only because you make it so easy to."

She nearly bites her tongue when Wally looks so suddenly annoyed, her arms flying up as if to stop his unmade attempt to escape where's she's boxed him in. "No— That's not what I meant! I just mean— I don't know how to put this. With you it's just... _So good, Wally_." She blurts out, immediately blushing red but ignoring her own embarrassment, rushing onwards when he looks slightly quailed. "It's hard not to get lost in you. Even when you just k-kiss me, uh—"

She hears herself stuttering and winces; Wally for his part blushes slightly about the ears, but something shifts in his expression, something friendlier and more teasing. "... Even when I kiss you...?" He prompts.

She can tell he's being clueless on purpose but goes against her instinct to throttle him for it; she suspects he needs to hear her say this, even if she does bumble through it. "... I-it's like I can't breathe properly. And s-sometimes you'll touch me when I'm not expecting it, even if it's just little things like grabbing my hand, or tucking hair behind my ear, it's like I stop thinking altogether, and I can't focus on anything." She can feel herself surpassing maroon but keeps muttering on, encouraged by the soft smile beginning to blossom in the corner of his mouth. "... And I think that's why I got so... Carried away. You just— you make me so happy, Wally." She says sincerely to her socks. "... You can't blame me for wanting to hold onto that, before things... Change." She adds in an undertone.

"... I guess I can't." Wally says back quietly, and although she isn't looking at him she can sense his muscles moving, back no longer pressed flush against the wall and inching the tiniest bit closer to her.

She glances up at him through her lashes, determined to mumble through this last part— she has the distinct sense that if she's going to keep him safe, going to get him to follow her blindly when the time comes, she's going to have to play the card she has very carefully. " _Next time_..." She says quietly, and unconsciously she feels herself shift closer, their toes brushing through their socks. "Next time I won't be so... Out of my own head, okay?"

It seems to take him a half second before he realizes what she's saying, the muscles of his chest seeming to tighten as she brushes her folded arms against him. "Uh." He blurts out, throat bobbing and a shadow of a nervous smile ghosting across his lips. "... What, uh, will next time be like?"

His voice is low, inviting, exactly what she's been hoping for; absently she uncrosses her arms, relieved when he allows her ever closer still. "I don't know." She says honestly, because she doesn't have a clue what she's doing; she's never seduced anyone before, never wanted to do to anyone what she's about to do to Wally— _all she knows is that she wants to make up for her awful behavior, wants him to understand why it's so easy to drown in him, and maybe wants to remind herself of how wonderful this boy is, how full he can make her heart when he pants out her name and why she has to, needs to, keep him safe_. "I... I think I'd start by kissing you. Softly."

Wally stays very still when she ducks her head to move closer, and despite everything she still suspects that there's a part of him that is still slightly wary of her, wary of the feral creature inside of her and the fact that it's planning something deadly; her nose barely skims him before she presses her lips, full and taught, against his, his mouth framing hers and breath ruffling a few of her baby hairs as he exhales into her. It can't last longer than a second or two before she pulls back, licking the taste of him off her mouth. "... And then I-I'd want to kiss the freckles on your cheeks." She blurts out impulsively.

Once again Wally stays still, watching carefully as she raises her arms, being gentle about pressing her hands against the side of his neck, trying to balance as she goes up ever so slightly on her toes; he's growing again, she swears. She can feel the tiniest of breaths against her neck as she leans in to press a kiss to his cheek, the tail end of his sigh turning into a low groan as her fingers barely brush into the ends of his hair. "Freckles are a good place to start." He says vaguely, and when she pulls back to glance at him he's allowed his eyes to shut.

She takes her time, pressing her lips into the constellations ironed into his cheeks; she can feel him beginning to let his guard down, beginning to breath more easily as she follows the warbled triangles dotting his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, fading out gradually as she traces the arc of his brow and dips down to his chin. He feels warm, like he always does, and just as she thinks it she registers his hands finally escaping his pockets, hesitantly resting on the small of her waist; a little clumsily she skims too close to the line of his lips and as if it's instinctual he turns his head, mouth claiming hers.

It reminds her so much of being on Hell's Gate Bridge; back when she had been so afraid and he had refused to give up on her, touching her tenderly and gently fighting with her until she had broken down. Most of all it reminds her of that kiss, their first kiss that had mattered, back before the lights had gone out and they were left alone and terrified in the dark—

Except this time he's the one who pulls back, moistened lips parting and clouded eyes glancing at her, beginning to grow curious. "... Then what?" He asks in a hushed tone, making it very hard to think when on of his hands strays down to her hip, gently tracing the popping bone and hard lines of muscle.

It takes her a second to remember why she's doing this, to remind herself what she wants to do; for a moment she hesitates, trying to figure out what to say. "A-and then I'd tell you..." She pauses, biting her lips. "How much you mean to me. How much—" She can sense her voice about to break with nervousness and clears her throat. "I'd tell you how I never thought I'd be with someone like you. And..." She can feel herself losing her nerve, not quite sure where she's going.

Wally seems to fill in the blanks of her confusion; suddenly something in his face is hardening and she can sense it again— _those words, the ones she can't bear to hear, not now, perhaps not ever, not when the stakes are so high_. "Artemis... I—"

Before he can say anything else she kisses him, a little harder then the warbling kisses she's been pressing against his cheeks; she doesn't know why but suddenly he's sighing into her mouth, breathless and panting slightly when she pulls back, rushing to keep things moving before he can get his head together again. "And then I'd tell you to be quiet." She says not unkindly, fingers moving of their own accord to scratch lightly through his hair, smoothing his permanently wind-whipped locks. "Because... I want to kiss your neck."

He doesn't protest when she gently tilts his head back; she can hear him beginning to breath more loudly, can feel the shudder moan he barely manages to contain as she lowers her chin, pressing a wet kiss against his collar bone before she pulls back ever so slightly, tongue poking between her lips and licking wavering lines over his muscles and pulse points. She can feel his hands tightening on her waist, can feel the guttural pants beginning to slip past his mouth as she starts increasing the intensity of her languid kisses, lips pinching and tongue rolling wetness into his skin; suddenly he's whispering her name when she runs her lips over his jugular, tongue dragging up his neck until her lips are right beside his ear.

It's then that she can feel it: the familiar yet unfamiliar hardness, sticking up and not contained by the denim of his jeans—without thinking she presses herself to it, fascinated by the barely there noise he's letting slip out as she continues to muse his hair, shifting her hips until she can feel it pressed at the hot point between her legs. She doesn't know why she's doing this, doesn't know why she's about to do… _this_ … all she knows is that she wants it for Wally, wants to make him grunt out her name…

"And then..." She whispers into his ear, tongue hardly brushing against his earlobe. "... Do you have any ideas?"

Wally chokes back a gasp when she pulls back, lips grazing his cheek. "I-I have quite a few, actually." He whispers lowly, head ducking and lips pressing against hers.

It takes more effort than it should to dip her jaw, to force herself to keep talking in between the frantic kisses he's started trying to press against her mouth. "I have— one—" She stutters out, finally managing to pull him back by the scruff of the neck, doing her best to look him in the eye as one of her hands leaves his hair.

He opens his mouth as if to ask her teasingly what it is and all at once his voice dies in his throat, clouded eyes suddenly focusing and pupils blowing out. Wally seems to freeze up when he feels her stroking him through his jeans, every muscle in his body arching and tensing but still not comparing to the hardness that's in her hand; suddenly the redness that's usually just in his ears is flushing down his cheeks, his neck, and suddenly she's no longer brave enough to keep looking at him, her lips marking a nervous trail across his cheek back to his ear. Rolling his length through her palm again and curious when his hips jerk she pulls back, allowing herself one shaky exhale in his ear before she sets her mind to it, the one hand still in his hair trailing down his chest and meeting the other now attending to his belt.

"A-Artemis?" He gasps out when she slides the leather apart, fumbling slightly with his zipper as she maneuvers herself downward. It's a little awkward, looking up at his surprised face as she struggles with yanking his jeans down his thighs; all at once his pants and underwear are pooling around his feet and his erection is springing up, so hard and wanting that its tip is barely brushing her chin. "W-what are you—" He stutters out when her hand braces his hip and pins him to the wall; no wanting to wait and be nervous any longer she closes her eyes, one hand wrapping around his shaft and guiding the tip of him into her mouth.

"Holy shit." Wally swears, and vaguely she hears a dull thunking sound, as if he's just tossed his head back and accidentally collided with the wall.

She's never done this before, but she's heard enough dirty jokes from Zatanna and glanced through enough of M'gann's _Cosmopolitian_ magazines to get the gist of it; pulling back slightly she runs her tongue along the length of him, hand working and listening to the shuddering noises firing out of his throat, the unfamiliar taste of salty skin mixing with the inherent sweetness of her favorite walnut scent.

Wally groans when she pumps her hand against him, one palm running down the length of his thigh to feel the achingly hard strip of muscles shaking, mouth salivating and slurping almost embarrassingly loudly."Artemis… He gasps out, breaths starting to come out in pants in a way that must make his lungs ache as one hand reaches out for her, pushing her hair behind her ear and looking her dead in the face as she swirls her tongue in a slow circle around his head.

He gets as far as uttering the beginning of a swear again before she tries to take nearly all of him in her mouth; she keeps her lips tight and wet and still nearly chokes on him, throat humming almost as loudly as Wally's moans, his hand leaving the side of her face and smacking hard against the wall behind him, palm splayed and nails digging against the ugly red paint.

It's easy as it always it, getting lost in him— except this time he's coming with her. This time they're both listening hard to the guttural sounds bursting out of the back of his throat, the way he keeps tossing his head back and muttering out a mixture of swears and her name. This time she can see the sweat shining along his temples and the creases that form in the corners of his eyes.

And vaguely, as she hears his lips sputtering and sees the lines of his abs tightening, so hard and taught that she can't resist yanking the hem of his shirt up to run a hand over them, she realizes that as much as she loves getting lost and staring at the ornate pieces that they still have a game to play.

 _( "Whites moves first." Wally had grinned at her, replacing the knight in its proper square. She had felt her brows furrow, no longer interested in the game and more intrigued by the softness of the inside of his wrist, fingers reaching out automatically to stroke his tendons._

 _"Explain the rules to me again." She had said, leaning in perhaps a little too close in the hopes of distracting him._

 _Wally had managed part of a sentence, eyes flicking once to her fingers. "It's... We're playing chess. It's a game of, uh, strategy, thinking ahead of the person you're playing..." He had trailed off, eyes automatically closing as she had leant in.)_

The real Wally lets out a feral sounding moan, loud enough to jar her out of her thoughts. Vaguely, as he pants out her name, she decides the real game hasn't started yet.

This is all about arranging her pieces.

* * *

Several minutes later she's lying beside him in the limited space of his twin size bed, tongue still burning from the half taste she had gotten of him and palms still feeling oddly warm from where he had spilled over in her hands; despite cleaning up in the washroom after she's still tricking herself into feeling pieces of him lingering on her skin, in her mouth, the sensation doubling every time he glances at her, breathing out a slightly gasping apology.

"Shut up." She tells him as he lifts his head again, sprawled on his stomach and ready to repeat himself. "I told you, Wally, it's not a big deal."

Instead of saying anything he simply drops his head back to his pillow, ears reddening as he extracts and arm from underneath himself, throwing it over her stomach and dragging her closer. As if shooed off by his closeness she can hardly hear the dull buzzing of anxiety rubbing against her temples; in an act of long-forgotten instinct she shifts closer to him, drawn to his warmth. She can't help but smile at his sheepishness, at the way he's trying to conceal his grinning and his heavy breathing, and before she can stop herself her own face is splitting into a quiet sort of smile, cheeks going pink and slightly curious. "... Was it, uh— Good?"

She suspects he might normally burst out laughing at her embarrassment but instead he raises his head off his pillow again, looking shocked. "You're kidding right?" He lets out a hoarse sounding chuckle. "I mean— that's a joke?"

She snorts at his frankness, another fuller sounding laugh flying out of his throat as he rolls on top of her, pressing her into his mattress. "How am I supposed to know!" She argues back teasingly, still relieved that things seem somewhat normal between them. "Not like I've ever done that before."

"Well, neither have I!" He counters, looking pleased when she laughs again, his jaw ducking to press a playful kiss to her cheek, hands roaming down her sides to pinch at the ticklish spot above her knee.

For the first time it's easy to slip back into old habits— or maybe it's just easier now that they actually have a good place to start, a habit that involves more laughter and less bickering than ever before. It's effortless, too simple, the way her leg kicks out at him, the way he catches it, the mixture of wet raspberries and teasing kisses he presses against the side of her face forcing a surprising squeal out of her throat.

It takes a while for the laughter to die out between them, for the ridiculousness of Wally's kisses against her neck begin to ease and leak into softer, more gentle ones; she can sense his tiredness, can sense the seriousness coming back to him, and all at once he pulls back, balancing his weight on an elbow and looking her in the eye. "I get it, you know." He says quietly, leaning in to press a kiss to the tip of her nose.

"You get what?" She asks, sounding oddly breathless.

"Why you... Did what you did, on Saturday." He says vaguely, ears reddening. "... We're not normal. I mean... I understand, not wanting to deal with... Reality, all the time." He fumbles through his sentence slightly, eyes raking the slope of her jaw and following the curve of her neck, pausing almost unnoticeably at the beginning swells of her breasts popping up through the neckline of her tee shirt before he glances away, eyes focusing on their hands clasped loosely beside her head.

She tightens her grip on his fingers, one leg moving unconsciously underneath him and curling around the back of his thigh, keeping him close. "I'm sorry." She repeats, beginning to sound like a skipping record with the number of times she's said it in the last hour.

In answer he shakes his head, dismissing her apology. "It doesn't matter anymore." He says easily, one of his rare moments where he's above holding grudges. "Next time could you just... I don't know. Take me with you when you try to outrun something? I don't like being left behind."

She doesn't know why but she feels herself nodding, blinking a little stupidly at the intensity of his apple eyes; once again she feels as if she's being x-rayed, as if he can see some deeper part of her. "... Okay."

Her back arcs underneath him, eyes drifting shut and neck stretching, trying to find his lips; there's a half second where she feels the familiar heat of his mouth brushing against hers before he pulls back, his hand leaving from where its tangled in hers and pressing against her shoulder, and forcing her to lie flat against his mattress. "What?" She hears herself huff.

She's not expecting the serious look on his face, nor the increased intensity behind his eyes; for some reason it quails all her annoyance, forcing the frustration beginning to sound in her stomach into silence. "About before." He says quietly, one hand reaching out to brush some stray hair off her forehead; as if he's trying to be subtle she's suddenly aware of the trailing nature of his fingers, going back to the hand he was holding. She's a little surprised when he doesn't loop his digits between hers, instead wrapping his palm tightly around her wrist and pressing it hard into the mattress, as if expecting her to start struggling. "... You never promised me you wouldn't go after him. Or do anything stupid."

She feels the flash of panic and somehow manages not to show it in her face; she's less quick with her hand though, and without thinking she feels her whole wrist clench into a fist, tendons popping and pulse no doubt speeding up, banging hard enough against her skin for him to feel it.

 _He always sees right through her._

Wally doesn't take his eyes off her, brows furrowing as he studies her face and the lack of reaction there; she can tell immediately that he's been planning this for at least a day, been planning how to corner her and get her to swear her own safety to him. It occurs to her that it's just another game she needs to play, just another match of cat and mouse that they used to so love playing with each other— except this time it isn't about sneering comments, or competing to see who can make the other feel worse. _This time it's a game of safe-keeping, of keeping guard, of both of them risking their own lives to make sure the other doesn't—_

But this time she suspects she has the advantage, and presuming as such she rolls her hips beneath his; she's rewarded by his jerking against her, still slightly sensitive from his recent orgasm. He's distracted long enough for her to smirk at him and slip easily out of his grip, hands snaking round the back of his neck and grinning fondly at his reddened ears.

She doesn't promise— _because she never promises, promises only get hopes up and leave her feeling terrible, leave her feeling let down and broken and crying on her kitchen floor_ —but she does kiss him; tongue slipping past his mouth and flicking invasively against his in a way that makes her sure that he can taste himself there. Predictably Wally tenses up, breath shuddering in her mouth before he presses himself into her, the mattress squeaking underneath them. "That's not— a— _promise_." He mutters out between her kisses.

She feels herself smirk against his mouth, the one leg she's snarled around his thigh tightening, pulling him closer for a second. "It's good enough." She grunts out as she pulls back, weight already shifting and flipping him onto his back before he can do much more than frown at her.

* * *

She's feeling remarkably better an hour later, long after Wally's mother has gotten home and witnessed both their burning cheeks and swollen lips; despite her suspicious gaze she supposes that Mary must like her— she had been forced to scuttle down the stairs and back into her sneakers to avoid the prospect of another dinner with Rudy present and the older woman had seemed distinctly disappointed when she had rejected the invitation.

She can't help smiling now; she feels considerably lighter, happier, so much so that even the loneliness of the dingy Gotham streets seem friendly to her gaze, ears suddenly deafened to the wailing sirens or distinct noises of car windows being smashed. Distractedly she presses the button of a stop light— _she hates this corner, it's always crowded waiting for the light to change but she's not stupid enough to try to cross without it, not with this kind of traffic_ — mind lost and rethinking all the soft noises Wally had made in the heat of his excitement, reliving the expression on his face and the sweat gathering at the corner of his brow as he had moaned her name—

She blinks, eyes pulling in a figure on the opposite corner with a feral amount of sharpness; suddenly her muscles are tensing, shoulders popping and haunches rising like a wild animal, upper lip pulling back into a snarl— blonde hair, tall figure, her father, _her father is on the opposite corner_ —

 _No. No, no, not now_ —

Then the lights are flashing, the walk light changing, and people all around her are bumping past her and muttering swears at her and the man, the man on the opposite corner he's—

He's not Lawrence at all.

She realizes it as the cross light beeps loudly, telling her unmoving feet that she only has ten more seconds to cross— now that she's looking properly, now that her adrenaline is pulling her vision into focus she can tell immediately that it isn't her father now approaching the sidewalk she's remaining stationary on; his coloring is right but his build isn't, shoulders too narrow and oddly bony as he stalks past her, not noticing her gaze as she turns to stare after him. It's not Lawrence, she tells herself, _it's not Lawrence_ — still her heart pounds inside her chest, still her muscles remain taught and popping over her bones, teeth still bared and feet suddenly aching for movement...

 _And the buzzing, the buzzing that Wally had silenced is suddenly back and increased a tenfold, vibrating her tendons and altering the pumping of her heart, smashing the creases of her bones together and chipping away pieces. And she can't think, can't breathe, can't do much other than keep staring after the unknown man, look on in terror at the pieces of Lawrence he carries with him and she's suddenly wishing she had a knife to stab him with, had an arrow to fire at him or better yet pounce on him with; she wants to carve out his innocence and see it leaking out on the pavement, wants to take her sister's sia and shove it underneath his ribs and into the cavities of his heart_ —

 _No. No, no. She doesn't want to do that_ — _that isn't her, that's someone else talking, that's_ — _this isn't her father, this isn't Lawrence, this is just a civilian_ — _she needs to calm down_ —

She turns back to face forward and realizes jarringly that she's missed the light all together, feeling trapping in the small crowd of strangers beginning to loom impatiently around her.

* * *

It happens twice more, her panicked eyes tricking her into seeing her father's face hiding behind the mask of anonymous people on the street; she barely makes it three blocks before she's glancing wildly over her shoulder, shivering underneath the lightness of her sweater. Everywhere she sees him, parts of Lawrence lurking in shadows or ducking quickly behind the grungy corners of alley ways— _ridiculously she's beginning to feel dizzy, caught in a panic of pursuing the fake-Lawrence's and caught between wanting to run, wanting to hide, her breathing hitching and lungs spasming and growing nauseous at the overwhelming stench of garbage and sweat and the vile core of Gotham city..._

As if she's been waiting for this the girl from Metropolis rattles against the metal of her cage, her thundering and screaming and thirsting for blood and action so loud inside her own head that she can feel her thighs shaking, rattling around her bones and making her feel unsteady.

... Maybe it's time she stopped pretending. At least in the quiet of her own mind, somehow hidden underneath the wailing of her own insanity.

 _She's afraid of her father_.

And perhaps it had been easy to forget, to ignore the blood thirst of the animal inside her and easy to ignore the truth when she was feeling Wally's skin underneath hers, but it isn't here— not when she's alone, not when she can suddenly hear the sirens and the screaming and taste the city on her tongue. _She's terrified of Lawrence, terrified of the fact that she can suddenly feel all the scars he's left on her body burning, can feel all the ancient bruises and welts he's branded into her skin awakening, reminding her of just what she's facing, who she's facing, the horror of what he was capable of when she was just a child..._

She's not aware of stopping, knees refusing to bend and keep her too quick pace along the sidewalk; without thinking her shaking hands whip her phone out of her back pocket, dialing before she can stop them.

He answers on the second ring, voice oddly stiff with no trace of joking in his mellow tone like their usually is. "Green Arrow." He greets her with his own name, flat and unfeeling and doing little to comfort her.

 _She feels hands winding around her throat_ — _Artemis Crock doesn't ask for help, the Metropolis girl insists. Artemis Crock is a warrior, she isn't afraid, and she'd rather die than be a coward. And it had been a mistake to ever trust this girl, to trust the wild part inside of her that demands survival and blood and at one point Wally West, and now she doesn't have a choice, doesn't have any option but murder, be it her life or Lawrence's or Wally's or Paula's or_ —

It takes her a second to find her voice, throat incredibly tight and tears burning at the back of her eyes; she can hear her own labored breathing sounding loudly in the phone speaker, rattling with phlegm and blocking out the sound of traffic whirring by her. He seems to understand immediately that something's wrong, not allowing her to say anything as his voice suddenly changes, even more serious but no longer cold. "Artemis? Artemis, are you there? Is everything—"

"I'm scared." She blurts out, voice cracking like a child; almost immediately she claps her hand to her mouth, holding back a sob. As if they can't be contained she hears her words slipping past her fingers, sounding hysterical. "I don't know what to do, Oliver."

"Sweetie—"

"I just need someone to know." She rushes on, cutting off his startled tone. "I just— And I'm sorry for yelling at you. I shouldn't have—" Stupidly her throat tightens up again.

"Where are you?" She hears him ask as she pulls the phone away from her ear, flipping it shut without answering.

* * *

She makes it another block or so before she gets so dizzy she has to sit down; her lungs refusing to properly function in the wretchedness of the Gotham air, the stink making her so nauseous that she's forced to plant herself on the edge of a curb, practically asking to be mugged as she shoves her head between her knees and tries not to cry.

It's unsafe being still, her hands tugging painfully against her scalp and trying to force her own panic back to where she had hidden it inside her skull; unrelentingly the Metropolis girl refuses to loosen the imaginary hold she has on her, ignoring the way her fingers are trying to peel off the manic grip she has around her middle, nails scratching along her stomach and drawing blood, cutting through her skin and clawing out organs, pieces of her toppling out and landing noisily on the pavement...

She becomes aware of her own crying just as she hears the sound of tires slowing against the asphalt; not bothering to hide her blotchy and tear stained cheeks she glances up. "Artemis!" Oliver calls through his open window; vaguely she registers the jerkiness of his stopping, not bothering to turn on his flashers as he gets out of his car.

A little stupidly she feels her face crumple at the sound of car horns honking around them, several people swearing at him loudly and swerving dangerously close to the pristine silver of his bumper. She opens her mouth, as if wanting to tell him that he shouldn't drive such a nice car in this part of the city, he's sure to get the glinting rims of his tires lifted; instead she grits her teeth together, hating how relieved she is to see him dodging through traffic to reach her.

He stops when he's a few feet from her, not bounding up to sit beside her like she was expecting; for a long second he stares at her, the blue of his eyes looking almost grey through the tint of his sunglasses, moustache oddly ruffled. "... Hi." She warbles out.

"Jesus, Artemis." He sighs, one hand clapping his forehead when she gets embarrassed and hides behind the folds of her arms and the swell of her knees. "Didn't I tell you months ago to _never scare me again_? I swear, these last few days..."

He trails off, grumbling; after a few seconds of silence she hears the sound of his dress shoes against the pavement, his suit no doubt creasing and staining when he sits beside her. "... How did you get here so fast?" She asks her knees.

She's surprised that he can hear her over the whirring of horns still blaring, seemingly untroubled by the annoyance his car is causing the other drivers. "You said you were scared." He says sincerely. "Also helped that I happened to be visiting Roy— getting my car back on top of trying to talk some sense into him; I swear the two of you are going to be the death of me..." He mutters the last part, trailing off for a moment. "... Doesn't matter. You call and I'm there, Sweetie."

It's the comforting gesture she doesn't realize she's waiting for until it happens; all at once his arm is flinging around her shoulders and without thinking she leans into it, surprising herself when her breath starts coming in stuttering gasps again, as if overwhelmed by the closeness. "I'm so sorry, Oliver." She bursts out, tightening her grip around her knees and probably making it impossible for him to hear her over the traffic. "I didn't... I didn't mean what I said. You're— You're more of a father—" She stutters, not quite knowing what to say as his arm tightens around her, pulling her until she's fitted neatly into the curve of his shoulder.

"I know, kid." He says smoothly, moustache tickling against the top of her matted hair in a way that tells her he's smiling; she suspects he's quite pleased to hear her stutter through speech. "Just try to calm down, alright?"

He waits for her to finish with her rushed breathing, not paying much attention to the people yelling at him or the vulgar language people are spewing at them as they sit on the curb in silence; it takes her several minutes and one embarrassing hiccup to pull herself together. "Sorry about... This." She says thickly, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.

She doesn't try to pull away and Oliver doesn't remove his arm; bothered by the closeness the buzzing in her mind is beginning to dull, quietly only drumming against her temples now. "You don't have to apologize, that's what a mentor is for." He says simply, and when she peaks out from her folded arms she can see him surveying her through his sunglasses, the crinkle of his crow's feet extending beyond his lenses as he smiles gently at her.

"You're not just a mentor." She says shyly, finally raising her chin up from where she's been hiding. "... Just so you know."

Oliver nods, looking pleased; after a moment of looking at her fondly he glances back to his car. "... So you're scared, huh?"

She feels her stomach clench up as he says it, old instinct wanting to counter him; it takes several seconds to brush the impulse off. "... Yeah. I don't know— I was fine all day. I had other stuff on my mind, and then when I was walking home I just... I thought I saw him." She feels his arm tighten around her and instantly rushes on. "It wasn't him, it was just a person... But once I started I couldn't stop, it was like parts of him were following me..."

She sighs, cutting herself off. "I don't know what I'm... I mean, what do you do?" She asks vaguely, continuing when he looks confused. "I mean he's not even here and he's already ruining everything, like, what's going to happen when he's actually here, how am I supposed to—" Her voice cracks loudly and she makes a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. "... Is there some sort of trick I don't know? For keeping this kind of stuff separate? To stop it from—" _As if she knows she's being talked about she feels the flaring of the Metropolis girl inside her, snarling at her as she wrinkles her nose_. "—Killing me from the inside out?"

Oliver hesitates for a second, tongue clicking; apparently she's stiffened again as she's been talking, his hand rubbing against her shoulder and trying to get her to relax. "I'm afraid it isn't that easy, Sweetie." He says seriously, and instantly she can feel her heart sinking. "You can't turn this kind of stuff off as easily as you can just put an arrow back in your quiver. Some things stick with us no matter what we do."

He pauses and in the silence she senses there's a bit of stickiness there, as if he's remembering something unpleasant that she doesn't know about. "... I guess I just try to remember that the person who wears the mask isn't who I really am. There's a separation there, even if sometimes it isn't clear."

"What am I supposed to do then?" Her voice breaks again, but this time she rushes on and ignores it, a hand pressing painfully against her scalp. "When I take off the mask I'm his daughter, when I put it on— I mean, that's the only time I feel like myself. And even then he's still after me; Sportsmaster's right, how am I supposed to outrun him, there's no where I can go, no person I can be that's—"

"Artemis." He cuts her off when she starts panicking again, the arm around her shoulder pulling her close and the other removing her hand from where it's rubbing savagely at her forehead. "Listen, kid, I can't do much for you if you don't calm down. Let's just—" He sighs, and she can tell he feels about as hopeless as she does. "Let's just think about the options here. Whatever you want, I'll make it happen, Sweetie. I can do more security around your apartment, more sessions with Black Canary, increased training; Hell, if it will make you feel better you can even come and live with me for a while, you and your mother—"

She stops listening at the end of his sentence, ears perking and mind racing. "Yeah. No, no, that's what I want."

For a moment his moustache twitches, looking slightly bewildered. " _You want to come live me_?"

"What? _No_ —"

"More sessions with Black Canary?"

She snorts and almost tells him that he's being stupid, catching herself only seconds before she says something offensive. "No, increased training. I want— I want to be ready." She says vaguely, quailing slightly when his expression changes, looking at her sternly. "Just— Anything you can teach me that I don't already know. Please."

Oliver looks at her for a long while, moustache bristling. "... You sure that's how you want to go about this? Violently?"

"Yes." She says a little too quickly, feeling herself blush when his eyes narrow.

"... I don't know, Sweetie. You already have so much on your plate— You're already doing the investigation into Metropolis, plus school and that Wally kid—"

"Oliver."

For a moment he studies her, gaze scrutinizing her face before he finally glances away, noticing the fuss his car is causing on the street. "... We'll talk more about it later." He says, finally releasing her as he stands. "Come on, if I don't move my car soon I'm going to get a ticket. Let me drive you home."

* * *

Oliver walks her up to her apartment despite her insistence that his car is too nice to be left alone on her grubby street corner; at first she chalks this up to good manners but is quickly horrified when he calls what he refers to as a _round table discussion_ — that is, a frank scolding with the two of them and Paula around the kitchen table. It's humiliating, sitting there and shrinking in her seat as he politely but firmly tells her mother that she needs to get a grip on her daughter, even more embarrassing when he looks are sternly and asks her is she has any feelings to discuss. Instead of answering she marches off to her bedroom, slamming her door shut and pretending not to notice when his sigh carries down the hallway.

Despite Oliver's coddling she doesn't feel any better, even when Paula seems wake up from her silent desperation and starts coming back to her again in the form of lukewarm cups of tea; she's permanently jumpy, forcing herself to wake from an unrestful half-sleep and sit uncomfortably straight on the edge of her bed, listening hard to the creaking noises of the old apartment. It doesn't matter how many times she reminds herself that the people she saw walking their rounds on the Gotham streets weren't Lawrence— she still remains anxious, unbalanced, her neck aching from glancing over her shoulder so often.

It bothers her, Oliver's vague answer about upping the intensity of her training. Each time she tries to talk to him about it she gets the distinct impression that she's being brushed off, his cerulean eyes seeming to crease deeper each time she asks as if worried by her pestering. Disappointed she resolves to keep her arrows sharp, the tips of the metal now unnecessarily deadly and reminding her so when her hand slips one evening, leaving a deep crimson crease along the edge of her thumb.

It's Thursday when she returns to the Cave, growing weary of the depressing grey of the Gotham apartment; despite herself she's comforted by the familiar dim lighting and the salted scent of the air, and of course by her friends— she hasn't even made it to her bedroom yet to change out of her school uniform before she bumps into both Connor and M'gann, the two looking excited to see her after her absence, so much so that her own dreary emotions are overwhelmed by the martian's happiness.

"We're just about to take a ride in the bioship!" M'gann squeals, removing her hand from where she's had it wound around the strap of her backpack on her shoulder and holding it tightly between both of hers; the moment the seams of their skin connect she feels a renewed sense of warmth, of joy, of emotions so bright inside her she nearly flinches as they fill up her emptiness. "You should come!"

A little stupidly she glances at Connor— even after several months she's still slightly intimidated by him, his stature and handsomeness imposing, his presence slightly overpowering compared to the other men who regularly haunt the Cave. She catches the corner of his mouth twitching upwards, his perpetual peevishness seeming to waver under M'gann's enthusiasm. "You should." He confirms simply, hands pressing against his hips.

"Maybe next time." She shrugs, taking her hand back. "Have either of you seen Wally?"

She doesn't add that she's only looking for him because she needs help with her Chemistry homework— despite herself she remembers the intimacy of the last time she saw him and suddenly blushes. For some reason M'gann looks delighted by her question and by her blushing, as if nothing could make her happier than her and the red head in question spending time together. "He's not here yet. But I bet he comes soon!"

It takes several minutes of conversation before Connor's huffing about wasting daylight and she's dismissed with a swift hug from the martian; as it always is with M'gann her sudden absence is leaving her feeling cold, the false projection of happiness and ease disappearing and leaving her own anxiety suddenly washing over her, as abrupt and unwelcome as the violent crashing of a wave against the Happy Harbor shore. Her own emotions seem to overpower her, leaving her feeling isolated, coming out of her own head momentarily when she realizes she's half undressed in her bedroom, trying to shove both her legs into the same hole of her jeans.

Even when she sits at the kitchen island she can't shake her own nervousness, fidgeting in her stool and drumming her pen hard against the granite of the counter. She's having trouble keeping focused, eyes repeatedly drawing away from her homework to glance warily around her, as if expecting someone to jump out at her or surprise her; she locks eyes once with the security camera above her, feeling eerily as if she's being watched and promptly forces her head back to her textbook, trying to remember what she's supposed to be working on. The Cave is no longer comforting like it was in the first few moments of her arrival; she's suddenly very aware of all the shadows, all the lurking places her father could possibly occupy. Giving her homework up as a bad job she slides off her stool, hands yanking on her hair as if to pull her own fear out of her, wondering if a cup of tea will help.

She's just filled the kettle when she hears the disembodied voice call his name; for some reason she feels the muscles in her back tighten as she sets the kettle on the burner, suddenly raw and aware of the previous comfort of his presence. Despite their new intimacy she's on edge from her encounter with M'gann, worried that any conversation with Wally will leave her feeling worse after— as if on cue she feels old insecurities rising, immediately making her suspicious of him, as if the grin that spreads across his features when he sees her is somehow fake, _as if she's somehow unknowingly managed to ruin things between them like she always does—_

The familiar gusting air announces his movement before she can see it; it's very hard not to flinch as he comes to a skidding stop in front of her, knocking into her slightly and nearly forcing her to set her hand on the red-hot burner for balance. Wally for his part looks untroubled, his arms wrapping around her waist and tugging her so close she can hardly breathe. "Hello, Beautiful." He says in his charmingly low voice, not even really looking at her before he kisses her.

She supposes he must chalk up her tenseness to being caught off guard; for a moment she's unwaveringly still, hands still up and clenched into fists before she comes to her senses, forcing raised haunches and snapping tendons to go slack, hands automatically going to his shoulders as he pulls back with a loud smacking noise.

"Hi." She says dumbly, not quite sounding like herself with her voice so high pitched.

Wally doesn't seem to notice the stunned expression on her face, or must think nothing of it; ignoring the way she shakes her head— _caught in a whirl of her own emotion... surprise, guilt, worry, fear, so much fear that isn't calmed by Wally or the walnut smell_ — he weaves his fingers together in the small of her back, thumb tracing the slop of muscle that runs along her spine. "Long time no see. Have I mentioned that I haven't stopped thinking about you since Monday?"

"I— No." She says vaguely, not catching his teasing tone.

"Well, I haven't." He grins lopsidedly at her, arms tightening around her. "I—" He leans in, as if to press a wet kiss against her cheek and suddenly stops, brows raising and smile faltering as he reads her expression. "What's wrong?"

For some reason her lower lip wobbles— _because it's one thing to talk about it with Green Arrow, who's... equipped to handle her emotions, her outbursts of fear and panic. It's another thing altogether to unleash herself on Wally, not when her track record with doing so is terrible and nearly always results in the two of them fighting or her sniveling like an idiot in his arms._ Blinking rapidly she shoves all her emotions aside, mouth setting in a firm line. "It's nothing. I—"

Wally cuts her off, loosening his hold on her to get a better look at her face but not releasing her. "Is it— you know. Stuff with your Dad? Do you want to—"

"No." She says quickly, shaking her head so violently that her teeth clatter; as if to get a grip on reality she reaches up, pretending to adjust the collar of his shirt and really encasing the fabric tightly in her hand. "It's fine Wally. Just— Tell me about your day, okay? I just need a bit of a distraction right now, it's nothing..."

For a long second Wally doesn't look convinced, and in the silence she can hear the low humming of the kettle, signaling that the water is close to boiling; almost imperceptivity she catches him glancing down to where her fingers have an iron grip on his shirt. As if that somehow gave him an answer to an unknown question she suddenly feels his arms tightening on either side of her, and before she can brace herself for his rapid changing of pace he's kissing her.

She's nearly knocked off balance again by the force with which his mouth collides with hers, her knees knocking against his and wobbling underneath her; it's dizzying, both in a good way and bad, her jaw ducking and cheeks crimson as she tries to pull back. "W-what are you doing—" She pants out almost angrily, not managing to say anything else before he's grinning at her, a mixture of mischievous and endearing as he seizes her pony tail, yanking her closer again.

"Distracting you." He mutters.

She hasn't even fully closed her eyes again when Wally reclaims her, jaw dropping and lips pushing so hard into hers that most of her weight is abruptly pushed back against the edge of the counter—it's embarrassing, the tiny squeal that bursts from her lips, mouth opening beneath his and the noise quickly being silenced when his tongue slips inside her.

 _And there's so much to feel, so much to taste and suddenly she's dizzy again; the scent of walnuts and salt and the faint burning smell telling her that the stove top need to be cleaned_ — _his hands roaming up and down her sides and touching scars on her arms that he doesn't know the meaning behind, a hand in her hair and tugging at her scalp, forcing her to focus_ — _Wally's mouth, feverish and hot and panting around her_ — _it's like their kiss on New Years Day all over again, she's growing sick with so many sensations wobbling inside her head, unbalanced as they sit on top of her already overflowing emotions_ —

Suddenly the air between them is thick and hot again, Wally hips pressing urgently between hers and forcing her legs apart; she groans when she feels his hands running down the length of her sides, cupping her rear _hard_ for a moment before he's scooping up the backs of her thighs, forcing her feet from the ground and planting her firmly on the counter.

"Wally—" She gasps for a moment, not able to ask him to slow down before his lips are back on her, wet and warm as his hands pry her knees apart, hands tugging her hips closer until the dull throbbing between her legs is pressed achingly up against the hardness that's beginning stretch the material of his pants tight. For a few moments they're a mess of lips and gasping— her hands musing Wally's hair half in wanting to pull him closer and half in pushing him back and his palms pawing at the front of her shirt, one hand boldly sliding up her back and fiddling unsuccessfully with her bra clasp.

She's a mess, her mind hazy and cloudy and not entirely thinking straight, suddenly realizing how Wally must have felt when she had attacked him in her bedroom— _and this is the kitchen, Wally, they could be walked in on any second and this is nothing like the privacy of the locker room alcove from all those months ago or the abandoned section of the library_ —as his fingers drag up the muscles of her leg, nails clawing into her jeans. She feels them skim the bullet hole scratched into her thigh, feels his little finger get caught in her pocket—

Wally's teeth catch on her lower lip, hand lingering on her hip for a moment as she gasps out; all at once his fingers are between her legs, rubbing tenderly against the denim, his thumb pressing hard against the throbbing that's suddenly tripled with heat. She has enough time to feel blood pounding in her ears, a jolt striking down her spine as her hips buck against him, and before she can even think on it the Metropolis girl — _the one who's been staring out of her skull with wary eyes and been growing fearful of Wally and what she feels for him—_ suddenly the feral girl is snatching at his wrist, ripping it from her body and slamming it so hard against the edge of the counter that he actually cries out.

"Fuck!" He swears, mouth falling from hers and eyes screwing shut as she digs her nails into his wrist, breaking the tender skin that coats his tendons. "Fuck, Artemis!"

It takes her a moment to realize what she's just done, the all the blood in her body suddenly firing to her reddened cheeks and away from her thighs, still stretched and aching for him; immediately she releases him in horror, breathing stuttering out in a stunned manner as he stumbles back from her, clutching his wrist as he leans against the island. " _Oh my god_." She says, not sounding at all like herself. "Wally—"

She hates that when she clambers off the counter he flinches, doubled over and pressing his wrist against his thigh in pain. "Just—Artemis, just don't for a second, okay?" He says through gritted teeth.

Obediently she goes back to standing with her back against the edge of the counter, looking at him with her hands pressed hard against her mouth as he examines his wrist—already she can see the line of the counter beginning to swell up and bruise around his bones, his fingers moving one at a time as if to test that everything is okay. "Are you alright?" She asks between her fingers.

Wally opens and closes his fist for a moment. "Yeah, looks okay." He says gruffly, finally looking at her with still rough eyes. "What the hell was that about?"

In answer she shakes her head. "I-I don't know. I just… It was instinct. I just got… I don't know, scared or something." She grits the last part out between her teeth, cheeks still red and hair still mused.

Wally looks at her for a long moment, hand still rubbing the swelling of his wrist and trying to read the expression on her face. "… Was it… Did I do something wrong?" He asks a little sheepishly, looking confused. "Did I hurt you? Or was it too fast?"

A little helplessly she shakes her head, not quite knowing what to say. "No, Wally. I don't know why I did it." She doesn't miss the way he flinches again when she takes a small step forward, looking as hurt and uncomfortable with her presence as he did a few days before in his bedroom. "… I'm sorry."

Wally doesn't accept the apology and glances back down at his wrist, fingers still prodding his bones and tracing the line of the swelling. "… Listen. I've gotta get going. Mom's expecting me home for dinner. We can... talk about this later." He adds the last part more for her benefit than anything.

She glances at the clock. It's barely four and Wally's lying through his teeth to her face. She scowls. "... Early dinner?" She asks, glaring.

Wally doesn't look at her. "Yeah." He says, and before she can even stop him he's already gone.

She nearly screams—she's always screwing things up. She's wanted _this_ with him for so long, she's spent nights aching for it and mornings waking with her fingers between her legs, imaging it was him. Before she can stop herself she can feel frustrated tears stinging at her eyes, and with a low growl in the back of her throat she rubs her palms a little too hard against her lids, willing herself not to cry as the kettle on the stove hisses loudly, boiling over.

* * *

 **AN: Not sure if you all saw the big YJ news going around Twitter... Season 2 is back up on American Netflix, coupled with a tweet from the show's creator mentioning that if we want Season 3 the best thing to do is sit down and watch it. Repeatedly. Not too sure if it's a hoax but it sure as hell gives me an excuse to binge watch!**

 **A quick Q &A before I sign off:**

 **Q: Is there any hope for a friendship between Roy and Artemis?**

 **A: If we're going by canon (which I'm trying to) it seems pretty obvious to me that by Season 2 Artemis and Roy reach... and understanding. Roy seems to know her well enough to feel confident speaking on her behalf when Oliver needed a pep-talk, and that combined with the fact that Jade seems to have re-entered family life leads me to believe that there is eventually a friendly dynamic there. So of course there's hope!**

 **Please read and review!**


	15. A Merciful Save

**AN: Apologies for the bit of a late update; I'm in the middle of midterms and finding time to edit has been next to impossible.**

 **Here we go with another long one, enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

She lets the kettle keep whistling; for some reason the noise is comforting, as if the screaming of the steam out of the throat of the kettle is somehow expressing something she can't. In the cold silence of the kitchen she can hear the water splattering violently against the burner, hissing and stinging the air the way her tears are stinging at her eyes— but she's not going to cry, she's not pathetic enough to cry—

 _... The buzzing is back, the painful banging against her temples seems to send spasms of pain up and down her spine and the tainted girl keeps clawing through the cartilage between her bones, trying to escape and consume her..._

She can feel herself growing light-headed and realizes with a jolt that she's not breathing, as if worried about the invasion of Wally's hardly there scent in her lungs, afraid of letting him in; it takes too much effort to force herself to pull in a gasping breath, to force herself to function, to force herself to swallow down her nausea and focus only on the screaming of the kettle and not the screaming inside her head, not the quiver in her knees—

She makes a grab at the counter, her imagination half convincing her that she can still feel the lingering heat of Wally's body warming the granite; and she had hurt him, she hadn't been thinking— but she had been, her head had been spinning and she wasn't able to focus, wasn't able to comprehend what was happening— and the other girl, the one who's screaming inside her head and dragging her bloody body through the dirt, she had lashed out in her defense... Swallowing thickly and admitting defeat she feels her knees buckle, shoulders rolling painfully over edges and nobs as she slides down to the floor.

 _Worthless._

 _Cold._

 _Broken._

Despite herself she can hear the familiar words slamming against the walls of her skull, the same ones that were pounded into her bones and carved into her skin from the time she was a child— she's her father's daughter, she can't outrun him, can't outgrow the monster he's shaped her into being. This instinct, the one that made her hurt Wally, that makes it so hard to let him in, the one buried the better part of herself alive... It all leads back to the instincts that her father gouged into her, the feral part she hates but needs... And it was a mistake to put her trust in the Metropolis girl, to trust her wanting Wally... Because the Metropolis girl doesn't live in her reality— _She's blind animal instinct, sex and sweat and survival_. There's no affection there, no tenderness, none of the wonderful things she has with Wally...

 _... Survival._

The Metropolis girl turned Wally into something she needs to survive— his body, his scent, the quietness he brings to her mind... She can't live without him, that much she knows. It's those... _feelings_ , he stirs up in her, the ones that are less calculated ( _t_ _he ones that wake her out of half dreams about his smile and his thumb pausing on the callouses of her fingers where arrows once rested...)_ She knows there's a name for this kind of affection but she's too cowardly to own up to it, that's the problem... She's lost herself to this other girl, fallen slave to her tricks and lies and blood thirst— _the Metropolis girl doesn't love, she can't love_ — she only defends what is hers and kills Artemis in the process, gets her lost in other people or inside her own mind, _she's broken she's broken she's broken_ —

Almost violently she pulls her knees up against her chest, pressing tightly on her own lungs as if to remind herself that she isn't worthy of breathing, not when the untainted smell of Wally still lingers in the air; all she feels is anger and shame and knuckles pressed too hard against her eyelids, as if she can somehow force the other girl out the back of her skull...

 _How is she ever going to save Wally if she can't even save herself?_

 _How is she supposed to fight something that's a part of her?_

 _... How is someone like her supposed to feel these... things, without falling apart?_

She doesn't hear the footsteps that guide him there but she does hear his voice, hears the sharpness of a swear slipping from lips; instinctively she feels herself growing still, as if she has a chance of remaining insignificant and hidden in her own despair as she sits, completely in the way and out of place on the kitchen floor. Unthinkingly she presses the tops of her cheeks against her knees, trusting the denim to absorb any incriminating tears still lingering there.

"Goddamit." Roy swears, yelling over the kettle as he storms into the kitchen, forehead slick and skin flushed from training. He starts muttering indistinctly about children and noise and fire hazards as he stomps towards the stove, swearing louder still as he lifts the kettle from the burner and promptly slams it back down, clutching as his burnt fingers in pain. "Fuck." He hisses out again.

She's just tricked herself into thinking that it's possible that she won't be noticed when he turns towards the sink, no doubt about to attempt to save his stinging fingers with a stream of too-cool water— _and oddly at the back of her mind a memory stirs, another one of those strange ones that she's not entirely sure is real. She's young, far too young to be using a stove safely and yet her parents allow her... There's boiling water and tea cups and angry reddened welts on her fingers. In a strange bout of affection her father breaks off his laugh at the expense of her tears and lifts her to reach the sink, sitting her on the counter as he carefully checks the temperature of the water_ — _"Not too cold, Baby Girl." He tells her roughly, hand joining hers under the water to make sure the worst part of the injury hits the stream. "People forget how sensitive skin is when it's burnt... You want it cold enough to take out the heat, but too cold and you'll risk permanently damaging your fingers. Don't want to numb the nerves_ — _"_

Roy turns towards the sink and immediately spots her, scowling. "What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?" He demands, stomping past her to reach the faucet.

She doesn't have an answer.

Roy mutters something rude sounding under his breath, hand flicking the faucet violently upwards and spraying the basin of the sink with a loud rumble of water, not sparing her a glance as she lowers her chin back to resting miserably on top of her folded arms. Even without really looking she can tell he's not being careful enough, being too hurried with the sensitive skin; he's attempting to scrub the heat out, the faucet cranked all the way to cold, the combination of pressure and temperature no doubt sending his injured skin screaming. "You know," He starts after a moment, still sounding annoyed. "I came here for peace and quiet. I thought with the beach, the harbor, might be nice—"

Roy pauses in his snarling to ram the faucet off again, crossing back to the stove to collect the dish towel hanging across a stray cupboard handle. "Instead, I come here and am immediately reminded why I am never, _ever_ , having children. This place is a complete shit show."

She watches glumly as Roy rubs too hard at the burnt skin on his hand; despite his yelling she has the overwhelming urge to correct him in his ministrations, even to help him. Ignoring this she shrugs her shoulders. "... Sorry."

She goes back to glaring at the floor tile when Roy's brows raise, so surprised by her lack of reaction that his hands actually still in their violent drying with the dish towel. "... What the fuck is wrong with you?" He asks in a quiet, entirely different tone from moments before.

She can feel her cheeks going pink. "Nothing." She grits out between her teeth, screwing her eyes shut to avoid looking at the shocked expression on his face.

There's almost a full minute of silence where she can feel Roy staring at her, can feel the thoughts whirring inside his head; refusing to acknowledge his presence she focuses on breathing, focuses on dragging noisy breaths in through her nose and trying not to smell Wally there—

She snaps her eyes open when she hears the squeaking of shoes against the tile floor, her upper lip retracting to snarl at him as he takes a step closer. "Red." She says warningly, the wrinkle over her nose popping up violently underneath her skin.

To his credit Roy immediately stops moving, both hands raising as if in surrender. "... Were you making anything in particular?" He pauses, glancing back at the kettle. "You know, other than _noise_?"

She can feel the feral expression on her face break, can feel her own shock breaking through around the corners of her eyes; unbothered by her impolite surprise at his kindness he takes a step backward, pursuing the cupboard above the stove like there's nothing unusual about the two of them, alone and talking, in the kitchen. "... Your sister's on a hot chocolate kick right now." He tells her offhandedly, reaching to pull the tin in question down and not noticing at the way her face goes sour again. "She likes something warm to drink, calms her down when... And there's too much caffeine in coffee, even tea sometimes bothers her late at night..."

It's not until he's withdrawn two cups from the cabinet and finished filling the first with several heaping spoonful's of hot chocolate power that she realizes what's happening. "I was making tea, actually." She blurts out dryly, watching the heaping spoonful hesitate over what she assumes will be her cup.

He pauses, looking as if he's almost debating rummaging around the cupboard again, before shrugging. "You'll take what you get and like it." He says simply, dumping the powder inside.

She scrutinizes him as he pours the hot water into the cups, the spoon he's using clinking around loudly as he stirs. "Alright, Red." She says sternly, glaring at him as he turns towards her. "Have you been brainwashed by the Light again?" She snarls out a little meanly, enjoying the bitter expression that crosses his face before he turns back to his stirring. "... Since when do you hang out at the Cave?"

Roy finishes with the mugs and takes one in each hand; she's expecting him to hand one to her and retreat to the other side of the kitchen again and catches herself flinching when he takes a seat beside her, passing her one of the over filled mugs with an odd amount of care. The distance between them is carefully calculated, the several inches indicating friendliness but not fondness. "Shut it, Sweetheart." He says easily, this kind of banter being old hat to both of them. "Drink up."

She scowls but does what she's told, lips stinging and mouth puckering at the unexpected sweetness; he's added too much powder to the water, the liquid inside unpleasantly grainy and thick. "... Wow." She says sarcastically after a moment.

There's a half beat of silence between them in which they both slurp back their hot chocolate, not looking at each other and instead staring blankly at the cabinetry on the island. "Are you gonna tell me what's wrong?" He asks after a while, scowling.

Ignoring his request she forces another jibe out of her mouth, both hands clutching tightly about the cup. "No. Are you going to tell me why you're pretending to be my older brother?"

She doesn't miss the way his cheeks redden, blotches of crimson leaking out from under his mask. "Shut up." He says grimly, one elbow knocking her a little too hard about the ribs and forcing her to painfully spill her hot chocolate into her lap. "Come on."

She hesitates; if she had to pick anyone for this conversation it would be M'gann or Zatanna, maybe even Kaldur—Roy is pretty low on her list for ideal deep conversation partners, if not absolute last. Hesitating, she gnaws on her tongue for a few moments, trying to figure out a way to be tactful as she rests her cup on the swell of her knee. "… You've kissed my sister before, right?" She asks, already knowing the answer.

Roy makes a grunting noise in the back of his throat, the tip of his nose blushing darker.

"... Okay, maybe that's— that's not the best place to start." She admits, pausing to take another sip of hot chocolate. "… After you found out about… _Everything_ , did it ever make you hesitant to… To let people in? To... be _close_ with them?"

Roy blinks at her once, correctly reading the blush on her cheeks. "... Gross."

"That's not what I meant!" She bursts out angrily, even though yes, _that is exactly what she meant._ "I just mean… Do you ever find that, like, just because you _want_ to be close with someone, sometimes you _can't_? Because of, you know. Other things? Messing with you?"

"I really don't need to hear about whatever problems you and Wally are having in that department. I'm good."

"Red!" She sighs, glaring. "I—God, you were the one that asked me about it!"

Roy shakes his head in horror, mouth disappearing behind his mug for a moment. When he emerges his face is set, jaw tighter and more serious. "Alright, alright." He sighs, wiping a stray drop on his chin with the back of his hand. "I guess… I would say that everything we do in life is motivated by fear. Or emotional attachment. So being afraid of some things... I mean, it's natural. But when you're scared you pull back from life, and when you're not you sort of… You know. Dive head first. And maybe for some people, they spend so long being afraid that they forget that not everyone out there is going to hurt them."

She doesn't really know what he means by this and simply shakes her head. "So what? I should just... Power through it?" She asks dully, not comforted.

"I don't care what you do." He mutters, hunching his shoulders and looking uncomfortable. "... Just use a condom."

She hears herself snort before she finishes with her mug, draining back the rest of the too-sweet liquid and trying not to gag on the half dissolved hot chocolate powder clinging to the bottom of the cup. "Your turn." She says after a moment. "... Why are you at the Cave?"

Roy repeats the vague grunt in the back of his throat again, one finger tapping on his own empty mug as he firmly avoids her eye.

"Come on." She prompts him, trying to nudge him in the ribs like he did to her moments before; to her annoyance he's ready for her, already getting to his feet and stalking towards the sink. "Is it Jade? Another fight?"

Roy doesn't say anything back for a long moment, hands busy as he rinses his cup out and then pauses, allowing the cool water to sooth the stinging of his hands again. "... Things are... Complicated with Cheshire. You know that as well as I do."

"... Oliver's probably not making anything easier, is he?"

At this Roy's head turns quickly round to glare down at her; it's very obvious that he wasn't aware that Oliver had been telling other people of Jade and Roy's arrangement, and making his disapproval known. "... No." Roy says carefully.

She hesitates, gaze falling back to the floor. "... I get it." She says quickly, trying to spit out what she wants to say before he gets impatient with her prying and leaves. "I know what it's like... But I know what side of the fight I'm on, Roy. I know what I'm going to do if I see her out there." She can sense the stiffening of his muscles and rushes on even faster, stumbling over her words. "But, I mean— what's going to happen? Exactly? If you have to fight her?"

There's another tense moment of silence, this time so long that she's almost certain that she's not going to get an answer; when she hears the water running again she glances at him, stomach panging at the expression on his face.

"... I don't know." He says, so quietly she can hardly hear him over the water.

* * *

Roy leaves quickly after that, and not long after she decides to pick herself up off the floor; despite the fact that it's been months since the injury the muscles in her leg feel oddly tight, bothered by sitting so tensely for such a long period of time.

She's not focused on where she's going, thoughts shifting rapidly between her conversation with Roy and lingering frustration at the situation with Wally; it scared her, what Roy had said about not knowing what he would do if he met Jade in a fight. Is he questioning his loyalty to the Team? To The League as a whole? For as long as she's known Roy she's known him to be startlingly black and white for someone so unpleasant... At his core, despite his personality, despite Cadmus programming, he's good. At least morally so.

And yet... This fatal attraction to Jade, this curiosity at her... It's making him question his identity as a hero. Or perhaps it's not simply Jade but everything that's happened in the past few months— the knowledge that he's a clone, the fact that he isn't truly organic, a proper human being... Perhaps that's hard to manage alone. Maybe you need someone to dull the awful thoughts, to silence old nightmares and insecurities in the dead of the night...

 _That's what she's been doing with Wally..._

But it's not simply a distraction, is it? When she had asked Roy if he loved her sister he had sounded so unsure... But now. He knows her sister much better than she ever will, knows intimate details that seems so starkly opposite from the Jade she grew up with, the one who slept with a knife under her pillow and filled old water bottles with cheap vodka...

 _"She likes something warm to drink, something to calm her down when..."_

When what? _What does Jade need calming down from?_

 _... Is Jade scared of Lawrence too?_

 _Jade had mentioned once that she's a lot easier to find than she is... Does that mean Sportsmaster has terrorized her before?_

 _"... I'll just disappear like the Cheshire Cat..."_

But it hadn't been that easy; she remembers her father being furious at Jade's abandonment, furious enough to disappear for days on end to hunt her... She remembers him returning home, growing increasingly frustrated as time went on, picking at the blood caking under his nails that he had beaten out of what felt like a thousand men, trying desperately to track down and reclaim his favorite daughter... And he had never told her if he had found Jade, but what if he had, what if he had stalked her and terrorized her and carved his name into her back just like he had threatened to do to her, yanking her pony tail and snarling into her ear— _"If you leave, Baby Girl, you're dead..."_

 _So is that why Jade and Roy are living together? Is he... Protecting her? Is she protecting him?_

 _... Are they protecting each other?_

Frustrated she catches herself breathing hard— unsurprisingly she's wandered into the library, her usual haunting place when her thoughts are too overwhelming to work through without the comfort of a book in her hands. She's stationary in the same isle Wally and her had once had a heated encounter in, the memory of yelling and backs being pressed against bookshelves still sharp in her mind, the sound of pages fluttering as they hit the floor—

She lifts her head from where she's been staring at her feet, listening hard. Recognizing the creaking, she realizes that someone has just opened the door to the library.

She's not much in the mood for talking to one of her teammates— frankly her conversation with Roy has left her feeling even more gloomy, and rounding the corner towards the exit seems like little more than an opportunity for someone unsuspecting to be caught off guard by her foul mood. Looking around for a hiding place she settles on scampering a few feet forward as she hears footsteps approaching, hoping she's small enough to be mostly hidden by the flat edge of the shelf should whoever's coming glance down the isle.

She's just gotten her back pressed flat against the end of the shelf when the footsteps slow, turning down the isle before the one she's just been standing in. Judging by the weight of the heel against the carpet she suspects it's Kaldur— he's always been slightly duck footed on land, oddly ungraceful compared to the elegance of his movements underwater. "... I believe it was around here that Artemis discovered the book, although I could be mistaken." Kaldur mutters, voice much warmer than what she's used to hearing. "Perhaps you would do better to ask her yourself."

She hears one note of tinkling laughter and recognizes it from the too long sessions she's endured pouring over the book in question. "Hm. Perhaps not, Kaldur." Tula muses coyly. "I do not believe your friend Artemis is very fond of me."

"If I am being honest, Artemis is not very fond of anyone." Kaldur says back, the teasing sound of his voice oddly muted for a moment as she feels an angry pang sound through her, annoyed at being talked about as if she were an ill-tempered child rather than one of his closest friends.

Tula seems to feel the same way she does, an annoyed click sounding close by. "She is fond of _you_."

"That is different." Kaldur says very seriously.

"I am aware." A few feet from her head she can hear the sound of books being pulled from shelves; scared of being discovered she ducks back round to her and Wally's isle, hoping for the chance to slip out without being noticed.

She's made it a pace or two when she's forced to stop, several titles being removed from the shelf and creating a sizeable gap which she's sure she could be seen through; teetering a little on her still sore leg she hesitates, listening hard to the silence and to what sounds like a palm pressing against a book, pulling it out of someone else's hands. "Please, my friend. Do not be upset with me." Kaldur murmurs, voice sounding affectionate.

"Your _friend_ —" Tula starts, and there's a flash of movement in front of the gap as if the other girl has just made an attempt to push past him before suddenly it's stilled, a few books trembling slightly as if he's caught her arm, upset her balance slightly and forced her to grab onto the shelf for balance.

"Apologies." She hears Kaldur mutter hurriedly, and in her mind's eye she can picture him releasing her, worried that his sudden touching has offended or hurt her. "But yes, Tula. You are my friend. But we both know that is not my choice."

Something in the lowness of Kaldur's tone sends her cheeks blushing, and judging by the silence on the other side of the shelf she suspects it must be having a similar effect on Tula; deciding that this is a conversation she's rather not hear she forces her sore leg to bend down, ducking under the gap in the shelf and practically slithering to the other end of the isle, getting more anxious to leave when Kaldur starts talking again, this time over the sound of book covers being roughly shoved back into their places. "I know we have not spoken of what happened... It has been nearly a month, Tula. Nearly a month of not knowing what you are thinking, how you are feeling—"

"Kaldur—"

"Tula." He cuts her off, the same stern tone she's heard so often forcing her feet to falter, rounding the corner into the main isle and hiding behind the edge of the shelf, wondering if she'll be able to leave without either of them noticing her. "I am a patient man, and I do not demand much of you despite how... Confusing, you are. But you are the one who kissed me. I deserve to know why."

It's very hard to resist the temptation to stuff her fingers in her ears and start humming loudly, sincerely wishing that she were still back in the kitchen with the unpleasantness of Roy than being forced to listen to such a private conversation. "... I do not have an explanation." Tula says stiffly.

"I have known you too long, Tula." Kaldur mutters lowly, still sounding stern. "There is no point in lying to me."

There's hardly a moment of quiet before Tula bursts out, sounding caught between wanting and restraint. "I was curious, Kaldur." She hisses. "It has been... So long, since we were joined. We were still children then, whatever we felt we were too young for... _I love Garth_." She adds quickly, as if to remind the both of them. "But you are so different... You abandoned me, and he was there, and I can never forgive you for leaving but— you are right. There is no point lying to you... I was foolish, spurred on by lingering feelings, my own curiosity at... How you had changed."

She feels her own dull sensation of surprise at the omission, and can tell Kaldur feels the same; there's a very heavy moment of quiet, and when he speaks his words sound disorganized, flustered, not at all the mature tone she's used to. "Have I... Changed?" He asks, sounding oddly choked.

Tula lets out another tinkling laugh that this time sounds borderline miserable; there's the loud slapping of skin against skin, as if the other girl has just clapped both her hands to her face. "No, you have not." Tula's voice sounds out through muffling fingers. "You are still... Wonderful, as I remembered. As I have been thinking about nearly every night since. And that was simply kissing, Neptune forbid our _joining_ again— I do not think I will ever be able to sleep the night through..."

"... Yes." Kaldur says after a moment, voice back to being low and inviting. "Neptune forbid."

There's another long silence, this one so heavy that her own curiosity gets in the way of her wanting to go unnoticed; stupidly she shifts slightly, peering out from behind the shelf.

She hardly has time to pull her eyes in focus before Kaldur reaches for Tula, gentle hands pulling her palms from her face; as if he's settling himself down for a job to do she can see him keeping her forearms firmly in his grasp, guiding her forward until it would be impossible to do anything other than meet his mouth when he drops his jaw to kiss her.

She realizes with a jolt that she must have inhaled a little too sharply in her surprise; in an instant Kaldur's eyes are flashing open at the intrusion of her noise, instinctively finding hers and no doubt recognizing the steely grey of her irises and the length of her blonde pony tail.

There's the sound of moistened lips being pulled apart, and without thinking she sprints as fast as she can towards the exit.

* * *

 _"It has been... So long, since we were joined..."_

So Tula and Kaldur were... together, at one point. Or at least together enough to be having sex.

But they were young— and she realizes jarringly that they're still young. She forgets too often that Kaldur isn't properly grown up, despite seeming much older than the nineteen years he had marked with insisted silence on the twenty sixth of March— judging by the conversation the two were thirteen, fourteen, with enough happy years of childhood love building before their separation made the distance between the surface world and Atlantis seem unbearable when they were apart. Long enough ago for it to seem like a forgotten history, for old feelings to trick their masters into being properly buried. Long enough for Kaldur to leave, to take up the mantle of Aqualad, long enough for Tula to console a broken heart in the closest set of arms and convince herself that she had moved on...

 _But not long enough for either of them to truly forget the past._

And what she saw in the library... That wasn't their first encounter. That wasn't lingering emotion getting the better of either of them; that was calculation, at least on Kaldur's part— she knows him well enough at this point to understand the way his mind works: getting Tula alone under the pretext of being helpful, steering the conversation towards his goal in a way that was both polite but firm... Stopping her from leaving when she wanted to but not making her feel trapped. It was all very cold, very mechanical in nature, like every other plan Kaldur executes...

She doesn't know why she feels disgusted by it, doesn't know why what she saw is bothering her. Kaldur is free to do as he pleases.

 _... But it doesn't change the fact that he isn't the person she once thought he was. He isn't the level-headed, logical force she once saw, isn't the person she could rely on when she had her own doubts because of his own failing moral compass... Perhaps it's simply that she's always strived to be more like him, strived to be better, do better, and now she's discovering that what she's been striving for isn't as perfect, or as undoubtedly good, as she once thought—_

"Artemis? Are you even listening?"

It's several days later and still she's dwelling on what she saw in the library, the sound of Zatanna's impatient tone jarring her out of her own head. "I— Sorry." She says stupidly, looking up from where she's been staring blankly at a page of one of Zatanna's magazines, sprawled out on the other girl's bed and pretending to read. "You were talking about that guy in your French class? Jared?"

"Jeremy, Artemis, and that was ages ago." Zatanna clicks her tongue impatiently, her reflection glaring at her from the mirror on her vanity as she pauses in her attempted curling of her hair. "What's wrong with you?"

She feels her eyes narrow, her thumb and forefinger pinching at a corner of the magazine and ripping it slightly. "Tired, I guess." She mutters evasively. "... So it's Jeremy now? What about Dick?"

"Dick and I have an understanding." Zatanna waves her off, pausing in her talking to raise her curling iron to the side of her head; almost fascinatedly she watches the younger girl's expression in the mirror as she weaves a section of hair around it, holding it tightly for a half second as a whiff of steam rises before releasing it, a single springy curl appearing for a moment before it unravels, looking just as pathetic at Zatanna's other attempts beside it. "Damn."

She hesitates before rising from her position on the bed, tossing the magazine aside. "I think you're using it wrong." She says, pausing behind Zatanna's chair and frowning. "M'gann tried using one of those on my hair months ago— I mean, it didn't really work, I guess. But she didn't hold the hair around it with her hands, she used that metal clamp thing around it—"

She cuts herself off when Zatanna picks up the flaming hot iron and gestures at her with it over her shoulder. "You do it, if you think it's so easy."

"I don't think it's easy—" Again the iron is waved wildly in her direction and this time she's smart enough to grab it by the handle to stops its movement. Huffing slightly and fumbling with the wire she stares for a moment at the mass of black hair in front of her, feeling ill-equipped for the job at hand.

Zatanna smirks and seems to take pity on her after a few seconds, letting out her usual barking chuckle at the confusion on her face. "One inch sections, please."

One inch sections— her arrow heads are about an inch, she remembers; still feeling stupid she makes a grab into Zatanna's locks, eyeballing a piece on the top of her head and pinching it between her fingers.

The whole process is remarkably tricky, despite looking easy when M'gann had done it to her; she remembers the martian clicking the mechanism on the handle and opening the clamp on the shaft of the iron, sliding sections of hair inside and twisting them into curls. She's much more clumsy— in a matter of moments she's burnt one of her fingers and the top of Zatanna's ear, several pieces of hair getting caught in the clamp and having to be yanked directly from the scalp as she pulls her curl free, the section she's just attempted looking dull and frizzy and only partially curled around the middle, the end jutting into an unflattering kink.

It looks way worse than anything the other girl's tried, and she doesn't blame Zatanna for bursting out in a horrified laugh. "God!" She cackles. "How can someone with so much hair not know how to style it?"

She opens her mouth to argue, passing the curling iron back and not feeling sorry when Zatanna hisses, the edge of her pinky straying a bit too close to the heat. "I do so know how to style it!"

"A pony tail is not style, Artemis."

Blushing furiously she stomps back to the bed, annoyed at the younger girl's continued laughter; despite being slightly embarrassed it feels good to hear Zatanna laugh, feels good to have someone else's happiness fill up the deadened parts inside of her, caught between lingering briefly on Kaldur and mostly on Wally, her unhappiness with her life feeling at least manageable when something so joyous is filling the blank and dreary silence.

She realizes again that she's unintentionally gone quiet after she's sat on the bed again, no doubt looking as if she's pouting at being laughed at. She's a little surprised when she glances up to Zatanna's reflection again to see her staring back, face serious and lips hardly quirked at the hilarity of her half curled hair. "... Something's bothering you." She says simply, with the air of a person telling the facts. "Are you going to tell me what it is?"

For not the first time she hesitates, wondering how much information to share. Sensing her lack of trust Zatanna's eyes leave hers in the mirror, reaching for her hair brush and running it repeatedly through her hair, as if hoping to remove the ugliness of her curl through sheer force.

Her first instinct is to tell the other girl about Tula and Kaldur— it seems safer, keeping the conversation as far away as she can from her own problems. But something stops her, forces her to open and close her mouth stupidly, as if admitting the sliminess of what she had seen to another person would be more wrong than Kaldur's actions themselves. "... I'm still... I don't know. Fighting with Wally." She admits after a moment; glancing back at the magazine she had abandoned before.

 _(And she's not usually one for confiding in anybody but Zatanna seems to think about these things in a similar way that she does; after all, she had been right about getting together with Wally all those months ago, had been right about it being a lot of trouble and more than it's fair share of misery... What's to say she won't offer good advice a second time_ — _and it has to be better that Roy's, which didn't really make sense and just left her feeling confused and worried about Jade...)_

She hears the hairbrush pause in its path through Zatanna's hair. " _Still_? You haven't made up yet?"

"We did." She admits blushingly, debating how crass to be when she goes into details. "We, uh... Stuff happened. And it was fine for a bit."

Sheepishly she glances into the mirror again and is quickly horrified at the teasing grin on Zatanna's face. " _Please_ tell me I get to hear the disgusting details. I'm begging, Artemis."

Bypassing maroon she drops her eyes again, reaching for the magazine to give her hands something to do. "Uh, no." She mutters, fingers fumbling through pages. "Besides, that's not the important part. After I, uh— I thought I—"

She fumbles through her words again; it's odd, that this is the hardest part to admit— the fact that she had thought she had seen her father, had lost it, had been so terrified and confused that she had hurt Wally, _really hurt him_... In her silence Zatanna turns in her chair, eyes wide and a little accusing. "Oh my god. Please tell me you aren't having a pregnancy scare."

"No!" She bursts out quickly, hands rubbing angrily over her cheeks as they blush again. "God, no— Zatanna, can you please just be serious for a second? I— I thought I saw my Dad when I was walking home."

It's cowardly, the fact that as she says it she clamps her hands over her eyes, afraid to see the look on the other girl's face. There's several seconds of tense silence in which she can feel her pulse thundering too loudly in her ears. "... Oh." Is all she gets back at first, mixed almost painfully with the sound of the hair brush being lowered to the vanity table top. "Was... Was it him?"

She shakes her head, still not brave enough to emerge from behind her hands. "It was just some random guy... A couple of them, actually. But I don't know, it just made it more real, way more real than just knowing he was out there... And then... Wally and I kind of... Well, things happened in the kitchen, a few days later."

Perhaps the fact that she knows what she'll see when she emerges from behind her hands is what prompts her to do so; she's rewarded with Zatanna's pretend gagging, the normalcy of the reaction making her feel remarkably better. "Ew." Zatanna says good naturedly, looking relieved that she's finally holding her gaze again. "On the island? That's where Dick and I _—_ "

"The counter. By the stove." She grimaces.

Zatanna makes a retching sound in the back of her throat. "Remind me to find a new spot to make my lunches."

"Right." She snorts, the slight wave of comfort quickly being replaced by a tightening sensation in her stomach. "Well, I mean, it didn't really... I don't know what happened. I was just feeling on edge because of my Dad, and Wally tried to distract me and it was just so— it was like I couldn't feel so much at once. And before I even realized what was happening I was pulling his hands off me and knocking him around... It was awful. And now things are weird, and I don't know how to fix them and I just..." She hears her voice warbling and goes quiet. "... I need some advice, Zatanna."

To her surprise the other girl's face goes sour before she turns back to the mirror, avoiding her gaze in the reflection and fumbling unnecessarily with the placement of the hairbrush inside a drawer. "... I have some. But I don't think it's the right kind."

"At this point I'll settle for anything."

Zatanna pauses, as if trying to figure out her wording. "... I guess I'd tell you... I mean, I get it. Feeling like you can't have that much emotion at once. Feeling overwhelmed. But... Okay, and just because I'm giving you this advice doesn't mean you have to follow it. You and Wally may be a mess but when things are good you're _great_ together—"

"Zatanna."

The other girl sighs, teeth biting for a second on her lower lip. "... I guess I'd tell you that there's a reason why things are the way they are between Dick and me." She says almost darkly. "After Dad became Fate... I was feeling a lot, and trying to fall for someone didn't make managing those emotions any easier and... _It's all about separation_." She says firmly. "When Dick and I are together it's just us, no other feelings or problems or... And when we're not, then I deal with my own issues. There's a part of me that's who I am when I'm with him, and that other part that... Manages everything else."

She feels her stomach tighten. "... Oh."

"Maybe you're just..." Zatanna starts, biting her lip again and still avoiding her eye. "Trying to be too many people at once? Maybe that's not healthy, or whatever—"

Without knowing why she nods, eyes staring blankly as she stops listening, hurt by the words stinging against her ear drums; the tightening sensation seems to bubble up in her stomach and burst into her throat, and as if in agreement the girl from Metropolis chokes her.

* * *

She quickly discovers that it's incredibly difficult not to track the time when someone is mad at you; she'd noticed it once before, over the holidays, when Wally hadn't been speaking to her. Back then she had very little to distract her, nothing more than a broken family and her favorite books and a Flash brand ceramic mug she spotted at a gas station; despite the fact that she's kept constantly busy by her piles of missed homework and assignments, not to mention the scandals of various teammates, she still is uncomfortably aware of the passing moments, her gaze frequently flickering up from her textbooks to watch the changing of the numbers on her digital clock, body automatically marking another moment in which Wally's silence has chilled her to the bone.

 _(And she shoves her phone into the top drawer of her dresser, forcing it almost brutally into a rolled up pair of woolen socks to keep from flipping it open to check it every few minutes; every time she looks at it she can see the crack she had put there and she's reminding forcibly of the fact that she screws things up, she always fucks things up—)_

She thinks herself in circles over what Zatanna said to her; maybe she's spreading herself too thin, trying to be too many people at once. Things had been easier with Wally when they weren't a couple... Maybe they weren't as happy, with the constant side stepping and break downs... But it was easier, easier to pinpoint who she was and how she felt when she was just another girl with a troubled past without the cliché of a guy trying to fix her... And maybe it had been easier to define herself when what they were was so unfixed; maybe she thrived in that chaos, maybe all that lack of feeling except in the heated moments was what made it easier...

Or maybe Roy's right. Maybe she's simply spent so much time being afraid to open up to people, afraid to be intimate that now she doesn't know how to let them in. Maybe she is broken, maybe she's unfixable, maybe she's meant to spend the rest of her life in this cycle of wanting and fear and hatred and not-love, _never love_ ; maybe she's just not supposed to feel certain things, like feeling safe or happy. Maybe that instinct for intimacy is something too far gone for her to chase after now—

She's just glanced at the clock beside her bed again, the Gotham sirens outside wailing— _and suddenly it's been one day, twenty-one hours, approximately eleven minutes since she last talked to Wally—_ when she hears the tell-tale vibration coming from her dresser a few feet away.

Without thinking she jumps to her feet and opens the drawer, oddly clammy hands struggling to extract the phone from it's woolen cage and dropping it altogether when she sees Wally's name flashing brightly across the screen. The metal and plastic clatterer against the inside of the drawer and slip through the layers of mismatched socks before smacking hard against the wooden bottom; it takes several seconds of digging before she finds it again, still vibrating happily and oddly flipped open, forcing her to see the contact photo he has assigned to himself a few days ago.

Immediately all she can see is the horrific red of his bed sheets, so loud that her eyes can't help but go to it first; it's a slightly blurry photo, Wally's hands still a little clumsy from his recent orgasm. She can clearly see the pink in both their cheeks, can see the way her hair is falling out of her pony tail and twisting in long tendrils on his pillow, can see both their mouths quirking in one of their playful spats.

 _("Wally, no. No photos."_

 _Ignoring her as usual Wally had extended her phone out of her reach, her nails scratching against the back of his hand as she had made a grab for it. "Why not?"_

 _"Because I look disgusting_ — _"_

 _"No you don't." He had told her firmly, rolling his eyes. "And even if you did, so what? I'm your boyfriend, Artemis, I deserve the honor of a contact photo."_

 _"If it's your photo then why do I have to be in it?" She had tried to glare into the camera when he aimed it down at the both of them, neither of them missing how she had tilted her head closer to his on the pillow.)_

And yet despite the warmth of the memory she can feel herself running cold, can feel the weight of both Zatanna cynicism and Roy's confusion sitting heavily on her shoulders; what if she isn't meant to do this? What if being with Wally, being his girlfriend... It had started as the Metropolis girl's plan. She had needed him to survive. But is that really a way to live? Just bare bones, unfeeling, hovering between life and death but never really—

The phone switches over to voicemail and she's saved from answering altogether.

* * *

 _"Hey. Uh, it's me. This whole not talking thing is weird so... Call me back when you want to. Please."_

* * *

She doesn't sleep, doesn't do her school work; instead she lies mercilessly awake as the days and nights pass by, mind buzzing and eyes blood shot as her subconscious tortures her with snap shots and half dreams of her attack on Wally. Vividly she can recall the look on his face, and grunt of pain that had fired out of his throat, the way he had looked at her— the way he had been afraid of her, the way he had told her to keep her distance...

 _... She had hurt him..._

And maybe Roy was right; maybe she's spent so much time being afraid to open up to people, afraid to really be intimate that now she doesn't know how to go about it anymore. She's always known she doesn't have an instinct for this kind of the thing the way Wally seems to; he always knows how to touch her to get her to soften, always knows the right time to place tender kisses on her neck and how to hold her when she wakes from old nightmares. She's said before that being with someone, being gentle with them, this is something she'll have to learn all over again— and as much as she loves those heated moments, the fire he ignites in her veins and the pants they can draw out of each other... Maybe she's simply lost the ability to find that kind of intimacy with someone. Maybe after nearly sixteen years of abuse she's too broken to find the most basic form of human attachment, of closeness... Maybe she just needs to figure out a way to work through this, like it's some sort of mental block—

But maybe Zatanna's right. Maybe there's something to keeping your distance, something in making sure your own hurt is healed before you drag someone else into it... That's what she had wanted to do, before everything in Metropolis... She had wanted to keep Wally at a distance, wanted to keep him safe from her own brand of crazy— and she had only given in because she was still convinced that they were on the battle field, was convinced that their days were numbered and that she didn't intended on wasting another one without him at her side—

 _... She had tasted a moment of life without Wally, had watched reddened pieces of him stain the crisp white snow. She had felt that dangerous, all encompassing and pathetic need for his survival, and somehow that feeling, the feeling of a pulse beating against a freckled wrist had become as essential to her own existence as it was to his..._

She had given up the idea of her own healing to protect Wally from an unknown, invisible danger— but she's been the danger to him all along. Her family, the Metropolis girl... They're dead set on hurting him to get to her, on killing him and her and the idea of them together... And to keep him safe she has to set him free, has to end things before he starts being hunted like she is— but she can't end things, she can't, if things end and she loses him she'll die, she'll destroy herself from the inside out and is there even a way to protect him? Is she screwed either way—

And so it goes: the seemingly endless cycle of thinking herself into a panic, a few moments of tears and shaking fingers offering her perhaps a few minutes of release before it starts again, spiraling her deeper and deeper inside her own head.

She's locked herself in a washroom stall when the final bell of the school day rings at three fifteen, knees knocking together as she sits on the pristine toilet seat. Around her she can hear the childish babbling of school girls, impervious to her blank stare at the pleats of her skirt and the violent way she's yanking at the hair around her face.

She's driving herself insane.

* * *

She runs again.

This time she's unflinchingly stationary; no matter how many times her heels pound against the rubbery plastic spinning circles on the treadmill she stays in place, occasionally picking up the pace to find the muscled pane of her stomach brushing against the oddly cold metal bar she's supposed to holding to measure her pulse. There's no music pounding in her ears to drown out the dull ache that seems to pulse through her body every second step but she doesn't stop, as if despite the frustrating stillness and pain she's actually making progress with outrunning something.

"Slow down, Artemis." Black Canary warns her for the second time as her abdomen starts knocking against the cold metal bar again, arms crossed and watching her progress from a few feet away. "You wonder why your leg isn't healing right— you won't let it build up its strength slowly."

She opens her mouth to respond and instead lets out a ragged breath, her lungs dragging in the sterile air of the training room with an odd amount of ferocity. "It's been months." She pants, wiping at a bead of sweat dribbling down her temple. "I thought you said it would be fine by now."

With an air of impatience Black Canary stalks toward her, hammering at a few keys on the screen and forcing the wheels beneath her to come to a staggering stop, the plastic underneath her quivering violently as her heels struggle to slow her pace. "I hadn't taken into account how stubborn you are." Dinah sighs, watching as she clambers clumsily back to the floor, thighs shaking with exhaustion. "You keep pushing yourself before you're ready."

Instead of responding she lets out another breathy huff, leaning forward to press the heels of her palms against her knees; Dinah seems to take her silence for snark and hums, annoyed. "... And I know for a fact you haven't been doing the exercises I've told you to, I doubt that leg will ever really be the same..." Ignoring her scolding she stops listening, glaring blankly at the floor as the sweat pooling around her hair line dribbles down her jaw and off her chin, leaving a perfectly circular stain on the tile when it finally falls. "... But I guess the harm's now, only thing there is to do is to compensate for it. Come on, some hand to hand combat and then a few more drills—"

She doesn't argue with this but does look up when she hears the door to the training room open; as if afraid of being caught showing weakness she promptly straightens, leg aching with the effort of properly supporting her as she gazes beyond the sweeping blonde hair cascading over Black Canary's shoulder.

"Pardon the intrusion." Kaldur calls out to them, and for the first time ever she feels her stomach tighten at the sound of his familiar low tone.

It's a strange sensation, feeling wary of his presence; even in the early days of her joining the Team she had always enjoyed having him around, could always count on him for some advice or an easy conversation without Wally's prying or Dick's tricking questions. Now she catches herself stiffening, catches her eyes narrowing and scrutinizing him as he closes the door to the training room behind him, wondering if his being here is merely a coincidence...

"It's not an intrusion at all, Kaldur." Dinah answers for the two of them, unable to see the slightly sour expression on her face; placing one hand firmly on her hip she gestures in welcome for him to join them. "You came at a wonderful time, Artemis and I were about to do some hand to hand training."

He isn't even stopped a foot in front of them before his milky eyes are on her, surveying the deliberate aloofness in her expression as if it both fascinates and amuses him, one brow quirking. "You require a referee, perhaps?"

The way he says it is somewhat odd, trying to soften her with his use of common surface world terms and hoping it will amuse her like it always does; trying her best to maintain a cool expression she hears herself speaking. "No." She says carefully, warning him silently to that she's on to him.

 _(Kaldur was the first one on the Team who could tell what she was thinking with just a look, the first one whose eyes she would catch in tense moments, M'gann's telepathy unneeded when it came to passing messages between them. And now more than ever she can sense his insistence at their talking about what she saw in the library, his insistence at explaining himself, maybe swearing her to silence._

 _She hopes he can see how disgusted with him she is.)_

The look that passes between them is either unnoticed or not thought of. "No, but you'll make an excellent partner." Canary cuts across her, grinning at her when she jerks her neck round to glare at the older woman. "What, not eager to push yourself now? You've been bothering me and Green Arrow for more intense training for a while now." She teases, seeing the expression on her face. "Come on, Kaldur has a good few inches and several pounds on you, he'll be quite the challenge. Besides, I promised I'd help Raquel with letters she's been sending to some colleges—"

She decides to hide the scowl splitting across her face, pretending to scrub some sweat from her forehead for a moment. "Sure." She says coolly, smearing some old make up across her face with a quick wipe of her forearm, not looking at either of them as she stalks off towards the sparring ring.

Almost tactfully Kaldur dawdles before joining her; unnecessarily he seems to take his time with stretching, with fiddling with weights on the rack. She knows exactly what he's doing— once again, the planning is meticulous, well thought out, the strategic delaying so obvious to her but impossible to argue with, should she appear impatient. She knows he's waiting for Black Canary to leave the room before he approaches.

And so it happens: the door is hardly shut on their blonde mentor's back when he turns to face her; before he can open to his mouth to even give her a proper greeting she's cutting him off, symbolically stepping outside of the crimson ring painted on the ground. "You don't have to, you know..." She trails off, trying to read his expression as her toes cross the boundary of the sparring area. "... I was about done for the day, anyway."

She's met with nothing but a stale moment of silence, a little off put to see him raising a brow almost tauntingly at her. "Of course." He says slowly, nodding in acknowledgement but still taking a step forward into the ring. "I hear your leg has been bothering you again... Perhaps after all the training you are too tired to spar."

As he says it— _in that low, understanding tone that digs into her in all the wrong ways_ — her leg gives an unwilling twitch, still bothered by her running and the strain she's placed on it; despite the pain she feels her own ego throbbing loudly under her skin. "... I'm not tired." She says through gritted teeth, jaw dropping as her feet automatically takes several steps forward to place her inside the ring.

Kaldur wastes no time adopting a defensive position as she approaches, arms raised and legs spreading, expecting her to pounce on him the second she passes the red line and her feet connect with the touch sensitive floor. Vaguely she can hear the whirring of machinery around her, can feel the floor below her recognizing her and Kaldur, recognizing the familiar way she carries her weight and her own predictable starting position: legs spread and bent, leaning perhaps a bit too heavily on her right foot to accommodate the weakness of her left, shoulders tight and arms half raised.

Neither of them move for several seconds; as the machines babble behind them she can feel her own resolution setting: Kaldur sought her out, came to find her to scold her for listening in, no doubt wondering if she's been discreet with what she discovered. He came here to interrogate her, and through her own training she knows never to be the one to make the first move, never to be the one to speak first— it's another power struggle, another fight, and she's not going to be the one to surrender before it even starts—

And something odd happens, so quickly she's not even sure she really sees it— there's a half second where the milky whites of his eyes leave hers to glance towards the almost heavy way she's carrying the weight on her injured leg, as if analyzing her weakest point and deciding how best to exploit it. It's such a rookie mistake, so unnervingly amateur that for a moment she actually feels her muscles slacking in surprise before he suddenly lunges at her, irises still blaring a lingering warning of what's to come.

Her mind still reeling over the oddness of the action and she allows her own instinct to take over, leg aching as she ducks under the incoming swing of his arm, bracing herself and ramming a well-aimed elbow into his stomach as the bulk of his weight slams into her. She can hear the breath wheezing out of his lungs but doesn't pause to listen to the pathetic sounding gasp that fires out of his mouth; side stepping underneath him she twists around his crumpling figure, her better leg kicking hard at the back side of his knee she watches almost unfeelingly as his right side collaspes, another slam onto the swelling back of his left shoulder knocking him onto his hands and knees. She pauses, listening to the machines around them whining and watching the floor light up at his touch, as if knowing that her foot is itching to raise and stomp down hard on the center of his back and pound his body into the floor.

Instead she forces all her muscles to go slack, taking several steps back. "... You let me do that." She says accusingly.

Kaldur lets out a fake sounding cough, head turning to wince at her over his shoulder. "I beg to differ." He grunts out, getting to his feet.

Once again her eyes narrow, automatically taking a few more paces backwards and blindly feeling for the edge of the sparring ring behind her; either not noticing her retreat or not caring he advances on her again. "You looked at where you were going to hit me before you moved. You know better than that, Kal, what's the deal—"

Again it's clumsy, predictable, almost too slow when his arm swings around in an attempt to cuff her about the neck; she braces herself as her own forearm jumps upwards to meet his, their bones and tendons knocking painfully together as she easily blocks the hit and throws his arm backwards, no doubt bruising both of them. "Enough." She snarls, impatient with what she knows is less than his best, and this time he does little more than glare at her when she turns her back on him and stomps out of the sparring ring.

"You are angry with me."

He says this so pointedly that she can't help but let out a bitter sounding laugh, busying herself with seizing a towel from a nearby rack. "No."

Kaldur's silent for a moment as she buries her face in the white cotton, wiping a layer of sweat and old, grimy make-up from her cheeks. "... And now you are lying to me."

"Oh what, is that not allowed?" She scoffs, throwing the filthy towel into the hamper before grabbing another off the rack, nearly toppling the careful display Red Tornado had gone to the trouble of fixing for them. "Or is it just that _we've known each other too long now_ for lying to even be possible?"

Almost immediately Kaldur's cheeks fire off in that strange purplish color at her mocking, not quite a blush but not quite anything else either. "That was a private discussion."

She hears herself let out a crude sound snort, running the towel violently over her bare arms and legs, trying to scrub her sweat and exhaustion from her limbs. "Yeah, well, it didn't seem like much of discussion when I left." She snarls. "And by the way, I wouldn't exactly call the library _private_ , Kal—"

"As you would know, given that you and Wally have had your own run-ins there—"

"That's different!" She bursts out, annoyed when she feels her own cheeks blushing crimson, towel slapping against her back as she drapes it over her shoulder. "Wally and I are— I mean— _we're together_! You and Tula aren't!"

Kaldur goes quiet for a moment, simply surveying her and studying the ragged breathes firing out of her nose, looking bemused. "You are... upset with my happenings with Tula?"

"I—" She starts, not quite sure how to explain it. "Not upset just... Disapproving? She's with another guy, Kaldur. I mean, before she came I know we joked about it but I didn't actually... It's wrong, Kaldur. _She's in love with someone else_."

 _(Because it's one thing to break a person's bones, to make them bleed and feel pain stinging the endings of their nerves. It's another thing to break their heart, to break that part of a soul they've given to another person and crush them internally, creating wounds so deep and aching that even blood refuses to run through them_ — _)_

 _((And wouldn't she be doing that to Wally, if she breaks his heart_ — _))_

"And you do not believe it is possible to love more than one person at once?" Kaldur counters, raising his brows challengingly.

She opens her mouth and then closes it, glaring. "I don't know."

 _... Because she's not even sure if it's possible for some kinds of people to love at all..._

"I believe we are misunderstanding each other again." Kaldur sighs, finally leaving the sparring ring and silencing the whirring of the machines around them; in the sudden silence he seems less threatening. "I understand the customs on the surface world— You stake claims in people. Mark them as... Yours."

He pauses, surveying the scowl on her face carefully, mouth setting when she shrugs jerkily at him. "In my world, in Atlantis, it is not common to think of a lover as a possession... There are no titles of boyfriends, husbands, that mark out an ownership over another person. Atlanteans do not belong to other Atlanteans. There is only togetherness, in all its forms. You must understand, with Tula... _It is not wrong to pursue another man's lover_. The real shame is in treating the one you are bonded with so poorly that they need to seek affection somewhere else." She must have made a noise in a slight disbelief because Kaldur's lips suddenly perk up. "You may frown upon it if you wish, but I can assure you that my _caring_ for Tula in her time of need is a most honorable custom in my world.

"I apologize if my actions have made you uncomfortable, or upset. And I will be more cautious in the future. But it is important to me that you understand that I am simply doing what is right."

" _What is right."_ She repeats, a slight wave of disgust sound in her stomach. "Why all the sneaking around then? If it's such an _honorable_ thing then why not be open with it?"

Although she's sure he's been expecting the question his face suddenly darkens, some of the angry blush of before fading with a sense of finality. "... I do not know." He says very seriously. "Tula and I have never been... Simple. She is caught between Garth and I, between the past and the present... There are old wounds between us that may never heal... I am sure you are familiar with the feeling." He nods to her, and despite his politeness she feels a pang in her stomach, as if he's just hit her again. "I have asked her that same question and have never received a direct answer. I believe it is a decision that Tula wants to take her time with making."

She feels herself scowling and doesn't try to hide the disapproval on her face. "... If you want to be with her why don't you just tell Garth what's happening? Force her to come to a decision?"

"I would never force Tula to do anything." He says very seriously. "Besides, it is not simply the balance between the three of us that I must manage... Garth has been attending several meetings with Black Canary and Batman. He is growing weary of his time here as a tourist... He wishes to be as useful to the Team as Tula has been."

"Wait so— Garth? On the Team?" She blurts out angrily, eyes flickering between both of his. "You're not seriously thinking about letting him in, are you?"

"It is not my decision." He says shortly, the displeasure on his face matching hers. "Although perhaps another reason why Tula and I must remain quiet. Garth is a powerful combat sorcerer, and admittedly would make an excellent addition to the Team; I do not want what happens behind closed doors to upset balance on the battle field as it has in the past. Which is why I must ask you to—"

She cuts him off with an annoyed sound at the back of her throat. "Yeah, yeah, I get it Kal, your secret is safe with me." She says impatiently, waving him off. "God, first Roy, now this—"

"Roy?" Kaldur asks quickly, looking suddenly more focused on what she's saying. "What about Roy?"

She hesitates, lower lip suckling up into her mouth for a moment of biting before she forces the words out of herself. "I was talking to him the other day; Wally and I were fighting and— it doesn't matter. I ran into Roy and we got to talking about things and... Look, maybe it's none of my business. But he said... He said he didn't know what he would do if he saw Jade out there... He didn't know if he could fight her."

She watches the progress of Kaldur's eyebrows as they advance further up his face, seeming to pause on the highest arc of his features for a moment before they suddenly twitch downward again, scowling. "Did he mention anything else? Any other... Doubts?"

"No."

Kaldur makes an indistinct noise in the back of his throat, another habit he's picked up from spending so much time on the surface world; strangely enough the noise is distinctly Roy in origin. "Thank you, Artemis." He says unexpectedly, her own brows shooting up into her hair line at the seemingly calm response. "For confiding your suspicions in me. I will be the first to admit that I am not thrilled with his choice of partner—"

"—Neither am I, incidentally." She cuts across him, scowling. "And by the way, I'm not too fond of yours, either."

Kaldur's lips twitch at this, as if silently appreciating her stubbornness. "Regardless, it would be worth watching him... Red Arrow has become increasingly unpredictable in the past few months, perhaps it would not be amiss to keep both our eyes open."

"And not tell anyone else?"

"Yes. I think it is best to keep this quiet." Kaldur says slowly, jaw dropping as he pauses before addressing her almost sternly. "As we should with all the matters we have discussed this afternoon. For the Team's sake."

"Right." She snorts, still bothered by his sneaking around but not brave enough to confront him any more about it; gesturing with a jerky nod towards the sparring ring she tosses the towel she's been twisting in her hands into the hamper. "Come on, round two. This time actually try, Kal."

And he does; this time the two of them last for nearly half an hour, only finishing when her weak leg begins bursting into violent muscle spasms that make it nearly impossible to stand for a few minutes. Despite the pain she feels remarkably better, as if all she needed to get her spirits up again was to hit something.

"You know," She starts, a little embarrassed at the fact that he's had to help her back to sit on a bench, her fingers probing her leg and trying to work out the knots. "It would make things a lot easier if you and Tula... Weren't in love, or whatever."

She's a little too blunt but Kaldur seems to appreciate her honesty, the corners of his lips quirking up into a smile as he sits beside her, bracing his hands on his knees. "Perhaps." He says in a measured voice. "But you know as well as I do that we cannot choose who we fall in love with."

It strikes her as a bit of an odd thing to say, her hands pausing in her ministrations and eyes flickering up to his face. "... What's that supposed to mean?"

Kaldur lets out a short sounding chuckle that she's never heard from him before, one note of melodic laughter hanging in the air for a moment. "Simply that the heart has a tendency to outweigh the mind. If I am being honest I will admit that I do not see the logic in loving Tula, in continuing to hurt myself with wanting her but not having her..." He pauses, sending her a calculating look. "If you were to be honest too— did you ever picture yourself being with Wally? Did you imagine all the fighting and the chaotic nature of your relationship and think it wise? Did you think it logical to fall in love with him?"

He's firing these questions at her as if to be teasing, unaware of the fact that as he's speaking her stomach has started clenching with fear, her fingers pressing painfully into the knotted flesh coating the old bullet wound on her thigh. "... I never really thought of falling in love with anyone." She admits.

"And yet you did." Kaldur says firmly, so much so that she doesn't bother to correct him. "Love is not logical, Artemis. But still, I trust it."

* * *

It takes too long of a shower to scrub the sweat from her body, and even longer under the hot water for her bothered muscles to unwind; by the time she emerges from the bathrooms adjacent from the gym her skin is reddened from the heat, and in an effort to cool down she untwists her soaking hair from a towel, letting the water logged strands leave cool strips of wetness on the back of her tee shirt.

Predictably she stalks off to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea; more than ever her stomach is working itself into knots, now debating the advice of Kaldur, Zatanna, and Roy, growing more and more confused. Her head is buzzing loudly with anxiety again, and rather than indulge it she turns to her usual last resort: television. Forgoing sitting on the leather couch—she can't trust her wet hair not to stain the leather— she hunches awkwardly on the floor in front of it, knees curled up and mug resting on the coffee table.

Almost absently she flickers through the channels, occasionally stopping for a few moments to stare blankly at an infomercial or watch a few minutes of an action movie; maybe Kaldur is right. Love, real love, isn't supposed to make sense— maybe it's supposed to defy every instinct she has, supposed to scare her with its lack of logic or reasoning. And that had been why she kissed Wally in the first place, all those weeks ago in his bedroom— it had gone against everything her father had ever taught her, had been something Jade would have called naïve. But that's why she had done it, because it felt wrong— and she was raised to be wrong, so does that mean it's right, or—

Her thumb passes over the remote again, flickering up several more channels before slipping and stopping. With a pang in her stomach she recognizes Julia Roberts.

 _("It's that goddamn Julia Roberts movie." His voice had crackled through the phone. "The one from the 1980's? I swear, it's always on. I think there's a whole channel committed to just playing it on a loop twenty-four hours a day."_

 _"... That's why you're calling me? To tell me you're watching Pretty Woman?"_

 _"No." His tone had been defensive, and in the brief pause in his speaking she had imagined the hand that's always on his neck flying out in frustration. "I'm calling to tell you... I don't know. That I miss you?")_

She's not even properly finished with the memory when she hears the zeta tubes whirring behind her, the disembodied voice calling Wally's name and number so loudly that she jumps; a larger part of her wants to turn off the television and sprint wildly to her room while the small, braver part insists on standing her ground— in the jerky movement of her own indecisiveness she accidentally cranks the volume up to its maximum.

She can feel her cheeks burning as she scrambles with the remote, knees knocking against the coffee table and jostling a bit of her tea over the edge of the cup; slamming her finger against the volume control she mutes it, making her presence incredibly obvious.

It's too late to run now— all she can do is sit in horror as she hears footsteps approaching the back of the couch, becoming increasingly aware of the gaze that's she's sure is flickering once to the screen and then again to the back of her head before she hears a throat clearing. "... Pretty Woman?" Wally asks, not greeting her.

It seems to take all her energy to produce an answer back rather than attempt to smother herself in the couch cushions, the dampness of her hair feeling incredibly cold against the nervous feverishness of her skin. "Yeah." She blushes, lifting her mug off the coffee table and ignoring the tea she's spilt, sipping at the drink to give herself something to do. "... You were right. It's always on." There's a slight air of awkwardness to both their tones, and she's half expecting him to continue on his way, leaving her and her sopping hair alone.

Instead she's unsurprised when she feels movement on the couch, can tell by the squeaking of leather that he's propelled himself over the back of it, landing a little unsteadily on the cushions. "You don't have to... You know." She mutters, glancing back at him over her shoulder and watching him get settled, flinching slightly when she feels his legs swinging down on either side of her shoulders, knees brushing against her biceps and effectively boxing her in.

 _(and whether or not it's meant to be she finds his closeness threatening, finds the invasive nature of the walnut smell unpleasant when her mind is already so muddled; he's another distraction that she can't afford to have, not when she's so messed up already...)_

"No, I know." He says simply as he leans forward; as if she's embarrassed at his closeness she jerks her head back round to the screen, staring at it with an odd intensity. "I, uh, actually came here looking for you."

"Oh." She hears herself mumble vaguely; in her typical cowardly manner she ignores the heat of his legs on either side of her and instead reaches for the remote, once again cranking the volume up to ear piercing levels, hoping to drown out any attempts at conversation.

The noise does very little to drown out the pointedness of Wally's sigh; even without hearing it she can feel it, can feel the way his lungs expand and the warmth of his breath as it hits the back of her head hard, deflected by her impervious panels of dampened hair and managing to ruffle the sleeve of her tee shirt. It's all too much all over again: his closeness, his scent, the wild and maybe unforgivable thoughts running through her head—

 _(and for some reason she remembers the heat, remembers the summer she turned thirteen: how the sun sent wavering lines above the Gotham pavement, remembers stumbling down a wrong alley and hearing the rattling of garbage can lids_ — _she remembers the matted hair of a feral dog, remembers the wound on its leg and the festering flesh and the flies, so drawn by the stench and the pus and the scent of infection and death. And she remembers her arrows and the blood and the light leaving a set of milky, chocolate eyes; and sometimes it's the kindest thing, putting someone out of their misery... Maybe Wally's like that mutt, maybe it would be better for both of them if she just ended things now, before they get any closer, before she hurts him again_ — _)_

She misses the movement as he leans forward but she doesn't miss his touch; doesn't miss the way his fingers take a piece of dripping hair from where her tresses are hanging over her shoulder, skin brushing ever so slightly in the hardly there space between the denim of his jeans and her bare arm. As always he's warm. "Your hair is down." He whispers, mouth so close to her ear that she can't pretend not to hear him.

She doesn't reply, instead stiffening when she feels his forefingers tucking her hair behind one ear, sweeping the entirety of her tresses round her neck until they're all pooling over her right shoulder and hanging over her lap, dampened ends occasionally dripping and soaking the grey cotton of her sweats. And for one moment she doesn't breathe, doesn't think; instead she quietly closes her eyes and tries to memorize the moment, tries to feel nothing but the dripping of her hair and the warmth of his fingers as he repeats the movement, tracing the shell of her ear and down below her jaw, down the muscles of her neck and pausing on the bumpiness of her scar, lingering nervously before moving onto the swelling of her shoulder, the jutting of her collar bone...

"Artemis." He sighs, and as if some sort of trance is ending she opens her eyes, realizing suddenly that she's got an iron clad grip on the plastic of the remote.

 _(They've watched this movie together almost a dozen times now, enough for both them to know what's coming next; the last time they had watched it together he had pulled back from her, lips swollen from their kissing and hair mused from where she had been running her hands through it. "Big mistake." He had told her, mouth falling over the words at the same time they were being spewed out of the speakers. "Huge.")_

She tenses when she hears movement from the couch, his thighs tightening on either side of her as he sits up properly; it feels invasive again, how close he gets to reach behind her for the remote, chin brushing the top of her head as almost impatiently he grabs the it out of her hands, muting the scene she's just been thinking about and tossing the remote back to the coffee table with a clatter.

Unthinkingly her eyes stray to his wrist, and for one wild half second she's shocked at what she sees there, caught off guard by the black and blue bruises, the swelling having gone down with the help of his fast metabolism and lingering only in the off-putting yellowing of his skin. Too quickly she feels her face crumple at the appearance of the injury, lower lip quivering and mind buzzing with guilt.

"Artemis." He repeats, the hand fiddling with her hair pausing to grip tightly on her shoulder.

"What?" She asks almost accusingly, back tense and slightly frightened; she's half expecting him to shake her or start yelling.

He sighs again, apparently frustrated with her response; she can hear the cushions squeaking as he adjusts his weight. "... I don't know." He mutters.

There's a long moment of bristling silence in which she hears herself let out an annoyed click in the back of her throat. "... Okay." She scowls, making a sudden movement to reach for the remote again.

Wally's too quick for her as always; before she gets much further than extending her arm he's got a grip on her again, one hand shooting out in front of her to contain her wrist and jerk it back towards her breasts, the other on her shoulder growing almost painfully tight as he yanks her backwards, pulling her flush against the leather of the couch and the warmth of his chest. It feels to intimate for the fighting they've been doing, too familiar for all the foreign thoughts and indecisiveness raging around in her head; there's too much of his warmth, too much of the walnut smell, too much Wally pressed up against her as he ducks his head, as if in prayer as he breathes in the lingering scent of her shampoo—

"Don't." He says quietly, his grip like iron around her as he presses his jaw into her temple, leaning over her and containing her, repeating the word once more with such a quiet desperation that she stiffens into stillness. "Don't— stop trying to avoid me, okay?"

"... Wally." She says warningly, coming back to herself as her wrist twists in his hand, struggling for escape.

It's hardly her usual attempt at resisting him but for some reason it seems to hurt him more than she thought it would— or maybe he's simply getting tired of always being the one to call her back, always being the one to hold on while she struggles to break free. Either way he lets go of her and lets out a remarkably bitter sounding sigh, slamming backwards against the couch cushions until he's less sitting and more slouching childishly. "What?" He fires out, one hand reaching up to run angrily through his hair as he snarls at her. "I can't touch you, I can't talk to you—"

She feels herself blushing crimson as she turns around to face him, feeling odd about glaring at him from between his spread, denim clad legs. "That's not fair—"

"Do you really want to talk about what's _fair,_ Artemis? Because I'll tell you what isn't—"

Before she can open her mouth to snarl over him they're both cut off by the familiar buzzing of an alert, the disembodied voice speaking over the swear she's just uttered under her breath and telling the two of them to go to the debriefing room.

The voice rumbles off and there's a tense, disgusted silence between them, Wally glaring at her through clouded eyes and reddened ears; for some reason she feels as if she's being tested, as if it's a mistake to break eye contact with him and scowl at the carpet. "Come on." She says gruffly after a moment, gritting her teeth.

"You're joking." Wally snarls at her, looking as if he wants to hit her when she places a hand on his knee to help herself up, leg still slightly stiff from training. "You're _fucking_ kidding me—"

"Later, Wally." She talks over him, ignoring the hand that reaches out to make a grab at her arm and shrugging easily out of his grip.

She thinks she hears one more half whispered swear before he gets to his feet, obediently following her.

* * *

"The archaeologist, Doctor Helena Sandsmark, is missing." Kaldur says gravely when they all quiet.

There's several exchanges of blank looks by the usual crowd, all of them wondering if there's some sort of connection they're missing, not knowing the name; even Tula and Garth, who usually are firmly out of the loop, look more puzzled than usual. She's just raised her brows at Kaldur, about to ask if this is supposed to be important to any of them, when she hears a disapproving noise across the room.

"Wait, I know her." Roy sneers suddenly, all of them turning to glance over their shoulder as he clicks his tongue; a little distractedly she catches herself paying more attention to the still reddened tips of Wally's ears than to what he's saying, very aware of the heat radiating off his body as he stands beside her. "It's she a lunatic? Claiming that Greek Gods actually exist?"

Even though Kaldur, Tula, and Garth's faces all pucker at Roy's scoffing it's Connor who turns fully to glare at Roy, answering for everyone. "Gods do exists, Red." He says severely. "Ever heard of Apokalips? Or New Genesis, the planet that created Sphere?"

Roy's face sours but Kaldur cuts them both off, heading off a fight before it starts. "Regardless of opinion, it does not change the fact that the Doctor is missing." He says plainly, fingers clacking loudly against computer keys as he pulls up a somewhat dated looking photograph, detailing a highly pixelated photo of an older woman, brown hair cropped short and eyes hidden behind glinting glasses. "Sandsmark was researching ancient magic at a dig site outside of Athens, on a project of vested interest for both Aquaman and Wonder Woman, when she suddenly vanished without a trace."

There's a half beat of silence where they all look at him, and Raquel seems to fill in the gaps for everyone. "… So I'm guessing it's not a coincidence that the baddies stole tech that can track EMF surges and now we're suddenly losing track of crazies studying magic?"

"No, I do not believe it is." Kaldur says gravely. "We can only assume that the Light has succeeded in getting the Starro-tablet to function. Although why take an archaeologist…" He trails off, looking uncertain. "I will be sending a select squad to Athens to examine her last known location and obtain records of her dig site. Perhaps the Doctor dug up something interesting."

There's a quick moment where Kaldur glances at each of them in turn, carefully weighing their expressions and deciding who to select for the mission; before he can say anything further Roy raises his hand, looking leisurely. "I'm in." He shrugs, teeth glinting as his face stretches into an unappealing smile. "I need to stretch my legs."

 _(And as he says it Kaldur's eyes flash to her, and without speaking she knows they're both remembering their conversation from earlier that afternoon, both remembering the danger of letting Roy and his doubts go unchaperoned_ — _but Kaldur can't openly reject such enthusiasm, can't say no without giving a reason and opening Roy up for criticism from his Teammates, and instantly she knows there isn't another option, not unless they want another disaster like the mole incident_ — _)_

Throwing caution to the wind she also raises her hand. "Same here." She says, ignoring the way Wally's head abruptly swivels to look at her, questioning. "... Always wanted to visit Greece."

 _(And maybe going away for a bit is a good thing... Maybe she just needs some space from Wally, from Gotham City, from the Team and her father and the mess she's managed to make of her life_ — _)_

Kaldur looks at her for a long moment, silently thanking her before his eyes dart around to the rest of the room. "Excellent. Also—Robin, Garth." He says plainly.

"Me?" The Atlantean in question blurts out in the silence, looking suspicious rather than excited.

"Consider it an opportunity to prove your worth as a member of this Team." Kaldur says evenly, and she suspects she imagines the way his eyes flicker, ever so slightly, to Tula. "I know Black Canary and Batman would not disagree with your attending." He says carefully, and once again she can see right through him: the wording is kind but firm, the opportunity too good to pass up without looking rude or suspicious— it's virtually impossible for Garth to refuse, impossible for him to do anything other than go and leave Tula and Kaldur alone together for an entire weekend.

Apparently Garth feels the same, his face levelling into polite neutrality and hiding the brief flash of annoyance that had lingered there for a moment. "If you think it best then I will go."

Kaldur nods at them all, folding his hands behind his back and avoiding her eye. "Prepare for mission deploy in one hour. The rest of you may go."

* * *

She pauses in the action of shoving a rumpled tee shirt into her gym bag— despite the fact that she'll have more use for her civilian clothing given the undercover nature of the mission it doesn't stop her from hiding her folded Kevlar suit at the bottom of the bag, the rest of her packing wrinkled carelessly on top of it _—_ fingers fumbling with the zipper for a moment as her ears perk at the sound of knuckles against her door.

She's not curious, and doesn't tell the knocker to come in, doesn't stop what she's doing to walk across her bedroom and let them inside; she already knows who's there.

 _(It feels like another lifetime altogether as unwillingly her mind flickers back to another evening, another round of knocking_ _— "Go away." She had hurled at the door, not wanting company._

 _"It's me." Wally had whispered, voice broken from the imagined reality of the Exercise, and not knowing why she had let him in_ _—)_

The silence only seems to get louder before he repeats his distinctive knock _(one short rapt followed by three other, much quicker ones)_ pausing again to listen to the quiet surrounding her. "Artemis?" Wally whispers, hesitating before twisting the knob open.

She keeps her back straight as she watches him over her shoulder, eyes narrowed as he cracks the door open several inches, apple eyes glancing around warily as if wondering whether or not she's actually there; it's stupid, the way he jumps slightly when he finally finds her, brows shooting up as he shuts the door behind him. For several seconds he doesn't say anything, scanning her posture and the expression on her face, pausing almost unnoticeably at the sloppy pony tail she's woven her still damp hair into."Hi."

"Hi." She mutters stiffly, turning back to her bed and fiddling unnecessarily with the arrangement of a pair of shorts inside it, finding it's easier to pretend to be busy than look at him.

She can hear the sound of skin tapping against metal; in his nervousness he's knocking his little finger against the swelling brass of the door knob, the sound only repeating itself once before it stops altogether. "... You didn't answer your door, so I thought maybe..." He trails off, not finishing.

"Yeah, well." She shrugs, giving the bag up as a bad job and zipping the main compartment with the sense of finality. "I'm busy."

Almost defiantly she turns towards him, picking the scuffed gym bag off her bedspread and slinging it over her shoulder; he's got his hands in his pockets, looking politely baffled at the scowl on her face. There's something else there, something she can't quite read in the overwhelming quiet of the room— it's not like how it was before their fighting, when she sensed affection, or maybe something else... It's different, a tender kind of hopelessness that rubs uncomfortably at the forced twist of his mouth, in the freckles on his cheeks that warble into a heart breaking half-smile.

"So." He says after a moment, the one syllable firing out of his mouth in a dark, dry chuckle; almost sheepishly he ducks his head to look at the floor. "... You running away from me again?"

And as he says it she feels as if a pointed arrow has pierced her heart, a sharp pang sounding in her ears and a tightness so overwhelming in her chest that for a moment she can't breathe; she catches herself choking on her own breath, unable to watch his arm as it marks a familiar path from his pocket to his neck. "No." She says to her feet, hating how childish she sounds.

"Feels like it."

She lets out a ragged sigh. "I'm not—"

"You running away from us?" He cuts her off, and she gets the sense that if she doesn't stop him soon she'll be facing an ugly round of twenty questions that he's so prone to starting when he's angry with her.

"I don't know what to tell you, Wally." She says coldly, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder impatiently. "It's a mission. Kaldur needed people to go, and I'm going, that's it."

Finally he seems to gather a bit of nerve to look her in the eye; with a twist in her stomach she can see the startling red of his ears, glassy eyes glaring at her as he wipes his nose noisily on the back of his hand. "But you want to go." He fires out accusingly.

She hesitates, not knowing how to read the wildness on his face or how to react to it. "... I want to help my Team." She says carefully. "And if going on a mission is—"

"Not everything is about a fucking _mission_ , Artemis." He cuts her off, not yelling but somehow managing to scare her with the low and dangerous tone he's using. Finally he abandons the post he's been keeping in front of her door, advancing a few paces into her bedroom. "Missions, the Team— look, they're important, I get it. I do. But they're not— they're not as important as _us_."

"Wally—"

"Ever since your Dad got out," he talks over her, not quailing in the face of her glaring or the angry wrinkle popping up over her nose, "it's like you aren't the same person. Like suddenly it's August again and I don't know you, and all I get are these moments when you seem like you're okay and then suddenly it's gone, like you just turn it off—"

"Wally!" She yells his name, trying to silence the word flowing from his mouth.

Ignoring her he keeps talking, looking pained when he advances forward and she takes a frightened step back, as if afraid of him or being overwhelmed by all the emotion he's projecting at her. "—I miss you, Artemis. I feel like I'm losing you, and I can't... _I can't lose you_. I'm crazy about you—" He takes another few steps closer to her when she backs up, the back of her knees hitting against her bed when he stops a foot in front of her. "Please don't go. Just— just stay, okay?"

She winces when he reaches for her, arms linking around her waist and pulling her against him, one of his hands burying into her wet hair and yanking out her elastic, fingers splaying the damp strands along her back and fitting her into the shell of his neck so neatly that she's forced to feel the frantic pounding of his pulse against her forehead. "Please stay." He says quietly, only gripping her tighter when her arms hesitate before half-heartedly resting on the swell of his shoulders. "Don't go when things are like this."

 _She thinks that this must be what heartbreak feels like; feeling someone fall apart in your arms and not knowing how to comfort them, not having any words to soothe them or make the sting of leaving hurt any less._

 _(She wonders if this is what Jade felt like when she left her, when she left the little blonde girl in the overalls sniffling and alone in her bedroom and didn't look back.)_

And it's too much, the gentle way he holds her, the way his fingers are slipping her elastic onto his wrist, as if hoping that by keeping it from her she won't be able to leave. Not knowing what else to do she feels her palms tighten on his shoulders, fingers pressing down to follow the panels of muscle on his neck; in a last act of desperation she tugs gently on his hair and shifts back from where he's keeping her caged against him, the muscles in her calves taught as she rises to claims his mouth with hers.

It reminds her so much of their first kiss in his bedroom; it's clumsy, unplanned, the two of them continuing to fight with each other in the silence as she pours a part of herself inside him— and like that first time she's trying to remind him of the better parts of herself, before she hurt him and before they started falling apart, as if somehow he'll be able to understand and maybe not hate her when she pulls back. Her thumbs are pressing almost painfully hard into the sides of his face but Wally's doesn't seem to mind, the feral grunt that always lingers in the back of his throat dripping over her tongue as he fights to hold her closer, fights to get her to stay; his mouth is ferocious on hers and unwilling to release her, teeth reaching out in an attempt to drag her back into him when she finally pulls back.

For a long moment she looks at him, memorizing the features and the freckles she so adores, eyes pausing a fraction too long on his chin to observe the overgrown patches of reddened stubble marking his jaw— he hasn't shaved in a few days. "... I have to go, Wally." She murmurs.

"No you don't." He says back just as quietly, the two of them sounding ridiculous arguing in softened tones. "Stay here— let's just take some time to figure all this out—"

She sighs, glancing down at her feet for a moment. "No. I mean... _I have to go_ , to figure some stuff out for myself." She can feel him stiffen as her hands carefully glide down his face, unthinkingly tracing the muscles of his neck, the jutting of his collar bone, the hollow in the center of his chest, the beginning bumps of his abdomen. "You're right, I haven't been... Myself lately. I think it'll do me some good to get out of here, to have something else to focus on other than..."

Wally's brows shoot up when she trails off vaguely, looking alarmed when she nudges him gently in the stomach, prompting him to take a step back. "Other than what?" He asks quickly, obeying her touching but still grasping tightly onto her wrists, pinning her hands to his stomach. "Other than us?"

"I... Maybe." She sighs, looking up at him helplessly. "I just... Just think of it as a break, okay? Some time away from each other to... Refocus."

"A break." He repeats blankly, looking as if he's just seeing her properly for the first time.

She hesitates again, glancing down a little pointedly to the watch on his wrist whose face is half hidden by the stretching of her elastic— she's running late now, she only has about five more minutes alone with him before someone will come looking for her. "Yeah... Just until I get my head on straight again, okay? I mean... I'll be back in a couple days. And maybe when I'm back we can... _Talk_."

The way she says the last words sends Wally's face hardening, his hands tightening around her wrist bones. "... I still don't want you to go." He repeats fiercely, ducking his head and trying to catch her eye. "If you still want to be on a break that's fine, I mean... I just have a bad feeling about it."

She bites her lip, thinking of her agreement with Kaldur to keep an eye on Roy, and hating the answer she has to give him. "I can't, Wally. I... Kal needs me to do something for him." Wally noticeable stiffens again, and in the momentary furrowing of his brows she manages to get her hands back.

She makes it as far as ducking around him before he's got a grip on her again, his hand shooting out too fast for her to see and grasping her tightly about the elbow, jerking her backwards so quickly that her bag nearly jostles from her shoulders. "Look, can you just... Can you do something for me too then?" He blurts out, dragging her back towards him; a little unbalanced from the weight of her bag she feels herself wobble slightly, steadied only when he grips both of her elbows.

"What?" She tries to say impatiently, accidentally sounding breathless.

Wally pauses, and in the severity of the silence she feels herself quailing under the intensity of his gaze, cheeks going off as he drops his jaw to look at her seriously. "... Promise me you're going to be safe." He says slowly and clearly, over emphasizing the syllables and making it impossible for her to do anything but understand how important this is to him. "I won't be out there with you, I can't make sure—" For some reason his voice breaks and suddenly he's let go of her entirely, one hand scrubbing at the back of his neck. "Just promise me you won't be an idiot."

 _(It's in her instinct to scowl at him but the way he says the last few words catches her memory— he sounds exactly like she had back in November, when they had gone their separate ways to fight entirely different battles in the blinding snow and she had fought through tooth and nail to find him, frail and alone, in a hospital bed.)_

But it's April now, and the snow has melted— and perhaps the colder part inside her has a bit too. She doesn't promise, like always, but a part of her is brave enough to take a step closer to him, hand reaching out to lace her fingers between his.

Wally stays still when she kisses him, the ruddy curve of her lips fitting neatly into the hollow of his cheek and pressing a last bit of affection into his freckles. Instead of saying anything he sighs, looking almost pained but not bothering to fight her when she takes her elastic off his wrist.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! This one is ridiculously long AGAIN...**

 **Please Read and Review :)**


	16. Muscle, Bone, and Sinews Tangled

**AN: Enjoy the update!**

* * *

 _(Her hand is on the doorknob when she hears Wally sigh again; when she glances at him over her shoulder he's got his back to her, both hands scrubbing angrily at his scalp._

 _She wants very badly to tell him that it isn't him who's the problem, it's her; she wishes there was a way to show someone like Wally, who has only known love and laughter and wholeness, the reason why some wounds don't heal, why she won't ever be quite right. She wishes she could tell him that there's isn't room enough for the feelings he ignites inside her, not when she's surrendered herself to the hands of the Metropolis girl and all the hate that flows through her veins._

 _((... And she won't admit it, but she had thought... Forever is a long time. But she wouldn't have minded some kind of forever with Wally... But it can't be that way. Not for her, at least.))_

 _Instead of answering she turns her back on him, leaving him and all her feelings inside her bedroom.)_

"You listening, Sweetheart?"

She blinks at the pet name, careful to keep her face blank as she turns to glare at Roy. "Yes." She says severely, jaw tight as she glances back at Dick. "Robin was just discussing leadership protocols."

Roy looks disappointed in not catching her inattentiveness, the corners of his mouth drooping slightly as Dick calls their attention back to where he's piloting the Bioship. "Technically we were discussing protocol in the event of my... _Disposal_."

She hears herself let out an impolite snort; her temper is still a little short from her recent fighting with Wally, the anxious buzzing that had been so comforted by his presence now throbbing painfully at her temples. "Disposal? This is supposed to be a simple undercover mission— unless you're planning something a little more _exciting_?"

Dick seems to appreciate her sarcastic tone, smirking as his eyes flicker to hers beneath his sunglasses. "First thing they teach you at the Bat Cave is always be prepared—"

"—I thought that was Boy Scouts—"

"Shut up." She cuts Roy's joking off, still annoyed. "Get to the point, Rob. I'm guessing this is your weird way of telling us that Red and I are supposed to duke it out for second in command—"

She's a little surprised when Garth starts talking over her, speaking up properly for the first time since they boarded the Bioship an hour ago. "And what of me?" He barks out lowly, looking ruffled at being over looked. "Who is to say that I would not be interested in leading?"

"Garth." Dick sighs. "This is your first mission. You aren't trained to function as a part of this Team yet—"

"But if something were to happen, for instance, in the event of your death and—"

"Save it, _Fish Stick_." Roy cuts across him, sneering childishly. "If we're ever in a situation where Rob's dead, I'm betting you've been dead for a week."

* * *

The air in Athens is much warmer than it is in Gotham City; the afternoon they arrive she realizes quickly that her hair doesn't fair well with the humidity, and suddenly she's battling unexpected frizz. They're only on the island an hour or so before Roy scoffs at her, yanking his own ball cap from his head and shoving it down her forehead, trying to hide her unruly blonde locks and stop all the curious glances that keep being fired her way.

They don't find much of anything the first few hours; all their poking around is hindered greatly by the fact that a large portion of the population speaks exclusively Greek. It's odd; the language barrier hadn't been mentioned in the mission briefing, and their first afternoon is spent mostly in frustration, picking through pocket guides of Grecian phrases and searching for web translators to help them communicate. By the time they retreat back to the Bioship for a half chance at a few hours of sleep tempers are on edge both from annoyance at each other and frustration at the dead-end mission Kaldur's sent them on (in an effort, she suspects privately, to ensure more time alone with Tula.)

"Artemis." Garth muses when the two of them are on watch together; she can tell he's not really saying her name as a means of drawing her attention from across the main cabin of the Bioship, more that he's saying it to simply feel the syllables rolling off his tongue.

She doesn't know why but his tone unsettles her, enough for her to twist in her seat and advert her gaze from where she's been glaring out a window, mind preoccupied with Wally. "... What?"

Instead of answering Garth merely looks at her for a moment, not hiding the way his eyes stray to length of thigh her shorts are exposing. "... You are named for a Greek Goddess." He says simply, eyes finally meeting hers.

She bristles, feeling the familiar wrinkle popping up over her nose. "So?"

Garth tilts his head to the side, the same unusual movement Tula's so prone to doing. "It is... Ironic, yes? I thought perhaps Kaldur'ahm assigned you to this mission because you would be useful."

She feel a pang of anger run through her and she very nearly reaches for her backpack; all their weapons are concealed in civilian clothing, and at Dick's insistence even her bow and arrow are hidden, her quiver sewn into a false compartment inside her backpack and bow compressed and neatly shoved into an outside pocket. For one wild moment all she can think of is how badly she wants to whack him across the face with her bow...

Instead she mutters one choice swear in Vietnamese, familiar to her tongue but alien to both their ears in her lack of us, and stomps back to wake Roy for his turn at watch.

* * *

Dick has the decency to wait until Roy is out of the back room before he speaks; she doubts he's really sleeping anyway, more so just lying vacantly on the top bunk of the spare cabin of the Bioship and brooding quietly over the wild goose chase Kaldur's sent them on. She's just settled into the uncomfortable bottom bunk when she hears his mumbling, so quiet that she can hardly hear him over the sound of her body shifting against the starchy sheets.

"You don't like him, do you?"

She hesitates before deciding not to play dumb; rolling onto her side she punches a hollow into the center of her pillow. "Garth? No."

Dick seems to consider this for a moment, a creaking noise telling her that he's shifting onto his back. "Kaldur likes him for the Team though."

The way he says it is slightly off, as if he knows something he's not supposed to. "Well, I don't. He's a rookie, no experience—"

"We were all rookies once, Artemis." Dick cuts her off seriously, and she feels herself scowling in the dark. "... He's supposed to be a pretty good combat sorcerer. Besides, he seems excited— already has his name picked out, _Tempest_ —"

She makes a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. "Whatever. Enthusiasm doesn't mean he'll be good."

"If Kaldur thinks he'll be good for the Team then you have to respect that... You should get to know him."

She rolls her eyes even though he can't see her face. " _No,_ thank you." She grits out between her teeth.

"That's an order, Artemis." He says flatly, the bunk creaking again as he rolls onto his side. "We're going to split up tomorrow: Roy and I are going to go check in at Sandsmark's dig site and see if we can talk with her crew. You and Garth are going to check in at her home, gather some of her DNA in case we need to match it to a body and see if you can find some evidence as to why she might have been taken in the first place."

She feels herself scowl again, curling tighter against her pillow and slightly off put by his words... _Match it to a body_. "...Fine."

* * *

Dick goes quiet not long after that; all she can hear in the darkness is the sound of his breathing accompanied with the occasional creaking of the bunk, signaling that he's awake and thinking but unwilling to say anything else to her, should she actually need some rest.

She feels tired, or at least her body does. After a day of wandering almost aimlessly with little to go on from Kaldur her leg is bothering her again, lines of muscle noticeably twitching beneath the fabric of her shorts. Despite the fatigue and the weariness of her bones she refuses to let herself properly sleep.

 _(It's cold here, lying on the stiff mattress and surrounded by tile and metal and machinery. A little pathetically she thinks of her bed at the Cave, thinks of her plush mattress and her soft blankets and of warm hands running over her sheets, searching for her in the darkness_ — _)_

She stiffens, as if she's actually just felt Wally's arms wrapping around her and yanking her closer; a little stupidly she spasms out of the doze she's fallen into, head jerking round to glance at the emptiness of twin sized bed and blinking the blankness of the back wall into focus.

Even thousands of miles away he's suffocating her, grabbing at her and refusing to let go no matter how hard she struggles to escape. But that's how it's always been with them, another ancient game they never grow tired of playing— but maybe that's a lie, maybe they're both tired now. And maybe she had lied to him too, maybe jumping at the vacant spot on the mission roster had been less about watching Roy and more about running, more about reminding herself who she is without him, more about remembering the cold and the filth and blood stained fingers—

 _(But he bandaged her hands once, remember?)_

 _(Maybe she needs to stop picking at the scabs, let old wounds heal_... _But it isn't that easy, is it? That's what these last few months have proven, that no matter how much she may care about Wally, how happy he may make her... It won't work. She's not programmed to fall in love, she's programmed for hate and hunting and blood thirst, everything the girl from Metropolis excels at and there's no room for Wally, there isn't_ — _)_

Dick lets out one short-sounding snore in his sleep and she catches herself jumping at the noise again, sleep coated eyes looking around blearily in the early morning half light.

* * *

Garth's steps falter, his head automatically turning to look out towards the Sea of Crete. It takes her several seconds to realize he's no longer beside her, her feet slowing at as she turns to look back at him. "… You miss home?"

She not sure why she asks him this, why these are the first proper words she's uttered to him since he had annoyed her so badly on the Bioship— for some reason his stature looks oddly familiar: the unconscious nature of his stare, the way the wind catches a stray piece of onyx hair in the corner of his mouth, the stiffness in his shoulders...

Garth looks round at her as another tourist jostles past him; the streets here are crowded with people, overwhelmingly saturated with the scent of salt and sweat. "… Am I that easy to read?" He asks instead of answering, looking at her coyly.

She supposes she can understand Tula's attraction to him: if she hadn't known Garth, had simply walked past him on the street... Maybe she would have considered him attractive, could have spared a glance at the sharp line of his jaw, the strange violet of his eyes. Still, something in his tone, something in the roundness of his teeth as he grins at her... It doesn't sit quite right.

When she does little more than raise a brow dryly at him he chuckles, looking politely amused at the way she tenses when he steps closer. "And what say you, Artemis— do you miss home?"

 _(And when he says it she can't help but bite her tongue_ — _except she's not seeing the little Gotham apartment, not seeing her bedroom at the Cave. Without knowing why she imagines the smell of walnuts, feels ginger hair in between her fingers and sees the view of the ocean out of their window_ —

 _Stop it.)_

"No." She grits out between her teeth, mentally forcing anything reminding her of Wally to the back of her mind.

Garth chuckles at the expression on her face; he doesn't seem to understand that he's being tested, being watched carefully to see if he would be a good fit for the Team... Instead of maintaining an almost unnatural strictness like the rest of them he's been acting as if they're on vacation, lingering at odd spots and tottering along with tourists. Still, she had promised Dick that she would make an effort...

She clenches her hands into fists and reminds herself to stop glaring; they're being jostled by the crowd again, a few locals clicking their tongues impatiently at the fact that they've been still for almost a minute now. "... Kal always goes to the beach when he misses home." She says plainly, gesturing with her head for him to keep walking. "He likes looking at the water."

He seems to get the message and catches up to her after only a few paces. "Ah yes. Kaldur'ahm has been away from Atlan—"

"Garth." She cuts him off before he can say too much.

"Right. Apologies." He mutters quickly, watching as she digs her phone out of her shorts pocket, checking that they're still on course towards the GPS marker Dick had placed for them to find.

"... He has been away from home much longer than I have." Garth says after a moment, continuing their conversation and not bothered by her shushing. "… But I suppose it has certain benefits. You two are... _Close_ , yes?"

She's hardly listening, paying more attention to the map on the tiny screen of her phone. "Sure." She mutters distractedly, tilting the screen so he can see it too. "Close, right. Just like we're getting close now— only a few blocks to go."

Garth looks at her quizzically for a whole five seconds before something clicks, his head nodding enthusiastically as if he's only suddenly remembered what their purpose is. "Of course."

As he says it his breath rustles a stray piece of frizzing hair falling out from beneath Roy's ball cap, smelling so strongly of mint and water reeds that she wrinkles her nose, snapping her phone shut.

* * *

Dr. Sandsmark's house is small by American standards; for a long moment her and Garth simply stare and the crumbling white stone and red shutters, trying to work up the nerve to slip past the pointed wired gate and various palms and ferns almost hiding the front door from view. This street is hardly as bustling as the last but there are still plenty of people around them, taking notice of their moment of hesitation. Nudging him hard in the back, she forces him to go first.

Garth looks wary as she pulls the hinge on the gate, forcing the ancient black metal to squeak loudly into opening. "... I do not understand." He says stiffly, one hand reaching out to halt her progress, his fingers cool to the touch against her wrist. "We have found her home. We are finished here, yes? Now we return and report to Robin?"

It takes a lot of effort not to roll her eyes at him; instead of answering she brushes past his hand, continuing on past the gate. "Come on." She sighs. She makes it no more than a pace away when she senses the shift in his muscles, and almost predictably he reaches out to make a grab at her.

But she's used to much warmer, faster hands; she jerks easily out of his grip, hissing under her breath when she feels nails breaking the skin of her bare bicep, scratching reddened lines that disappear under the sleeve of her tee shirt. "What's your problem?" She almost snarls out, hand flying automatically to cover the marks he's left on her arm.

"I was told we were simply locating her home." He says lowly, looking untroubled by both the injury and her reaction to it. "Or at least that is what your Robin said. Instead you are planning to— to break and enter?"

Their arguing is attracting the attention of a neighbor watering his plants across the street, eyes straying at their unusual dialect and sending a clumsy stream of water over a too-green palm; deciding it's not worth cussing Garth out over the scratches she glares at him, ignoring his protests as she advances further up the Doctor's front walk. "Yeah, well. One thing you learn about Robin— he never tells you the full story."

She's not surprised to find the front door locked when she fiddles with the knob, the scandalized muttering behind her signaling that Garth is still lingering at the gate. It had taken less time than expected to find the Doctor's house; she had figured that the excursion would take several hours of them navigating unfamiliar streets, and she had guessed they'd be operating under the cover of dusk, or even nightfall, not in the nakedness of the afternoon... Releasing the door handle she sighs and with a sense of defeat she drops her gaze to her sneakers, trying her best to ignore the buzzing about her temples and the stinging of both the scratches on her arm and failure...

... She's standing on a welcome mat.

 _(And suddenly she's on Wally's front porch and her mind is whirring and getting lost in the gloominess of the clouds outside_ — _but there's a lump on the mat and before she even has time to consider if it's wrong the keys he's always losing are in her hands and unlocking his door...)_

She must have made a sudden movement or noise because she registers the abrupt break-off in Garth's mumbling, watching in interest as she dives down to the welcome mat, flipping it over. "What is it?" She hears him ask, not bothering to answer as she stares with a pang of disappointment at the blank stretch of front stoop beneath it. She can sense the confused look he sends her as she gets back to her feet, now looking around for logical places to hide a spare key— she knows the Doctor is American, and the hiding of a spare key is so remarkably Western, so stupidly middle class and trusting...

Garth comes up beside her just as she finishes checking the top of the door frame, still looking nonplussed as she examines the underside of a flower pot beside the door. "Your cheeks are flushed. Are you feeling well?"

Ignoring him again she spots it: the waist high sprouting of a tiny linden tree and beneath it an obviously manufactured stone, painted into the image of a curled up swan so noticeable that it can't be meant for anything else; dodging around Garth she runs to it, bending at the beginning of the flower bed and flipping it over so savagely that she cakes reddened dirt beneath her finger nails.

"You American girls are quite odd." Garth muses dryly, not looking impressed when she holds up the key ring to show him.

* * *

The house is just as small on the inside as it appears on the outside. "Wait by the door." She tells Garth quietly, advancing a few paces forward and reaching out a hand when her hip accidentally knocks against a coat rack to steady the jostled furniture.

The tiny home is filled to the brim with an odd assortment of mismatched furniture and what she supposes must be valuables, reminding her instantly of the second-hand shops her mother used to be so fond of when she was younger. The Doctor's home is so stuffed that it's next to impossible to move without knocking into something—all around her there are plush couches, cushions, and over stuffed pillows, old mahogany coffee tables with rings etched into their surfaces from coffee cups, book shelves overfilled with precariously stacked books and glass vials of soil samples. It looks simultaneously too lived in yet oddly untouched, as if somewhere underneath the light layer of abandonment there's a certain amount of mess that's supposed to be there, supposed to be gently coating the thrumming of the Doctor's existence...

Garth watches her tip toe across the threshold, still looking nervous at their being there. "Is there anything specific you are looking for?" He asks suspiciously, as if he's still half-convinced that their entering the Doctor's house is anything other than strictly necessary. Out of the corner of her eye can see him leaning against the banister of the staircase by the front door, elbow popped up almost arrogantly. "Or are you simply doing this for the thrill?"

She sends him a glare over her shoulder, picking her way beyond the living room and towards the kitchen. "Patience, Rookie." She snorts. "We never do anything without a reason— _don't touch anything_." She adds, glancing back at him just as he reaches for a disregarded book.

"You do not trust me to be careful?"

"No, I don't." She mumbles a little rudely. "... No offense, Garth, but you don't have a clue what you're looking for." She trails off, muttering more to herself than him. "... The Doctor's single and late thirties, no family, no friends outside of the dig site... And if we're believing Red then she's a bit off her rocker too..." She pauses, retreating from the kitchen and frowning in the doorway. "She must have stumbled onto something big in her research... Can't be a ransom, there's nobody out there who would want to save her."

Garth pays her no mind; when she closes her eyes to indulge the troubled buzzing at her temples she can hear him riffling through the pages of the book she's just told him not to touch. "It sounds like one of your ridiculous surface world stories." He scoffs. "Princesses being kidnapped in the night, knights on their horses..."

It's a bit of an odd train of thought, and when she glances up to question him she realizes that he's picked up a children's book; it strikes her as a bit of a strange thing for the Doctor to have sitting on a shelf in her living room, but she supposes there's plenty of evidence of Sandsmark's pack-rack tendencies. "Whatever." She mutters, wincing and trying to ignore the pounding at the back of her head.. "I told you not to touch anything."

For once he listens, sending her scowl before placing the book back on the shelf. "I could be of assistance." He says defensively, brows furrowing when she nudges an unknown door open with the corner of her sneaker, peering into a bathroom. "Kaldur did send me along for a reason."

"Kal sent you along because he's testing you. Here's the part where we see if you can obey orders."

Garth keeps muttering angrily at her but she's hardly listening, eyes now pursuing closed drawers and the granite counter of the sink; years of thievery has taught her not to move anything around, not to make the place look as if it's been burgled—most importantly, to try to only touch the things she's going to take, should she be caught… Instinctively her eyes pause on a toothbrush holder, pulling it into focus.

There are two toothbrushes on the Doctor's counter.

"Are you finished?" Garth calls for her impatiently when she stops responding to his jabbering.

"Shut up, Fish Stick." She sneers, borrowing Red Arrow's pet name and not sparing him a glance as she keeps staring at the brushes, wondering what to do. She read the mission debriefing on the ride over... Kaldur hadn't including any information that had hinted at there being another person living here. And yet she's staring at two toothbrushes, one bright green and the other brick red, the ends of both their bristles fraying and beginning to look well used.

 _Kaldur wouldn't forget to tell them something as important as another person living in the Doctor's home._

 _He wouldn't send them in unprepared to be caught; he's too cautious for that. And yet..._

Garth's back to muttering at her but at least he's still hovering nervously by the door and sparing her the questions her actions will no doubt inspire; reaching across the toilet to fumble with the toilet paper roll she takes a generous wad of tissue in her hand, careful to coat her finger tips before she touches anything.

She feels ridiculous as she uses the toilet paper laden hand to open drawers and prowl through cabinets; there's nothing much unusual about anything, everything she would expect of an older woman littering the cabinets: dental floss, expired prescriptions, several hair brushes and old crumpled eye shadow palettes. No other indications of a boyfriend, a roommate, any other adult human being occupying the space but... She hesitates, pulling back her toilet paper laden hand from the inside of a cabinet before seizing both the toothbrushes and wrapping them securely in the toilet paper.

"Is this what all your missions are like?" Garth drawls, sounding bored as she emerges from the bathroom, stashing the brushes in the smallest compartment of her backpack before replacing it on her shoulders. "Kaldur'ahm had led me to believe that there was more... _excitement,_ in this kind of life. For instance, he told me of your recent excursion into Metropolis—"

Her steps towards him falter slightly, and without really knowing why she can feel the warbled muscle in her leg jumping at the memory— and she shouldn't be bothered by this, this is old news, this happened months ago— _and yet suddenly all she smells is blood soaked snow—_

 _(—and Wally's making that choking noise in the back of his throat again and there's blood bubbling in the corner of his mouth and he's drowning, drowning, drowning and she's dying too—)_

She swallows down the burning sensation on the back of her tongue, avoiding his eyes as she glances towards the stairway. "Yeah, well... Be careful what you wish for." She doesn't notice that she's cut off whatever enthusiastic babbling is firing out of his mouth, still too new to the Team to understand that there's a reason they don't talk about Metropolis, too fresh to read the deadened look folding itself in the corners of her eyes; forcing herself to shove aside the memory she screws her eyes shut for a moment, trying to focus only on the mission and the meaning she needs to find in the two toothbrushes. "... Wait here and be my look out. I'll do a quick sweep of the second floor."

Garth glares at her when she stomps back to the front of the house, rounding the banister to climb the stairs and almost desperate to get away from him; she can smell the familiar salty smell all Atlanteans carry with them as he catches up, sandals catching on her heel as he comes up behind her. "You are not the leader of this squad." He scoffs. "Robin is."

"Well," she sighs, the buzzing and pounding against her skull doubling, "when Robin's not around, I'm in charge."

Garth reaches up a little too eagerly behind her, one of his hands catching hers on the banister. "If I am remembering correctly that responsibility was to be shared by both you and Red Arrow."

"If you have a problem with it you can talk to Kal when we get back." She huffs distractedly as she flinches out of his touch, glancing around as they emerge onto the second floor. It's just as crowded as the one below, the tiny landing filled with potted ferns and more book shelves, several closed doors leading to what she can only assume to be bathrooms or closets and maybe a bedroom— or two? "Go back downstairs, Garth, _I mean it_ —"

She's just turned towards the door opposite when she spots an open door at the back end of the hall—she can see bookshelves and another ancient and battered looking desk, can see the frayed edges of an under watered plant, and without finishing her sentence she feels her feet thundering against the creaking floorboards towards it.

It's a study, quite a well-used one at that; she can see papers scattered along the desk, can see a light on a laptop computer still blinking, a green light on the bottom signaling that it's fully charged and no doubt almost fried from being plugged in so long—it has to be Sandsmark's office, has to be the only place in the house, if any, where the Doctor would keep her work.

" _Kal_." Garth repeats after a moment, not looking nearly as intrigued as she is by the office as he hovers around the door frame.

"What?" She says back vaguely, her mind too busy racing and thundering around the office, trying to quickly and efficiently scan every bookshelf for information.

Garth doesn't immediately reply, instead surveying her almost leisurely as he shifts his weight, leaning cockily against the wall and apparently no longer troubled over their trespassing. "You called him "Kal." It is just odd to me… But I suppose, as you said, you are close."

"What?" She repeats jerkily, forcing her attention to the scattered papers on the desk and glancing up to look quizzically at his smirking. "Yeah—Yeah, we're friends." She mutters, already turning back to the Doctor's desk. "Don't touch anything, remember?" She scolds as an after thought.

He sighs but obeys her, shifting his weight from foot to foot again before propelling himself fully upright, walking at a measured pace towards her. Her hands are still busy with the papers, trying not to disturb them too much from their original position as she barely picks at corners, wondering if they're worth taking. "He always spoke most highly of you." He says lowly, coming round to stand behind the desk with her as she tugs the hem of her shirt over her hand, reaching for the knob of a drawer to open it.

"… You have joined with him, yes?"

He asks her the question just as she starts tugging the drawer free of the mahogany frame, intending to pull it out gently so as not to disturb its contents; it takes a half second for her to register his meaning and the almost lecherous tone of his words, and suddenly before she can even restrain her muscles her hand is yanking the knob violently in her surprise, the whole of the drawer sliding out of its compartment and smashing onto the floor, spilling its contents with an ear splitting loudness.

"I—What?" She stutters, feeling herself redden as she glares up at him, quickly growing furious at the half-amused look on his face. "What did you just— _Oh my God_ — Fuck." She gasps out, completely flustered at the mess she's made, papers fluttering and spare pens clattering around at her feet.

Garth smirks when she blushes and quickly crouches down to try to retrieve the contents of the drawer, kneeling in front of him. "I have never made a surface woman blush before." He grins, apparently missing the annoyed wrinkling of her nose. "The crimson color is quite pretty on you."

"What are you—" She snarls disbelievingly, so beyond horrified and disgusted at his words that for a moment she stops trying to fix her mess and simply hides her face in her hands, finding it suddenly very difficult not to punch him. "Garth. Stop talking right now or I swear to God—" She doesn't know how she wants to finish that sentence, and rather than struggle to try to find something terrifying enough to threaten him with she decides to swallow her mortification; avoiding the way he's still looking down at her she decides to throw delicacy aside, shoveling the drawer's contents back inside and ignoring his raised brows.

He watches her until she finishes with the drawers contents, thigh aching at how her muscles are stretched over her knees. "Forgive the question." Garth says smoothly, crouching beside her but not moving to help with the mess his created. "I assumed… Apologies. I forget you surface worlders are less open about these matters."

Like an idiot she blushes again. "Uh."

There's a brief pause, and to give herself something to do with her hands other than hide behind them she straightens a few of the papers she's stacked precariously; they aren't quite sitting flat in the drawer and upon closer examination she realizes that the only thing not disturbed by her dropping the drawer is a small, leather bound book. She's just managed to extract it and place it more neatly on top of the papers when Garth places a hand on the cover, cool skin encasing hers and stopping her from moving all together. "… Apologies again." He says quietly, and to her embarrassment he places another hand about her elbow, helping her up as if she's incapable herself. "It is only… You are a beautiful woman, Artemis. I could not help but imagine..." He pauses, letting out a dry chuckle. "For everything else he may seem, Kaldur'ahm is still a man. And he does have eyes that... _Wander_."

"Oh." She says a little weakly.

There's a long moment where he looks her hard in the face, eyes raking over her the way Wally's so often have, tracing her features and the sloping angles of her face— except it doesn't feel like it had felt with Wally. She doesn't feel as if she's being caressed, memorized... Instead it reminds her of grubby hands on the subway, or the mischievous fingers of school boys reaching out to ruffle her skirt in the hallways... "It's fine. Whatever." She mutters, not meaning it but not knowing if it would be considered appropriate by League terms to punch him square in the jaw for being so presumptuous and insulting; rather than risk leaving it her to own judgment she bends down, retrieving the drawer and putting it back in its place.

She gets as far as fitting it back in the mahogany sliders when he speaks again, voice soft. "... Tula and Kaldur have joined." He murmurs quietly; she's not quite sure if she imagines the half step he takes closer to her, her eyes glaring hard at the leather bound book and wishing he would stop talking. "It happened when they were quite young… I remember hearing about it, Kaldur'ahm was pleased, thrilled by first love…"

She feels herself blushing a deep crimson, aware that her eyes are bugging out of her head with discomfort as she extracts the tiny book from the drawer, pretending to be more interested in it than she is. "… Right." She mutters, clearing her throat.

She makes as if to move away, immediately stopped when his hand flies out again, tightening its grip on her elbow. She doesn't know why but suddenly she's almost afraid of him, afraid of the way his jaw is tilted downward and his violet eyes are surveying her through over-long, black lashes. "I know you think I am a fool, Artemis. But I understand as well as you do why Kaldur'ahm invited Tula here. And I understand just as well why he is displeased by my presence, and why he sent me here under the guise of testing my talents. He is one of my greatest friends. You do not become close with a man without knowing how his mind works..."

To her annoyance Garth actually plucks the book out of her hands and disregards it with a careless toss onto the surface of the desk, scattering the Doctor's carefully organized papers and nudging a button on her keyboard, forcing the screen of the laptop to light up; before she can stop him with an annoyed quip or even take a step back he's grasping at her empty fingers, keeping her still. "... But of course, you know that as well as I do. Perhaps you even understand what I am thinking now—"

She follows his train of thought just as he takes a step closer, ducking his head; a little jerkily she snatches her hands out of his, moving back so quickly that she bumps her hip painfully against the mahogany desk, cheeks reddening with anger. "W-what? Garth!" She snarls, blushing.

For some reason he smiles, as if the way she backs up several paces in fright and anger is somehow endearing. "You are blushing again."

"Oh my god—" She yelps, and without thinking she starts fumbling with the zipper of her backpack, trying to get hold of something, anything sharp, to put between them. "I-I'm with Wally! _We're in the middle of the mission!_ "

To her surprised Garth isn't off put but her reaction, smirking at her as the realization of the inaccessibility of her arrows is realized; as if anticipating her lunging around him he steps in front of her, boxing her against the edge of the Doctor's desk. "You are being naive, Artemis." He says, voice low as he sneers at her. "My heart belongs to Tula. But if Kaldur is sampling my prize, perhaps I should sample his—"

"I'm not his _prize_! I haven't even slept with him!" She snarls out angrily, reaching up to shove him off her; she's out of practice, anxious at his company and from his talking of Metropolis, and as easily as she had with Kaldur a few days ago he grabs painfully at her wrist, hardly wincing as her bare fist collides clumsily against the side of his neck— she hears herself cry out when he throws her arm off of him, slamming it into the keyboard, her fingers spasming and catching on wires, yanking them from the laptop. " _Stop it,_ Garth—" She shrieks, flinching when he laughs at her.

She nearly jumps when she hears a high pitched voice cry from the door way, firing out one syllable of a language she can't understand; they haven't been stealthy, have been the complete opposite of quiet, and now they've been cornered— Garth's just as distracted by the noise as she is, and in the half second or two his attention is diverted she manages to throw him off of her, taking a bit too much pleasure in the way he stumbles backwards, back colliding with the edge of a book shelf.

— _And if they're about to die right now she's going to go down fighting, going to drag as many goons with her as she can and above all she won't do it with the taste of Garth's salt slicked saliva still on her tongue_ —

 _(because she had died once, and if she had to pick a way to die again it would be tasting walnuts and buttery popcorn and the unknown sweet smell always in the back of Wally's throat_ —)

She's almost too busy planning to die to turn her attention to the door way, and when she finally does she feels herself blanch.

Sandsmark has a daughter.

 _And suddenly everything she's seen in the Doctor's house makes so much yet so little sense_ — _Sandsmark has a child. Which means the daughter should have a father... Where's the father?_

 _(And without meaning to she's suddenly reminded disgustingly of her own childhood; reminded of the loneliness and the fear and the ever constant idea that she was going to have to make her own way in the world. And she can't help but remember the darkness of her bedroom in the night and how afraid she was, remember starving for food and attention and for someone to love her, remembers how the hallways stank with abandonment and rejection and_ —)

Or at least she has to be Sandsmark's daughter; the girl has to be ten, maybe eleven—either way she's tiny, hardly in her teen years and so little of a threat that she instantly feels all her muscles relax, the defensive position she's adopted slacking and raised fists falling back to her side. She's staring at them, wide eyed and angry from the doorway, messy blond hair like her mother's pushed back over her shoulders with a headband.

The overlarge blue eyes stare fixedly at them both for a moment in shock before something in her expression changes, the tiny features seeming to set into something she can only think of as determination. As if the little girl has been trained for this sort of thing, as if coming home from school or wherever the hell she's been she's used to finding strangers in her home; suddenly scowling at either of them she raises her fists, tiny tongue smacking a pink bubble of gum over her lips before she speaks in a language Artemis can't understand.

She sends Garth a warning look before she quickly glances back at the little girl in front of them, trying to stretch her mouth into a welcoming smile. She's never been much good with kids, but she supposes she'll have to try. "Hi there." She says as warmly as she can. "What's your name?"

The little girl stares at her long after she finishes speaking, repeating herself in her unknown language after a moment.

"Oh—" She pauses, frowning. "Uh—We're with the Justice League." She says slowly and loudly, the fake smile she's wearing faltering when the little girl's face remains suspicious, no trace of recognition on her face. "This is... Tempest. And I'm Artemis."

Almost immediately the girl's platinum brows shoot up and wrinkle her forehead. "Artemis?" She repeats.

"I—Yeah." She says stupidly, and for a strange half second she wonders if her mantle has somehow become well known, universal, like _Robin_ or _Kid Flash_ or even _Aqualad_ ; this odd hope is immediately dimmed when the little girl takes a step forward, her arms raising and framing themselves around an invisible bow.

"Artemis."

The girl mimes the firing of an arrow and she realizes that this little girl— _this stupid little girl, who's been alone with nobody to take care of her for only a few days yet already looks so distinctly uncared for, so much so that it takes her a moment to swallow down the bile rising in her throat when she sees dried shampoo on her ears and hair unbrushed_ — actually thinks she's stumbled upon a Grecian goddess in her mother's study; for a half second she almost snorts. "Uh, not quite." She hears herself chuckle, memory picking up as she turns to Garth. "Kaldur told me once—Atlantean is loosely based on Greek right?"

"Not purely Greek." He says stubbornly. "It is also highly influenced by Latin and—"

"But you can figure out what she's saying?" She cuts him off quickly, eyes narrowing and trying to tell him without speaking how important this is. "You can tell her who we are? That we don't mean any harm—"

She jerks when she feels a hand tugging at the bottom of her frizzy pony tail, the little girl having advanced further into the bedroom and now touching her curiously, as if expecting her to burst into sparkles or show her magic of some sort. "Please, Garth." She says between her teeth, trying to smile and hating that after everything she's being forced to beg for his help. " _Ask her what her name is._ "

Garth holds her gaze before he sighs, as if not understanding why they don't simply turn on their heels and run; he doesn't yet realize how delicate the situation they're in actually is, how lightly they have to tread to make sure this doesn't spiral out of control— she knows better than he does how easily that can happen. She takes a step back from the little girl just as Garth opens his mouth, voicing loudly and clearly something she doesn't understand.

The girl's head whips to Garth the second he speaks, and she can tell immediately that whatever he's saying isn't quite right; the girl's brows are furrowing and she's looking puzzled, as if she's only catching a few words that he's saying. "I am telling her that we mean no harm." He relays to her as she slips her backpack off her shoulders.

The little girl's eyes flickers back to her just as she's made a grab from the little leather bound book that had so caught her eye before, and hurriedly she tries to look casual, lifting it up from its place on the desk and putting it back almost immediately; she can tell by the notice of the girl's gaze that it's of some importance, but she'll have to be careful with how she takes it. "Tell her that we're from the Justice League—"

"I do not think that is wise, she seems quite infatuated with the idea that you are the goddess you are named for—"

"I'm not lying to a kid. Follow orders."

Garth scowls and then relays her message, and in the moment the girl is distracted she shoves a few more loose papers into her bag, deliberately keeping her distance from the important looking leather bound book so not as to arise too much notice, glancing up when she hears the little girl respond with words she understands. "Wonder Woman." She bursts out, glancing between them excitedly and catching her zipping up her bag and holding it loosely by the straps.

"Yes, Wonder Woman." She smiles, not missing the way the girl's eyes narrow. "Ask her what her name is."

She hears Garth fire out the question but this time the girl doesn't look back towards him, her eyes holding her own as her hand strays towards the leather bound book again, her instinct telling her that she should ask before she takes it. "Her name is Cassandra. She prefers Cassie." Garth tells her. "… She is wondering why we are stealing her from her mother." He add almost as an afterthought.

She winces when Garth takes the book off the desk, waving it impatiently at the little girl and adopting a lecture type tone. "What are you saying?" She asks quickly, noticing the way Cassie blushes angrily.

"I am telling her that she should be grateful we are here, that we will be finding her mother for her—"

"You can't just leak out details of the mission—"

Instead of heeding her he continues to talk rather meanly in his gruff, half-mangled Atlantean; she's not sure what he's saying but at once Cassie frowns, shaking her head and babbling away angrily in Greek and trying to take the book back. She wants to strangle Garth when he lifts the book up high out of the little girl's reach—this is wrong, all wrong, they should have bailed the second they were caught—Cassie's voice increasing in pitch, cheeks reddening further.

"Garth." She says severely, glaring at him and forgetting not to use his real name. "It's not worth it—"

Garth chuckles out something mean sounding, waving the book high above his head. "What are you afraid of? She is a little girl, they are the weaker sex here as well, yes—?"

As if she was waiting for it Cassie snarls, feet kicking up from the floor boards so hard that they splinter the wood, fist extended high above her head; she hears the sound of a childlike battle cry, hears the sound of knuckles colliding with Garth's nose and watches the little book go soaring out of his hands in his shock.

It doesn't matter what else is going on—for a moment, all she can focus on is the little girl smoldering with rage, turning her angry eyes onto her as Garth crumbles to the floor, her feet a clean foot off the ground.

Cassie is flying.

" _Holy shit._ " She hears herself say as the girl in front of her lands too lightly against the hardwood.

* * *

Out of sight she can hear Garth groan, the sound of his impact still echoing in her ears. "W-what the fuck..." She mutters to herself, eyes bugging in shock. Accusingly Cassie turns towards her, her tiny body now much more threatening as she utters something angry and intelligible at her. "Garth?" She asks weakly, not surprised when she doesn't hear a response.

"I—" She begins, staring at Cassie with widened eyes. She's not equipped to talk down a hurricane of a person, but her instinct is telling her that it's wrong to keep quiet, wrong to let Cassie come to her own assumptions about who they are and what their purpose here is—besides, she doesn't much like the idea of attacking a child, no matter how powerful and dangerous that child may be. "You shouldn't hit people." She sounds ridiculous, trying to adopt an almost maternal tone. "Especially people who are associated with the Justice League."

Her words mean nothing to Cassie, her tiny fists still clenching and cheeks still reddened; when she takes a step forward she acts without thinking, hand fumbling with her bow to extract it from an outside pocket of her bag. It's borderline useless without her arrows, which despite Dick's insistence at their placement have proven impossible to get to quickly; still, in light of Garth's behavior and Cassie's shocking strength it's comforting to snap it into place and hold in front of herself defensively, her palm sweating and waiting to see what will happen.

It's a small movement, so tiny she's not sure she even sees it; there's a moment where Cassie's teeth pause in her grinding, brows shooting up and scrunching the skin between her eyes and her headband. "… _Artemis_." She says.

"Yeah." She nods, eyes drifting to Garth as he hears him start shifting. "I'm Artemis." She pauses, convincing herself that it isn't really a lie and glancing down when Cassie's ankles flex against the splintered flooring, the tiny body propelling a few inches off the ground to better look her in the eye. "The Goddess of the Hunt." It takes a lot of effort to maintain eye contact and not glance back behind her where she thinks the little book fell.

"A-Amazon." Cassie stutters out after a second, squinting at her.

"No, I'm not an Amazon." She says in the same soothing tone, pausing to better look at her. "... Y-you know Wonder Woman? Are you… Related to her?" She asks, gesturing pointedly at the gentle bobbing Cassie's feet are making against the floor in her weightlessness; as if suddenly self-conscious the girl lowers herself back to the hardwood.

Garth decides to take this moment to emerge from behind the desk, blood dripping down his nostrils as he claws his way up the mahogany, looking stunned. Cassie seems suddenly much calmer, her eyes fixed on her hungrily and taking in the pose she's still holding with her bow. "… Garth, tell her you're an idiot." She says quietly. "Tell her you're not from here, that you're from Atlantis and don't understand our customs."

She doesn't miss the scowl that crosses his bloody features but he seems to have learned his lesson, voice sounding muffled through his broken nose as he speaks. She clearly hears the word "Atlantis" when he says it, and registers Cassie's interest when her brows raise again, her mouth jabbering something back that she doesn't understand.

"Atlantis." She repeats, forcing Cassie's attention back to her and compressing her bow with a snap of her wrist. It takes only a few careful steps across the room before she reaches Garth, jerking him up rather gruffly and ignoring the way he leans too heavily on her, her hands fumbling with deliberately high neck of his tee shirt until it's pulled down, revealing his gills. "He's from Atlantis. Under the water?"

Cassie frowns but no longer looks angry when she releases Garth roughly, leaving him to his own devices for a moment as he struggles to cope with the blood still gushing from his nose. "Tell her we need to borrow some of her mother's things to find her. Make it very clear that we're going to bring both them, and her mother, back."

She listens carefully as Garth speaks, looking away from the conversation for the sake of finding the little leather bound journal that's been marked as so important; despite not understanding she can tell that he's being very careful about how he words things, can feel eyes on her back as she grabs the book from where's it's been half wedged behind a book shelf.

She's just straightened when Cassie says her name again; she turns back to her she sees the fright on her face, the shred of hope that her mother is being looked for, that she's going to be okay. "Artemis?" She repeats, looking at her with wide eyes, glancing down to where she's clutching the diary.

"… That's right." She says, fumbling with the zipper on her bag; it takes her a second to find the pocket that's hidden in there, to find the stash of pointed arrows she's been saving in case something goes wrong. Out of the corner of her eye she can see a blood smeared Garth finally being useful and quietly extracting the laptop from the Doctor's desk. She tries her hardest not to feel as if they're doing something wrong.

"I'm Artemis." She says clearly, offering the little girl her arrow as a truth she can't offer her in words.

 _(... Souvenir...)_

* * *

"So… A ten year old girl broke Garth's nose?"

She can't stop the smirk that promptly erupts on the borders of her lips, glancing in the side mirror and trying not to be too gleeful when she sees the Atlantean in question gingerly pinching the bridge of his bleeding nose. "She sure did." She says as evenly as she can.

Garth's scowl deepens when Robin lets out a chortle of impish laughter from the backseat, and despite herself she glances at Roy; it's a little odd, seeing a thin smile fighting to emerge over the tightly clenched knuckles flexing around the steering wheel. "And what? You just let her?" He snorts, taking his eyes off the road stretching in front of their rented Jeep to send her a wry look. "Doesn't say much about our Team if some untrained kid can get the better of two of its members."

"I wouldn't call it getting the better of either of us." She counters. "Garth had it coming and I didn't see a sense in cheating him out of a valuable learning experience."

Robin lets out another loud sounding cackle when the Atlantean glowers at her, rapidly bruising eyes narrowing at her in the side mirror. "If this is what you surface worlders call learning then I look forward to returning to Atlantis." He sniffs.

She catches herself exchanging another grin with Roy and promptly stops, feeling odd strange about being so friendly. "… Teasing aside, this kid was… Well, she wasn't just some _kid_. Speaking of which, what's the ETA on members of the Justice League?"

Automatically she glances over her left shoulder, twisting in the passenger seat and looking expectantly at Robin, watching him fuss with the pocket of his denim civvies and extract his cellphone. "… Batman is rendezvousing with local child protective services as we speak and making arrangements. Nice going on that one, by the way." He adds, glancing up, accusing eyes barely hidden behind sunglasses. "This was supposed to be a stealth mission. Bats isn't happy that we have a witness."

In answer she goes back to sitting straight in her seat and moodily re-adjusts her seat belt so it better settles between her breasts. "Whatever else she may be she's still a kid, Rob." She says icily. "As far as I can tell she's been living on her own since her mother vanished, and that was over a week ago. Don't tell me it would have been better to _abandon_ her."

An awkward silence falls in the Jeep, and surprisingly it's Red who reads it correctly, his head turning ever so slightly towards her questioningly. She decides to ignore whatever he's asking, whatever it is about her own abandonment that Jade may have told him, and in response his knuckles tighten on the wheel.

"But you got something, right?" Dick presses, leaning forward and sidestepping the awkward pause, his hand pressing against her shoulder. "Anything that will give us a clue about what she was working on? Why she would have been taken?"

"Obviously." She grabs her bag off the floor of the car and throws it a little roughly over her shoulder, smirking when she hears the rush of breath leaving his lungs that signals her hitting his diaphragm. "A few papers, her laptop—Cassie seemed hell-bent on protecting her mother's diary and we got that too, it's the little black book on top."

"Perfect, hopefully—"

"That car is following us." Garth pipes up, leaning forward and sticking his head between the gap in the two front seats, frowning when she jerks back from his closeness. "The black one? It has been behind us for quite some time—"

All three of them glance out the back window, Roy's eyes flickering up to the rear view; she hadn't been paying their surroundings enough mind, a rookie mistake, head still throbbing with a mixture of anxiousness and adrenaline—it's a black sedan, the same four door that's been behind them since they left the city…

"… Perhaps it is a coincidence." Garth continues, reading their suddenly stiff silence incorrectly, going back to sitting normally in his seat, tilting his head back to resume the pinching of his nose. "This is the main highway out of the city, yes?"

"Could be." Robin says carefully, keeping his voice deliberately even in a way that tells her his mind is racing. "But that's an American model. Be pretty uncommon around—and look at the tinting on the windows."

She feels the bottom of her backpack colliding with her shoulder, the edge of the stolen laptop inside it digging painfully into her shoulders. "Priority Alpha is getting back to the Bioship and getting the intel back to the Cave." Dick tells them all, pulling up the map application on his phone and suddenly acting ten times older than he really is. "Bioship is eight miles away… We're going to try to lose them, but if we can't we have to be ready for a fight. Roy, a right when you're ready—there's a rest stop five miles from here, and if we have to we let them take us we do it there, in the woods with more cover. Worst case scenario no civilians get hurt, no cops are called, and the Bioship will be within an easy range— Priority is protecting the intel. Artemis, keep the backpack on, if you have to break away from us and get to the Bioship on foot—"

It's painfully obvious when Roy jerks the wheel, foot audibly pressing against the floor and propelling them at a break neck speeds through highway traffic. For the first time in her life she's thankful for Garth, and thankful for his never ending need to ask questions and for the way hearing talking oddly calms her. "And what of you? Did you discover anything at the dig site that would warrant their following us?"

"Nothing." Roy grits out, wincing when the tires squeak.

When he doesn't go on Robin fills in the gaps. "Nobody in her crew knows where she went, nobody knows why she would have been taken; we didn't press them too much, they seemed scared, they had a job to do, and we could still barely communicate—" Robin trails off when he glances out the back window again, sunglasses nearly slipping down his nose when the black sedan behind them copies the same awkward crossing they've just done across the four lanes of traffic. "I don't know why Kaldur didn't mention anything about the language barrier, if I had known I would have packed tech that could have prepared us for that—"

"Doesn't matter." Roy cuts him off, teeth gritting as they all watch the black car getting closer. "We're in it now. And whatever it is... It's coming."

Roy's not even finished with his cryptic warning before the screeching of tires drowns him out; as if knowing what they're about to do or what they're planning the black sedan following them squeals its way across several lanes of traffic, cutting off several other drivers and creating a loud chorus of honks as its tires wail behind them. Suddenly the little Jeep feels crowded, as if there isn't enough air inside it, not when so many civilian eyes are being drawn to them and following the interesting display of speed and sound.

"I think we can forget about losing them." Roy grits out, biceps popping through the material of his tee shirt as he glances wildly over his shoulder, trying to cross another lane of traffic and towards to the turn off he's trying to hit.

Instinctively she rips her backpack open; there isn't enough room to pop her bow open in the front seat but she at least needs access to her quiver— she shoves the Doctor's laptop and her journal more securely into the bottom of the bag, fumbling to make sure the compartment with her arrows is open. "Artemis, backpack on." Robin reminds her sternly, reaching into the front seat and tapping insistently on her shoulder.

"I know, Rob, I need my—"

"They are coming!" Garth yells out in panicked voice.

True to his word she hears the tires squealing again, the unknown sedan speeding dangerously close behind them as she zips the bag as securely as she can allow it; a little clumsily she struggles to twist her wrist to snap her bow into formation, ignoring Roy's annoyed grunt as it bursts open, knocking him painfully in the arm. Before she can do more than raise the bag to her lap she can hear Garth's wail of shock, can hear the metal of the roof denting as a pair of feet collides with it—

She hears the unfamiliar noise of metal crunching, of several voices gasping or yelling, and before it even registers in her head what's happening the metal ceiling above her is being penetrated by the pointed tip of a javelin—for one moment her heart stalls, for one moment her blood freezes, and the javelin pierces Roy's skin beside her, striking through metal and ceiling and plastic and skimming a deep red line into his forearm and it's Sportsmaster, _Sportsmaster's here and now she's choking on the scent of blood and debris falling from the ceiling—_

 _She's going to die, she's going to die_ —

Roy screams, a loud and guttural noise that's nothing like the breathy choking noise that she's heard Wally make before; this is less real but more terrifying, and suddenly he's more beast than man as the car jerks. The roof above them is being peeled back and Roy's blood is spurting across the dashboard and when she finally gets the sense to look up in surprise she realizes it's not Sportmaster she's looking at, it's another Shadow, another human being clad in black with a mask to distort their face, another person who's exactly like—

Before she can finish the thought the faceless Shadow is reaching inside, gloved fingers clawing at her lap; Robin seems to pull it together first, his eyes alone protected by his sunglasses from the wreckage falling from the ceiling, and snarling as he lunges forward in his seat to join her in the front, nimble body wedging between the seats as another Shadow propels itself from the unknown black sedan and into the back bumper of their Jeep.

Their car is swerving and Roy is screaming, and she feels her backpack being ripped from her hands seconds before Robin lands on her lap, foot digging into her thigh as he launches himself upwards through the wreck of the roof the Shadow's just stolen her bag through; she can heard them struggling, can hear the sound of knuckles sinking into flesh and Garth's increasingly worried pants, can hear the sound of more feet colliding with the roof top and can feel other javelins spearing the outside of the vehicle, trying to get inside.

"Robin!" She screams out, finally forcing herself to pull it together, unbuckling her seat belt and rising up on her seat, head poking out of the hole the Shadow created.

"I got this!" He screams back, and he's moving so quickly that she can hardly see what he's doing, her mind oddly fogged by what's happening— _Sportsmaster isn't here, she doesn't need to be afraid but she needs to focus, she needs to trust the Metropolis girl_ — and as if reaffirming this the backpack comes tossing back inside the Jeep, clattering hard to the floor and spilling her arrows everywhere. "Get that on and defend Roy, he's injured!"

"I'm—" She hears Red's annoyed tone call out, probably on the verge of telling them he's fine, to keep fighting; she's not even fully back inside the vehicle before she hears his feral screeching cry again, feels the Jeep swerve; there are more Shadows now, more javelins peeling the metal of the vehicle off, the heel end of one smashing through the window and showering Roy with glass, the blunt end of the weapon hitting his temple hard.

"Red!" She screams out, feeling herself tense up as she watches his entire body slacken into unconsciousness; without thinking she lunges across him, bow jamming wildly out the window but with enough force to strike the Shadow painfully in the chest, winding whoever is under the mask and forcing their body to crumple off the vehicle and shatter on the road behind them.

"Garth!" She snarls out behind her. "Garth, do something—"

She spares him enough of a glance to know that he's panicking as much as she is, stick straight and watching what's happening with horrified eyes. The whole of the Jeep is swerving and shaking, and more out of instinct than anything she lets out a frantic noise in the back of her throat before throwing herself onto Roy's lap; she's never driven a car before, never sat behind a wheel—she can feel Roy's foot still pressing weightily on the gas pedal, forcing them to increase speed. "Garth!" She screams out, glancing over her shoulder to where he's is still cowering in the back seat. "Garth, pull Robin back in here, I'm going to try to—"

She stops speaking as she hears Dick's grunt of pain—she can see a cliff coming up can see where they're going to go over if she doesn't get this under control—giving up on ripping Roy's foot off the gas she slams both her feet down on the break, Roy's head thundering against her shoulder as Garth reaches up through the ceiling, feeling around for Robin… She can get rid of the Shadows if she rolls the car, she just need Dick inside it, she needs to keep him safe, _Wally will kill her if anything_ —

Garth just manages to tug Dick safely inside when she loses control, her hands jerking the wheel roughly to the right just as their stretch of pavement breaks into gravel and wilderness; it's not a cliff exactly, not like she first thought, it's more a busheled stretch of hill, a mess of rocks and brambles and whatever else she's giving the chance the kill them as she braces herself— pressing Roy into his seat she yanks his arms around herself, trusting in the sturdiness of his bones to keep her alive before the whole of the car loses control, sending them rolling violently down the hill.

* * *

It's bone smashingly, heart wrenchingly violent, the way they roll down the hill; she hates hearing her brain rattling inside her skull, hates hearing the ragged yelling and painful breathing of her teammates around her, hates that halfway through she can hear the guttural yelling of the unknown people behind the Shadow masks as they're ripped from the Jeep and forcibly smashed into the dirt and ploughed over by metal. It's all happening too quickly and she's terrifyingly dizzy and she half fools herself into thinking that somewhere underneath all the screaming and glass shattering she can the distinct sound of arteries bursting and spurting stranger's blood over her skin...

Before she can even gag properly at the thought her head kicks back and knocks against someone else's skull, and suddenly all she sees is blackened spots bursting in front of her eyes.

* * *

 _Wally's beside her in bed, hair mused from the half sleep he's been fussing himself with for the last hour. He jumps when she touches him, arm smacking loudly against her pajama clad thigh before he realizes where he is, settling back into her pillows and allowing her to soothingly stroke his hair off his forehead. "You don't have to wait up for me to finish, you know." She tries to scold him over the cover of her textbook._

 _As if he can sense she's about to take her hand back Wally tilts his head underneath her touch, trying to tempt her fingers back into fiddling with his fringe; traitorously, she catches herself indulging him. "I don't mind." He sighs out, apple eyes fluttering open to look at her sleepily._

 _"Well, I do." She says seriously, finally forcing herself to go back to her homework. "This could take hours still, and you're falling asleep waiting..."_

 _Wally lets out a disapproving hum but still looks content as he rolls towards her. "So wake me up when you finish. Come on, Black Canary isn't even in the Cave tonight, who cares if I sleep over_ —"

 _"Wally."_

 _As if sensing he isn't about to win their repeated argument he sighs, shifting underneath her blankets until he's curled around her like a cat. "Fine..."_

 _The silence is familiar, comfortable like it always it; for a while there's isn't a noise in the room except the scratching of her pencil against her loose leaf, orthe occasional turning of a page in her textbook. Wally starts snoring twice and each times she wakes him._

 _His breathing changes after the second time though; it's no longer level, or tired. There's a quiet sort of alertness to it, and as she thinks it she watches as his hand emerges from the blankets to touch the tendons of her wrist, forcing her to pause her writings. "... Artemis?"_

 _And instantly she knows that tone of voice, recognizes the silence that comes before it_ — _he's about to tell her that he loves her._

 _For the first time, ever, she isn't afraid. "... Yeah?" She swallows thickly, dropping her pencil to look at him._

 _Except_ — _Something's wrong. He's not smiling, he's_ — _he's suddenly got a death grip on her wrist, looking terrified and pale and broken on her bed sheets. "Artemis!" He screams in her face, and the loudness of his desperation seems to reverberate in her bones and before she can even respond he's screaming again, shaking her violently, nails piercing her skin and dragging pieces of flesh from her bones_ —

 _"Ar_ — _" He tries to say, blood bursting from his mouth and bullets reining down on him again; his skin is erupting in front of her eyes, pieces of him soaking her bedding_ —

"Artemis!" Roy yells loudly in her ear, shaking her.

She hears herself suck in a rattling breath and immediately chokes on the smell of fresh blood; it takes several seconds to remember where she is, remember what's just happened. Before she even has time to try to breath again she can feel bile rising in her throat, and uncontrollably she vomits.

"She'll be alright." She hears him tell someone in the back seat, presumably Dick. "Come on, we need to get out of this thing."

They're all still in the Jeep, which although mangled beyond repair managed to box them into a compact shell that no doubt saved their lives, managing to come to a stop on its side; wincing when she feels Roy moving underneath her she glances down to where his arms are still wrapped stiffly around her, immediately blanching and nearly vomiting again.

 _Roy's arms are shredded._

It's so much worse than anything she could have imagined, and the second she sees it she suddenly becomes uncomfortably aware of the occasional dribbling of warmth off his elbows onto her lap; he must have taken the brunt force of the airbags with his forearms, the impact alone no doubt breaking his skin but combined with the flying glass and metal... When she looks it again she can see several flimsy layers of skin hanging off of him like tassels, as if he's been grinding a cheese grater into his skin.

"R-Red..."

She tries and fails to say something out of thanks to him for taking the blow for her, listening to the sound of the others exiting the car; as if knowing what she's trying to do Roy flinches. "Do me a favor and keep your mouth shut up, Sweetheart." He says lowly. "Let's get out of here."

It's easier to take orders than to try to fight him on anything; silently sparing him the effort of trying to bang open the smashed-in door she does it for him, having to hit hard against it nearly dozen times with her bow before it does them the favor of opening.

She can hear him saying things to her but she's not listening; the shock of crash is making her oddly feral, or perhaps it's just the lingering effect of the odd dream with Wally. Either way she's scanning their surroundings, carefully memorizing the slops of every boulder and the fanned edges of every plant. Almost subconsciously she can feel herself taking inventory: scratches and cuts all over her legs, a bump on the back of her head, blood coating her front that she's sure is just Roy's. All in all she's doing well, too well, all things considering.

Roy clambers out behind her, looking white as a sheet but otherwise unharmed. "Are you—" She starts, clearing her throat when her voice breaks. "A-are you alright?"

In answer he looks almost curiously at the bleeding swatches that are his forearms; when he reaches up to pluck a dangling piece of skin off she has to look away, nauseous. "Other than this, yes. Looks worse than it is." He pauses to look, almost annoyed, at the wreck of the Jeep. "Guess I'm not getting my deposit back." He adds dryly.

"... I don't get it." She says slowly, shaking her head. "We should... We should all be way worse than this."

"Who's to say we aren't?" He says after a moment, looking out over the mangled hood of the Jeep.

She follows his line of sight, seeing Garth first— he's just like the rest of them, stupidly unscathed but even more so for some reason. There's hardly a bruise or cut on him, the only indication of the recent trauma of their crashing being the slight ruffling of his hair and the dirtiness of his clothes. For one wild moment she can't quite place together what Roy's telling her, can't read the worried expression in the corners of Garth's eyes, and as if somehow understanding what she doesn't the Atlantean drops his gaze to the ground, willing her eyes to follow.

 _No._

She hears herself say the word out loud, repeating it again and again with heightened intensity; her heart is suddenly thundering so loudly in her ears that she can't hear what Roy says next, can hardly feel the uneven ground beneath her feet as she scrambles around the car. "Dick!" She cries out.

 _(And like she had when she was screaming Wally's name to no response she feels the Metropolis girl snarling and bursting inside her veins; suddenly she's not a human anymore, she's raw desperation, animal impulse, death and darkness and wretchedness banging loudly inside her ears_ — _)_

 _((Because Dick is like her little brother, and maybe she had wanted to protect him the way Jade had tried to protect her; and she can't fail at this, can't fail at this too_ — _))_

In response she hears the loud sound of retching, the boy in question ducking his head between his knees to vomit as she stops clumsily in front of him— the crash has done something strange to that old injury in her thigh, she feels as if she's carrying her weight all wrong. "I'm fine." He slurs out after a moment, shaking his head as if to clear it before he lifts his sick covered chin clumsily to look at her, the movement so slow and uncalculated that she has nearly five seconds to stare in shock at the expanse of exposed scalp and blood gushing from the top of his head. She feels her mouth fall open— Dick's supposed to be a _survivor,_ he's supposed to... He's supposed to be unfaltering, unfailingly annoying and clever as always, he can't... _He can't be hurt_.

As if reading the expression on her face Garth decides to start talking to fill the stunned silence. "I believe he just has a concussion."

For some reason her temper flares, all her annoyance at Garth and terror at the almost-loss of Dick bubbling in the back of her throat and forcing her to turn towards him, snarling. "Shut up." She snaps, practically spitting. "Just a— _And why aren't you hurt, anyway?_ "

She doesn't blame Garth for the offended look that crosses his hardly bruised features, apparently not happy with her either. "Atlanteans have notoriously thick skin." He says evenly, glaring at her for a long moment before getting up from where he's perched on the ground and going back to salvage the wreck.

It takes all of her strength not to turn around and hurl herself after him, wanting to kick every inch of his supposedly thick skin until he's raw and bleeding; instead she catches herself biting her lip, hands scrubbing over her face. "... _Fuck_." She whispers to herself after a moment, digging the heels of her palms into her eyes.

 _She had no idea what to do._

For some reason Roy stays quiet for a moment; she can sense him watching her in the odd quiet of the clearing they've crashed into, only the disgusting sound of Dick's occasional vomiting breaking the silence. "... You alright?"

She lets out a haggard sigh, the heat of her breath warming her hands. "Yes." She grits out between her teeth.

If there's something else he's going to say she's saved the trouble of answering, Dick's voice sounding in the silence. "... A-Artemis?"

It scares her, how small and terrified he sounds; for what feels like the first time in a while he seems quite young. As if there's some larger part of her that's much softer and maternal than she would ever allow herself to be listening to the quailing edges of his voice she abruptly turns on her heel, pulling her hands from her face and disregarding her annoyance with Garth. "I'm here."

Dick looks almost blindly in her direction when she speaks— the shades lenses of his glasses are so beyond shattered she's sure he can barely see through them, only keeping them on to preserve his identity— not noticing the way her nose wrinkles as she kneels in front of him, knees coating unpleasantly in the warmth of his sick. Instead of saying anything for a moment he mumbles at her, head lolling dizzily until it's back between his legs. "—You're not hurt?" He asks her suddenly.

He sounds almost half-alright for a moment, but any hope his words give her quickly dies when he gags again, stomach trying to spit up something no longer inside him. "Yeah. I'm fine."

There's more muttering that she can't understand and worriedly she glances at Roy, wondering what to do. "... Wally would have killed me." Dick says distinctly.

 _(And in the back of her mind she's the one with a concussion and Wally's sitting in her sick, holding her hair out of her vomit and pressing a hand against her blood slicked head.)_

 _The Metropolis girl demands her attention again, forcing her to cast aside memories and focus._

It's not much to go on but it's the only comfort she has, following this distant memory of Wally's example; deciding the time for modesty has passed she leans back onto her heels, looking sternly at Roy. "Take off your shirt."

"What—"

"Do it." She cuts him off, holding out her hand expectantly until he finally gives in and strips.

She's never been trained formally in first aid, but she knows the basics as well as any person: to get a wound to stop bleeding you need to apply pressure. Still, it takes a certain amount of time to rip the blood stained cotton of Roy's shirt into strips and even longer to wrap the thickest pieces around Dick's skull like a ridiculous looking bonnet, trying her best to ignore his sometimes vague muttering and swearing.

It doesn't do much; almost the second her makeshift bandage touches his head it's soaked through, the same thing happening several more times as she applies more layers. Swallowing thickly and deciding she's done her best she turns her attention to Roy. "Shut up." She tells him wisely before he even starts speaking, gritting her teeth as she wraps what's left of his shirt around his shredded arms and stab wounds.

Before Roy can respond to this Garth returns, handing her a bunch of her arrows and the backpack. "I have checked, all the intel is still inside." He says simply.

She hears herself say her thanks, fumbling to a finish with the ratty bandages on Roy's arms; the lack of things to do is starting to make her uneasy, nervous. "… What now?" She asks the clearing as a whole.

In answer Dick vomits again, a loud retching sound forcing her eyes closed at the smell of bile; biting back her own sick she forces herself to look at him, not to appear disgusted as he rubs vomit off his chin, looking slightly more focused. "Same as before." He slurs out, gagging slightly but managing to swallow the sensation back down.

"… Dick?" She hears herself ask weakly.

Ignoring the sound of his own name he sighs, both hands going up to either side of his face as if attempting to stop his head from spinning off his shoulders; she can tell he's trying his best to stay present, trying to keep them alive. After a moment he releases his head, fingers getting caught on her bandages before finding their way to his pocket, retrieving his cellphone and flipping it open. "... Come here."

It takes her a second to realize that he's talking to her, that he's attempting to ask her something; at first she simply watches him fumble with a small looking red button on the side of his screen before opening the map application. Stupidly she assumes he can't read the map with his head injury, can't distinguish the symbols and trails and wants her to do it for him. It's only when he gestures a little helplessly at her with his phone that she realizes what's really happening.

"No." She blurts out jarringly, shaking her head. "I mean— Red, get over here. Dick's down, you're leader now."

For some reason Roy shakes his head, still looking a little stunned at her having come out of her shock so quickly to tend to them all. "I don't... It's you, Artemis."

She lets out a frustrated noise but she doesn't fight him on it; the heat of the day is beginning to disappear and they're burning day light, injured and alone in the wilderness. Ignoring the anxious buzzing about her temples she goes back to kneeling in front of Dick, trying to keep her thoughts only on the moment. It takes her a few seconds of staring blankly at the cellphone before she feels herself beginning to form a plan, fingers scrolling a little aimlessly. "… Okay." She says after a while, squinting at the bright light. "… We're three miles from the Bioship. We can make it by foot, although it might take a while… Is Batman still in the area?" She adds hastily, glancing at Dick.

Dick mutters for a moment, unreadable. "—that little girl. I just sent an emergency signal, could be hours before he comes for us."

"Then our best bet against the Shadows is to keep moving." She finishes for him, glancing at the mangled remains of her Team, brows pursed. "I'll bring up the rear. Dick and Garth in the middle—Garth, you'll have to support Dick, it's going to be getting dark and he's already dizzy. Roy lead and wear the backpack, if anything happens break ahead, come for us with the Bioship—"

"No go." Roy interrupts, eyes narrowing. "Between the two of us you're faster, and even with my arms beaten up I can fire a stronger arrow than you. We're swapping positions. You lead, I'll pull up the back. You wear the pack."

Dick gags again and she decides against arguing. "Fine. Just—" She pauses, removing the backpack from her shoulders and unzipping it quickly.

"What are you doing?"

Withdrawing the mysterious leather book she reseals the bag, slinging it back on her shoulders. "Sandsmark's diary." She explains, thumbing through the pages and seeing nothing of interest other than the unfamiliar writing. "Cassie wanted to protect it, it has to have something that needs to be kept safe…" Trailing off she ignores his raised brows; reaching behind her she tugs at the waist band of her shorts, tucking the palm sized diary into the seam of her underwear.

"You're right." Roy snorts, and for a moment they might as well be back in the Cave, bickering. "Nobody's going to want to look in there."

* * *

It's beginning to grow dark now; in the unfamiliar landscape of the Grecian wilderness everything feels more threatening, every whispering breeze or shadowy rock a potential for their own deaths or worse, the loss of the intel they've been scrambling to recover. With every second step her leg throbs indignantly, and despite longing to collapse in the dirt she bites the inside of her cheek, willing herself to keep moving.

They walk along slowly in relative silence for almost an hour, the only noise between them their huffing and occasional requests to stop and rest. She's not stupid: she knows the League of Shadows. She knows they won't stop until the contract is fulfilled, until the intel they're carrying is successfully in their grasp.

She's also not stupid enough to pretend that they'll make it out of this as unscathed as they are now, to pretend that she thinks they'll be able to ward off another attack— Dick is still muttering indistinctly and unable to hold his own, and Garth has been almost useless for the entirety of the mission... And even on their best days her and Red couldn't fight a whole squad alone. But maybe she's stupid enough to hope that they'll be within range of the Bioship before it happens, that they'll at least have an escape from the fight, that there might be chance they'll be able to end the skirmish quickly or help will come at the last second...

 _... At least one League member is in the area and Robin told them he sent the alert..._

She wonders vaguely what Kaldur was thinking, sending Garth along… He's still raw, untrained to work properly as a part of their group. But even if he hadn't been so green it doesn't change the fact that the mission Kaldur had prepped them for... It wasn't anything like what she's facing now. She had been expecting a low ball stake out, a lot of dull moments and opportunities to think. Instead they're stranded in the wilderness, Dick is injured and the longer she walks in her leg the more it hurts—

She cuts her own thinking off as she extends her bow in front of her, gently prodding a fern out of the way so as to get a better view into the clearing in front of them; the dirt around them has been growing increasingly water-logged for the last while, the bottoms of her sneakers now completely soaked through with mud. As she gazes into the clearing ahead she can hear the gentle trickle of water, as if they've stumbled across a natural spring.

But it isn't the spring that silences her thoughts; she can sense movement just beyond her line of sight into the trees, can sense something, either human or beast, lurking in the shadows in a way she couldn't before. Before she can open her mouth the whisper a warning Roy's cutting her off, speaking out loudly from behind her. "You have to admit," He says, and something in his tone tells them all not to say anything about the whispering shadows, to simply listen to the sound of his voice. "You don't see stars like this in the city."

She realizes what he's doing, allowing them to turn their attention upwards without being suspicious; under the guise of looking at the evening sky she can see the quivering of branches and leaves, as if people are lurking there and hoping the breeze will hide them.

"Beautiful." She hears Garth murmur behind her, and she's surprised to hear the tenseness there, as if he too understands what's happening.

Prodding onward a bit more carefully she leads them towards the spring, where the foliage is less dense and there's room to move should they need it; she can sense the lure of a fight just like she can sense the unknown figures lurking in the darkness, can sense that with Dick concussed and Garth being... _Garth_ , she'll need to get them out of the way before a fight breaks loose. Glancing over her shoulder at the Atlantean in question she jerks her head towards the spring, sending him a quietly serious look. "Go sit down and rest. We can get moving in a—"

She feels the shift in the air only seconds before she hears it: the sound of metal cutting through the breeze. It's coming from behind her, as if to strike her in the left shoulder and cripple her from using her bow—

She doesn't even get the chance to defend herself; before she can side step whatever is coming for her Garth lunges forward, forearm slashing upwards and using his own flesh defend her. Feeling her eyes go wide she stares hard at sharpened blade of a sai as it's thrown off course and forced to disappear into the squelching of the mud, her muscles still tense in shock. "Garth—" She starts, stomach churning. "What—"

As if her words are what they've been waiting for the figures in the darkness begin to swarm them, drawing weapons and emerging from unexpected places; she can hear Roy calling out shock, furious at Garth abandoning his position as he's forced to shove Dick unsteadily out of the way. It's madness all over again, and it feels like Metropolis all over again, and her mind isn't working, she's not focusing, _because suddenly she's looking around for Wally, who isn't even here for her to save—_

 _Breathe._

She finally pulls the strange purple of Garth's blood into focus—it's odd, the slashing of the sai against the thickened skin of his forearm is bleeding but only slightly, the wound too shallow for that kind of blade. Behind her Red's screaming, the sound of his arrows blocking out whatever annoyance he's having with the stillness of her shock. "You are the weaker sex." Garth hisses at her, clutching his arm and turning back catch Dick as Roy shoves him roughly out of the way again. "Regardless of who I am to protect. It would be shameful—"

"Shut up!" She barks at him, nearly turning around and slashing him over the shoulder with her bow for being so stupid; instead she reaches into the depths of her backpack and withdraws one of her recollected arrows from the clumsily sewn pocket, notching it quickly against her finger and firing it to ward off the incoming attack of a Shadow. " _You're such a_ —Take Rob to the spring, protect him, not me—"

The order is hastily given but he seems to understand the importance of following it; rather than watch him safely out of the line of fire she scrambles for the fabric quiver again, fingers fumbling before she extracts another arrow, spinning on her aching leg and ready to fight, ready to kill as she aims into the darkness of the trees—

"How _sweet_." A voice sighs out, so dangerously smooth and drawling that she nearly drops her bow at the sound; she can sense a body in the trees but the words sound as if they're coming from all around her, reverberating inside her and scratching painfully at the walls of her suddenly breathless lungs. "And they say chivalry is dead."

 _Jade_.

And as she hears her sister's voice she can also feel the energy in the clearing shift uneasily; there's a loud sound of an arrow tip bursting through skin and when she risks looking out of the corner of her eye she can see a body falling, can see a mask slipping off a face and blood spurting from a neck. In his shock at her appearance Roy's misfired, he's— _he's killed someone, actually killed someone_ —

"What's the matter Red?" Jade sneers, finally emerging from behind the shadow of a tree and no longer bothering to keep herself hidden in the darkness. "Is that an arrow in your quiver or are you just _happy_ to see me?"

"... Cheshire." She hears him breathe, the softness and tenderness so striking like Robin's voice has been before; Roy's afraid of her sister, he can't fight her, doesn't know if he can—

It's old habit more than anything that makes her respond to her sister's taunts; before she can stop herself her eyes are ripping back to where Roy's standing behind her, frozen with a shocked look on his naked face. And more than ever she remembers their conversation in the kitchen... She sees her sister make a lunge for him and without thinking she releases the arrow from where it's been resting on her finger tip— she can't let Roy face Jade, if he does they're done for; ignoring the pain in her thigh she swings her bow like a club, catching her sister so hard in the abdomen that she's knocked off course, the sai in her hand releasing with shock and twanging loudly into the trunk of a tree.

Jade's winded, diaphragm stunned and lungs without the support needed to breathe; grabbing more arrows she senses the renewed movement in the clearing, the Shadows they've knocked down beginning to rise with the intent of avenging their fallen as she takes her aim. "Red!" She screams over the din, forcing his attention back onto her and not to where he's been staring at Jade, frozen. " _I'm taking Cheshire_. Watch my back—"

And they've been loud, too loud in the darkness; where there was once a small squad of three Shadows there's suddenly at least double that emerging from the darkness and beginning to swarm them, drawing weapons and emerging from unexpected places; she can hear Roy crying out in pain as he's taken from behind, the tip of the javelin skimming his shoulder before he turns back, growling and reaching to the small quiver on his thigh to extract an arrow.

She hears an annoyed huff of breath and locks eyes with her sister for a long moment, staring hard into the Cheshire Cat mask and imagining she can see a piece of Jade there. It feels suddenly as if they're both much younger, pitted against each other by their father and competing to see who can scratch the other one's eyes out the fastest— _but this time she won't lose, she won't_ —

"So." Jade drawls a little breathily through the mask, still mud covered as her head tilts slightly; it bothers her, the ease with which she observes the taughtness of her position, almost amused by the way her arrow is notched against the string and aimed at the exposed column of her throat. "You're leading your little Team now are you? _Hm_. Dad won't be happy..."

At the sarcastic mention of her father she feels her shoulders tighten. "You would know." She says as coldly as she can, tensing as Jade's hand moves almost leisurely to her garter to retrieve another sai. "... The Shadows are using javelins now?"

"Let's call it a bit of inspiration on my part... I've been looking back fondly on old memories recently." Jade drawls, jaw tilting to better survey her. "So what happened to Aqualad? Must have been something awful if they had to resort to putting you in charge." She can sense the way Jade's eyes fall to her hand, wondering if she's going to fire. "But even then, there's still Boy Wonder… But of course. He's currently _indisposed_ , isn't he?"

She can read the way Jade' muscles are popping in the same way hers would; before her sister can properly throw her sai she's adjusted her aim and releasing her arrow. There's the familiar shifting of air and the sound of metal colliding with metal, the two twanging in the air and dropping heavily in the darkness.

She hears Jade clicking her tongue again behind her mask, and immediatly she knows she's done it—her sister isn't stupid enough to turn her back on her to pursue Robin and Garth further, not when she's firing arrows and still wearing the backpack the Cheshire Cat so desperately wants. Jade hesitates before she bends down, not watching her relocking of position with a new arrow as she extracts her old one from where it's wedged itself into the mud. "Oh my. _A real pointed tip_? Against your own sister?" Jade muses, straighting and gesturing at her with the muddy metal tip. "Maybe you are a Daddy's girl after all."

"Shut up." She snarls back stupidly, pulling another arrow taught, intent on hitting her target this time.

" _Make me_."

It's a stupid taunt and still she falls for it, releasing her arrow exactly like Cheshire wants her to; it's poorly aimed and she's not surprised when she misses, but her lack of arms is exactly what her sister's been waiting for— Jade lunges at her, and with no other choice she braces herself, bow extended defensively as Cheshire attacks her head on, hands trying to rip the weapon upwards and out of her hands and she leaps over her head. She can feel all her muscles popping, disconnected, ripping from her bones as her sister tries to disarm her, pulling out her back as she manages to keep one hand on her bow, the whole of her weight rocking violently onto her bad leg.

That moment, that one moment of pain and violent _lightning_ tearing up her spine is all Jade needs; that half second where her ankle rolls and _snaps_ at the severity of the movement and the unevenness of the terrain, the heart beat before her knees buckle is more than enough for her sister to rip her bow from her hands and slam it down hard on the joint of her shoulder, sending her sprawling on her stomach into the mud. Mechanically she feels her sister clamber on to the middle of her back, ripping her arms out from underneath her and yanking them backwards until they feel as if they're about to pop out of their sockets—

 _And she had to play this carefully, has to keep the diary safe_ —

"Is that really the best you can do?" Her sister sneers at her, seeming to delight in the way she stops struggling, afraid of jostling her hips and accidentally revealing the book; too easily both her wrists are contained in one of Jade's palms, gloved fingers impervious when she attempts to bite the fingers now removing the backpack's strap from her shoulders. "Really, I'm embarrassed for you—"

 _(And the Metropolis girl is as impulsive as she is determined, and she refuses to give up, refuses to be defeated_ — _)_

Her hands are released long enough for Jade to slip the bag off her shoulders when almost childishly she gropes behind her; it's a bit pathetic, how desperately she struggles underneath the slightly bigger woman but it's worth whatever embarrassment she has when her sister's mocking laughter turns into a snarl of pain. She's managed to seize a fist full of coarse black hair and unthinkingly she yanks on it as hard as she can, listening to her sister spit with pain as the Cheshire Cat mask is ripped from her features, a few clumps of hair pulled bloodily from her scalp as she's forced to double over.

Jade screams into her ear, the noise sounding oddly choked as she presses her throat as tightly as she can against the swell of her shoulder; it's a last ditch effort, Jade still has her arms free and for a moment she can feel her instinctively clawing at the back of her hands, struggling for air and thrashing on top of her, shoving the diary further along the seam of her underwear and making it nearly impossible to notice—

 _Let her die, let her die_ —

Her sister is suddenly more than her instinct; Jade grabs a sai from her belt and plunges it into her forearm— it's a strange shot, hardly fatal and hardly damaging to her tendons but the shock of metal breaking skin and twanging against her bone is enough for force her into letting go with a shriek. She can sense foot steps around them, retrieving the backpack and retreating back into the darkness and why isn't Roy fighting anymore, _where's Roy_ —

"So what— you're not above fighting dirty now?." Her sister snarls into her ear, encasing both her wrists in one hand again while the other clutches painfully at the back of her head, pressing her cheek into the mud and the blood tipped sai into her hair. "Bet the pep squad wouldn't approve of that."

It's pointless to struggle but she still does, her feet kicking out violently and breath coming in nervous whines; the mud here is so water logged that even with more than half her face exposed she's having difficulty breathing, and for the first time in a long time her old fear of drowning bucks hard to the surface of her mind. "Fuck off."

Jade seems to be enjoying her helplessness, the desperate panting firing out of her nose; her whole body tenses when she feels the cold metal of the sai trail down the back of her neck, pausing on the warbled skin of her scar that she knows is exposed. "But you know who would love it? _Dad_..."

As if experimentally she feels the sai slip, piercing the thickened skin just slightly and forcing her to let out a sharp hiss of pain; unwillingly she feels tears beginning to sting in the corners of her eyes but she won't let them fall, she won't cry in front of Jade—

The sai digs once, _hard_ , into her skin before pulling back all together; rather than keep torturing her the older girl leans in, pressing her lips once to the wound she's just produced before pulling back, whispering in her ear. "He's not pleased with either of us now, is he?" Jade breathes, ignoring the way she's shaking with fear and pressing a warm kiss to her cheek, no doubt leaving an imprint of her own blood behind. "It was quite cute, that warning you left with Red..."

The taunting had been one thing but the blood stained kiss is more than enough to infuriate her again; it's useless trying to fight back now, with the Shadows having long since disappeared into the darkness with the intel. The only thing she can do now is humiliate Jade. "I should have let him come after you." She snarls, face still partially smashed into the mud. "I should have let him kill you."

It's not much but for some reason Jade pauses, pulling back far enough to look her in the eye. "... What?"

"I should have let him kill you." She repeats, voice quavering but gaze steady. _"I wish you were dead_."

It's far from quiet in the clearing but for some reason it's silent for a moment, the only thing in the world that really seems to exist is the expression on Jade's face; for some reason she knows they're both remembering the day her father tortured her with his javelin, remembering how her sister had stepped into save her life. There's horrifying a half second where she thinks she sees Jade's heart breaking behind her eyes.

"Is that what you think?" Cheshire hisses, face suddenly transforming into an animal's, nose wrinkling and lips snarling as her teeth snap out words. " _Is that what you think?!_ "

She's expecting the sensation of a sai being carved into her and cries out when she feels hands snapping at her neck; before she can even properly inhale her last breath of air her face is being turned full forced into the mud, her sister's fingers clamping around her throat and trying to open her mouth, trying to get her to inhale and drown in the dirt— it can't last longer than a few seconds but the sensation of gagging and inhaling mud seems to last forever; her lungs are aching with an effort not to breath and her limbs are beating out wildly and struggling against the weight of her sister.

 _She's going to die, she's going to drown like Wally did in Metropolis_ —

 _And she'll never see him again, never get to feel his warm skin under her fingers or inhale the sickly sweet scent of walnuts_...

 _And in the thousand things she could be thinking of with her last breath, out of a thousand faces of Teammates and friends and her mother she thinks of Wally; tries to recall the features she traced on the Watchtower, the warbled triangles that painted his cheeks and the exact shade of green his eyes were_ — _and maybe now it's finally safe to admit it, now that she's dead and no longer a burden, maybe as she feels the darkened, sticky pieces of her mind imploding and she can say yes, maybe she does love him after all_ —

She can hardly hear anything between her own brain wailing into oblivion and mud flooding into her ears but she does hear screaming, most of it coming from Jade; she can tell she's being insulted and cursed and can tell most of all that she's about to die. She cries out when fingers scratch at her eyes and try to get them to open but she won't, she won't look death in the face— the beginning sensation of weightlessness is hitting her, much louder than the pain of her screaming, oxygen deprived lungs...

But the weight is gone and she's jerking herself out of the mud, lungs aching as she pulls in air and then starts coughing violently; she's curling up on all fours and can hear yelling above her wheezing—

She coughs so hard her vision bursts into black and she hears the screaming of Garth's voice— _Garth's alive, he's... He's fighting_? And he's saying words she doesn't understand and all she can hear is the rushing of running water and the speed of wind and— _and this is a dream, or-?_ Her elbows give out and suddenly she's back to lying face first in the mud, body too exhausted to keep going, to do anything other than thirstily draw in air and stare unfocused at her own hand, bleeding and splayed in the dirt.

She feels the freezing droplets of rain hitting her skin, and shivering she retracts into darkness.

* * *

 **AN: This was by far the most difficult chapter for me to write, but I hope you all enjoyed it regardless. Please Read and Review!**


	17. Sugar In My Veins

**AN: This chapter is rated M.**

* * *

She wakes up to the sound of her own straggled breathing, the taste of dried dirt still on her tongue; there's something rattling around painfully in the back of her throat, a fluid of some sort, gritty and foul tasting when she swallows it. Almost immediately all the pain in her body sharpens, as if the lull of unconsciousness had somehow dulled it to her senses: every thing hurts.

 _(And almost the second she wakes she feels the Metropolis girl stirring inside her as well, can feel her picking up the broken pieces of Artemis and forcing them together again_ — s _he needs to get up, she needs to get moving, she needs to stay alive_ — _)_

She opens her eyes; she's lying down, the sterile scent of the mattress telling her that she's somehow ended up on the bunk in the back of the Bioship. Blinking a little blearily at the fluorescent lights she rolls onto her back and promptly winces with pain, eyes narrowing a little stupidly at the sole of a sneaker hanging off the edge of the top bunk.

 _(Focus.)_

It takes her longer than she's willing to admit to remember the details of what happened, _why instinct is telling her that the quiet isolation of the back cabin isn't to be trusted_ , and with a jolt she sits up; ignoring the way her muscles and lungs ache out at the movement she bites her tongue, trying not to make any noise—

She gets as far as attempting to stand before even her stubbornness can't contain her gasping, muscles spasming and practically giving out when she puts weight on them; it's not just her thigh and its warbled muscles anymore— when she glances down in shock at her ankle she's surprised to see it so swollen, the ballooned skin stretching tight and straining painfully against her shoe laces. Inhaling sharply and trying not to close her eyes at the sight she forces herself to move it, exhaling with relief when she can— somewhat painfully— rotate it and flex her toes.

 _Not broken. Okay._

Maneuvering more cautiously this time she makes to stand again, careful to keep her weight on her right leg rather than her left; a little clumsily she grips the ladder for support, turning and peering curiously to see who's lying in the top bunk.

She nearly blanches when she sees Dick lying there, looking incredibly small and broken atop the crisp whiteness of the sheets; he looks hardly worse than he did before their last encounter with Jade and the Shadows, so Garth must have done his job and protect him, after all—

She's not even finished feeling relief for his being alive before she remembers the cardinal rule of concussions, body aching as she struggles to raise herself up a step on the ladder, arm reaching out to shake his leg a little more roughly than she should. "Rob." She hisses out, careful to keep her voice quiet; she's not sure who's in the main cabin of the Bioship, has no idea if they've been brought there by the rest of the Team or rounded up there by Shadows. He remains mercilessly still, not responding when she calls his mantle for a second time. "... _Dick!"_ She finally blurts out, voice hoarse.

At the sound of his name he jolts awake; someone has removed his shattered glasses and folded them carefully on the mattress beside him, and although it isn't the first time she's seen his bare face it still feels oddly intimate, as if she should look away when his azure eyes flutter open, looking around at her blearily.

Almost immediately he starts muttering to himself again, a string of words too low and slurred for her to properly understand, his head lolling slightly on his shoulders as he sits up. "Dick." She whispers, trying to get him to focus on her with a slight jostle to his foot. "Dick, do you know how we got here? Do you know what happened?"

There's more unintelligible muttering followed by silence, the naked cerulean eyes focusing quickly on the door to the main cabin before she hears it too: voices, too quiet to be properly recognizable, coming from the bow of the Bioship.

"... Stay here." She tells him, knowing full well that giving the order is a little pointless— Dick's back to muttering again, not up to holding his own in a fight even if he wanted to. Wincing slightly as she lowers herself back to the floor she looks around, finally spotting her bow and a single arrow—explosive tipped, it must have fallen out of her quiver before Jade took it— placed neatly beside her bunk.

It takes her longer than it should to walk the few steps towards the door; the skin around her ankle is stretched so tight and the muscles so bothered by the swelling that it's difficult to put any weight on it at all without the entirety of her leg shaking and feeling as if it's about to give way underneath her. Her fighting with Jade has left her not only in pain but on edge; she can hear her own labored breathing increasing with fright, wondering what might be on the other side of the doorway— wondering if the Shadows have somehow commandeered the ship, if they're all in danger... Flexing her wrist she watches as her bow snaps into position, her shoulders aching as she places the arrow against the notch on her forefinger.

 _(And as much as she hates the Metropolis girl she trusts her to keep her alive, trust the shakiness of her fingers and the wildness barely hidden behind her eyes as she swallows down the human emotion of fear_ — _)_

She bangs the door open with her elbow, breaking position for only a moment before she's back to standing stick straight, registering the alarmed noises as she blinks a little blearily into the brightness of the room. "Artemis!" She hears Roy yell out, and it takes her a second to turn that other girl off, realizing she's aiming right at his throat, fingers shaking and nearly firing. "Watch it, Sweetheart—"

Wildly her eyes scan the room, muscles shaking so badly with the effort of her standing that she's beginning to grow light headed with the pain; Roy charges forward when she turns her arrow towards the blurry figure of Garth, not recognizing him for a moment. There's a pathetic half second where he throws her aim off the Atlantean, pulling her arrow out from between her fingers and forcing her aim to the floor. "Artemis." He snarls. "Relax. It's over."

There's a strangeness in the way he says it, and for some reason her eyes fall to the bloody remnants of his shirt on his arms; they're now crusted over, hardly dripping anymore with the loss of skin and soaking droplets of blood. "What?" She hears herself say unsteadily, shoulders finally slacking and releasing the empty tension of her bow string. "I— What happened?"

For some reason Roy hesitates, seeming to notice the shakiness of her stance; gripping her tightly about the elbow he steers her a little roughly towards her usual seat. "Garth saved us all." He says as she gets settled— almost modestly the Atlantean bows his head where he's sitting, palms splayed widely and pressed so hard together that she can clearly see the webbing between his fingers. "He summoned some sort of... What did you call it again?" He asks distractedly.

"... The power of the tempest."

She feels a pang run through her when Garth looks up at her, pupils wide and still frightened; there's no trace of that cockiness that was so present before. Instead she looks back at the dull looking violet eyes and feels herself nodding at the deadened expression on his face.

 _(Because she's seen that look in the mirror too many times to laugh at it, not anymore...)_

"It was like a tornado... Of water." Roy continues, and when he pulls her attention back to him she catches herself glancing at the various cuts and shallow stab wounds littering his bare torso. "I was down, there were just too many of them for me to fight on my own. And then I saw Cheshire on you, and before I could even try to get up everyone was screaming."

She swallows down the unpleasant taste still in her mouth, her voice breaking when she speaks.. "A-and my backpack? All the intel?"

There's a beat of tense silence in which both her and Roy glance at Garth. "... Gone." He croaks out.

"Bats isn't happy." Roy says quietly, crossing his battered arms and wincing slightly as the scabs go taught.

She watches out of the corner of her eye as Garth hangs his head and despite herself she feels a pang run through her; he saved her life, and in the silence of the room she can hear that debt pounding between them, far louder than her own screaming hatred for him and the burning pain of the scratches still on her arm. "... Never mind that now." She says seriously, shaking her head at Roy when he opens his mouth to say something else. "... You saved my life, Garth." She says clearly, trying not to sound bitter. "I'll make sure that Kaldur, and anyone else important, knows that."

She waits for him to nod before she glances back at the Bioship, noticing for the first time that Dick's muttering is silent again. "Go check on Robin." She tells Garth. "He has a concussion, he shouldn't be sleeping."

Obediently Garth gets to his feet and crosses back to the side cabin; she gets the distinct impression that he's learned his lesson, or at least learned to never again be foolish enough to wish for more excitement on a mission. Across from her Roy watches as she glares the Atlantean out of the room, settling into his usual seat at the front of the main cabin. "... So what, you two have warmed up to each other after what happened at the Doctor's house?"

Unthinkingly she winces at his teasing tone, one hand automatically flying up to her arm to tug the bottom of her sleeve more surely over the swollen marks on her bicep. "... Not exactly."

She can tell instantly that Roy's watching the movement, eyes narrowing when she quickly tries to pass it off as dusting some dried mud off herself. She cuts him off before he can say anything, shaking her head as his brows furrow. "It doesn't matter. He saved my life, Red. Jade would have... _She would have_ , you know it as well as I do."

Roy looks for a moment as if he's going to say something more about the scratches but seems to think better of it; sighing, he rubs a dry hand over his face, scrubbing hard at the shadow of stubble erupting on his chin. "... Yeah. I know."

She watches him for a moment, eyes narrowed. "... But it doesn't change anything? Between the two of you?"

He shrugs and immediately flinches, the movement bothering the wounds on his shoulders. "... You made a good leader back there." He says vaguely, not really answering her.

She sighs and makes to throw herself dramatically against the back of her seat, hissing almost the second she moves; her weight is balanced unevenly, muscles and joints not quite sitting right in the chair like the normally do— wincing, she makes to rub at the small of her back. Her fingers catch on an edge and before she can stop herself she's letting out a tiny gasp of surprise; ignoring the pain as she shifts in her seat she reaches down under the waist band of her shorts, extracting the water logged and muddy remnants of the Doctor's diary.

"... So I was right." Roy says dryly when she shows it to him, looking pleased despite himself. "Nobody does want to go in there."

If she wasn't so sore she would have thrown it at him.

* * *

She expects her mother to cry when she sees her.

Or maybe, despite herself, she's simply craving that kind of softness. The ride home from Athens is filled with a bristling silence and the debriefing at the Cave is ear deafeningly loud with the sound cold glares and monotone voices describing their various failures; worse, no one perks up in the slightest when she tries to soften the blow with her procuring of Sandsmark's diary. By the time the main debriefing is finished her head is aching and she's not at all sorry that her and Robin have to depart for medical treatment and miss Kaldur's turn to be yelled at.

 _(And somewhere between the Bioship and the Cave her head is buzzing again, anxiety and unknown nervousness flooding through her system, choking her with hands more precise than even her sister's_ — _)_

Her head is still pounding long after she's checked into the hospital; rather than linger about the Cave she's returned to Gotham like a coward, too scared to face Wally or anyone else when she's still such a battered wreck from the last mission. She hardly has he hospital gown on properly before her mother enters the tiny hospital room without knocking.

But Paula doesn't cry, not even when she struggles with the flimsy ties on her hospital gown in an effort to cover her back, knowing full well that the wounds Jade inflicted are still raw and open, probably still bleeding ever so slightly; instead of bursting into tears her mother's face grows stony. "... Hi." She mumbles once she finishes, sounding almost embarrassed and wishing the mattress she's settled herself into would swallow her whole.

Paula doesn't say anything as she rolls into the room, stopping at the end of her bed to glare at her; she can't quite look the older woman in the eye, not knowing why she stares almost shamefully at the door of the hospital room. She doesn't see it but she can feel it, the way her mother's gaze travels from her ankle up her body, lingering on scratches and cuts and wounds she can't even see but somehow still knows are there.

"You have lip stick on your cheek." Paula says mechanically after a moment, rolling around the side of the bed until she's next to her.

She freezes when she feels a damped finger scrubbing at her cheek, flinching away from her mother's touch. "Mom—" She starts, watching in horror as her mother makes to swipe her thumb back over her tongue, the movement halting when the unfamiliar taste of old blood hits her. "... It's... Jade was there." She mumbles, watching the wrinkle she inherited popping up over Paula's nose.

Her mother stares at her for a long moment, throat bobbing as she swallows the taste of her daughter's blood out of her mouth. It's very hard to blink back tears when Paula reaches for her hand. "... Perhaps you should take some time off again."

* * *

She listens to her mother, and before she even registers what's really happening a week has passed since she arrived home from Athens.

She accepts the crutches the Gotham City doctors give her and uses them only once before they end up shoved unceremoniously in the corner of her bedroom, henceforth untouched after she endures a full school day of not being able to outrun the taunting whispers of her classmates. Paula reads her books at the kitchen table and they both attempt her always growing pile of homework, and every few hours she tests her strength by limping across the apartment to make a fresh pot of tea. In the evenings she lies on the couch and allows her mother to rewind the tensor bandage that's been keeping down the swelling in her foot and tries not to roll her eyes when she jokingly fluffs her pillows.

 _(The tiny apartment feels calm, almost relaxing, even if the wild girl inside her doesn't trust it for a minute_ — _)_

Her phone seems to be buzzing constantly, her screen lit up with the same list of names: M'gann. M'gann. Kaldur. Roy, once, and only for half a ring as if it has been an accident. Zatanna, Dick, Zatanna. Wally. Wally. Wally. Wally. Wally—

He won't leave her alone, and like a kicked dog with its tail between its legs she never answers, only checking her voicemail every few hours to hear his missed messages.

 _"Hey, just calling to see if you're back yet... I guess you're not...?"_

 _"... You were supposed to be back_ — _Uh, sorry, I guess I'll try again later. Miss you, Babe._ _"_

 _"You know what's a really great way to make your boyfriend feel like an ass? Getting home and not telling him. And letting him find out from Connor, of all the goddamn people. Oh, and thanks for the heads up about Rob being in the hospital. That was great. Really considerate, Blondie."_

 _"For fuck's sake, Artemis, call me back."_

 _"Did I do something to you? What the fuck, Artemis?"_

 _"God, Babe, will you just call me back? You're freaking me out."_

She doesn't delete any of the messages, repeating them over and over again for the sake of torturing herself with the sound of Wally's voice until she practically has them memorized, following along soundlessly with his words, pausing at the right times to draw breath or when his voice breaks with worry. After a few days her mailbox is full and he resorts to sending her cryptic text messages every few hours, sometimes calling hopefully in the evenings to see if she'll suddenly start answering him again.

It's pathetic, her avoiding him— but she doesn't know what else to do, doesn't know how else to avoid this... _feeling_ , lurking inside her. And maybe she's always known it's been there, ignited inside her months ago but suddenly burning so much stronger. This... attachment, this... _Love_ , the love for Wally that she had first felt searing her veins when she had watched him die in Metropolis seems to have increased a tenfold since her fight with her sister; she doesn't remember much of it, not when the memories are so bogged down with the water and mud in her lungs, but vividly she remembers who she had craved in what she thought were her final moments. She remembers remembering his face, remembers missing him. Remembers wishing she had enough breath left inside her to whisper to him that she loved him.

 _And it's pointless to deny it anymore._

 _She does love Wally._

But that feeling... It isn't safe for her. It's isn't safe for her because it isn't safe for him. She's the Metropolis girl now, she can't love, she can't stop her reckless pursuit of Sportsmaster to indulge in her own feelings... She had already tried to before, hadn't she? And look where that had gotten her— mauling Wally in her bedroom and sobbing, alone, on her floor...

 _(And she forces herself to believe this denial, even if it feels like a lie no matter how many times the other girl carves it into her skin or swings it like a sledge hammer against the inside of her skull_ — _She can't love Wally, she can't be in love with him_ — _and she repeats it until she's shaking underneath her covers, tears streaming down her face and nails breaking the skin of her cheeks...)_

The final straw happens on Thursday, when she's sitting at the kitchen table and picking moodily at the freezer burnt waffles she's just pulled from the toaster. Habitually she goes still when she hears a pounding on the front door, hand pausing in her reaching for the syrup.

"It's fine." Her mother tells her, gesturing for her to sit back down as she rolls through the hallway. "Eat your dinner."

 _(Before she really has time to think about the movement she feels her fingers closing round her butter knife, ready to hurl it should she need to because this is it, this is what she's been waiting for_ — _)_

She can't see the doorway from where she is but she can see Paula's expression when she opens it, eyes going slightly wide before her mouth twitches into a welcoming smile. "Oh, Wally!" She grins. "What a nice surprise!"

"Hi, Mrs. Crock—"

"Please, darling, call me Paula."

"Right. Paula." She can practically hear the polite smile on Wally's face. "I was just... I haven't seen Artemis for a while. Is she home?"

"Of course—" Her mother's just about to move aside when she catches her attention, waving her still sore arms and violently shaking her head, feeling ridiculous as a feverish blush colors her cheeks. Paula seems to understand because suddenly the hands on her wheels are slowing, her gaze averting back to where Wally is no doubt looking at her, confused. "... I'm sorry, I just remembered— Artemis is still out. She won't be back until late."

It's obviously a lie and Wally seems to think so too, because there's a pause in which she's sure he's looking at her mother with narrowed eyes. "... Do you know what time she'll be back?"

Paula glances a little helplessly to where she's glaring at her waffles in the kitchen. "No, Wally, I'm sorry."

"Can I wait here for her?"

"... Wally." Her mother sighs, not knowing what to say.

Wally makes a frustrated noise, and without knowing why she imagines him running his hands through his hair. "... Okay. Sorry... Can you pass along a message for me then?" He presses her, one hand flying out to catch the door as Paula begins to close it slowly. When he speaks again he's being deliberately loud, as if knowing that she's only a few feet away from him, listening. "Can you... Can you tell her that I'm sorry if I did something to make her mad? And that I miss her and... I... Can you just tell her that?"

Even from the kitchen she can see Paula frown, looking as miserable as Wally sounds. "Of course, Wally. Goodnight."

Wally stutters out a goodnight to her mother before the door is quickly shut, her mother turning in her chair to look accusingly towards her. "What happened there? I thought you liked that boy?" She snarls at her, so loudly that she's sure Wally can hear her through the door.

* * *

 _(She glances back at Kid Flash over her shoulder, smirking and enjoying the way his ears are turning crimson. "Who are you?" He yells at her, arms waving wildly through the air for a moment, the muscles of his bare chest popping in frustration as he balls his palms into fists. The seams of her mask are cutting triangular indentations into her cheeks._

 _She watches a moment longer than she should, eyes memorizing the lines of his abdomen and the tension in his fingers before she looks away.)_

 _Months later they're lying on the couch and those fingers are on the curve of her hip, the bicep she's resting her head on jumping slightly under her ear as he fiddles with the remote. Breath is rustling her hair, and his fingers are tapping a beat into her skin_ —

 _Tap. Tap, Tap._

 _Tap. Tap, Tap..._

 _Tap, Tap; fingers hit against her cheeks, the hospital bed creaking beneath her. Wake up, Artemis. Tap, Tap. Metropolis is burning. Wake up._

It's not a real nightmare but she still jumps awake, back aching as she leans over her desk. She feels the cheap fabric of her Gotham Academy skirt as she shifts in her chair, feels the way one of her socks is stretched tightly over the swelling of her ankle, and for one wild moment she convinces herself that she's fallen asleep in class; fearing detention of all the damn things she jerks up in her seat, sending the pieces of paper in front of her jostling with the ridiculousness of her movement.

Blearily she realizes she's just in her bedroom; groaning lowly in the back of her throat she glances at the clock beside her, squinting in the early evening light— it's Friday night and Paula's probably just left for her evening shift at the grocery store, she should make dinner soon... Ignoring the emptiness in her stomach she exhales loudly through her nose, fiddling once at the top button of her academy button down before scratching tiredly at the irritated skin underneath her bra strap.

She's hungry but too exhausted to do anything about it; even after a week of going to bed relatively early she's still oddly tired, as if the sleep she's getting between her strange dreams isn't really all that restful. Popping another button on her blouse open she sighs, finally leaning forward on her folded arms again and pressing her forehead into the crook of her elbow.

She's just started dozing when she hears the tapping sound again; for a moment, still on the brink of sleep, she simply listens to it, mind only vaguely bothered by its presence. It's echoing slightly, like the noise a spoon would make if it happened to clink against the side of her tea cup while stirring it... Or the soles of sneakers smacking quietly atop the metal steps of her fire escape... Fingers against the window pane...

Instinct stirs inside her and she jerks up, entirely awake when she hears the sound of her window sliding open— jumping in her seat she swivels her chair towards the opposite side of her bedroom, hand fumbling for something, anything to defend herself with—

 _(It's Jade, it's Sportsmaster_ — _)_

She's just gotten a death grip on a pencil when she recognizes the familiar mop of ginger hair. "Wally!" She bursts out, pulse pounding frightfully in her ears "W-what are you— _Oh my god_."

In response Wally clambers a little clumsily over her bedside table, sneaker catching on a pile of books and sending them clattering to the floor. "What are you doing here?" She says properly this time, still blinking sleep out of her eyes.

For some reason he's breathing heavily, as if he's just run across several states to get here; his hair is wind swept and his ears are a bright crimson, the collar of his shirt rumpled. "You weren't returning my calls." He says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, glaring at her.

It takes a lot of effort not to launch her pencil like a projectile at him and slam it, flustered, against her desktop. " _So_?"

"So?!" Wally repeats, pausing to inflate angrily at her before he bursts out into an annoyed ramble. "So I was worried sick, Artemis, I— _Dick's in the hospital!"_ He snarls at her, waving his hands in a wildly similar way to what she's just been dreaming about. "And I— Nobody could tell me where you were, all I could do was sit there and read the mission report, read about how you— a-and _Cheshire_ —!"

He seems to work himself into such a fit that for a moment he can't speak, simply fuming silently at her before clenching his hands into infuriated fits; deciding to take advantage of his silence she feels her eyes narrow. " _So you decided to break into my apartment_?"

"Yeah, decided to pull a page out of your book." He says meanly, turning away to run a hand angrily through his hair; she feels annoyed but oddly helpless, sitting injured and alone in her chair, skirt splaying unevenly over her knees from the jerkiness of her awakening. As if his words have just reminded him of the mess he's made he bends down, picking the books he's scattered up off the floor and slamming them angrily onto her night table.

When he finishes there's a half second where he turns back to her, simply staring for a moment; her chin drops angrily and she goes still, for some reason fragile under the intensity of his gaze."... I..." He starts, and she watches as his eyes rake once up her body, pausing almost unnoticeably on the open top buttons of her blouse before he blushes and adverts his glare to the floor. "Whatever. I don't know why I'm here. I just wanted to make sure you're okay, and you are, so— so I'll go."

He makes to turn his back on her but suddenly stops moving, hand predictably on the back of his neck. There's beat of huffy silence in which she doesn't know what to say, unsure if it's safe to call him back, her teeth gnawing anxiously on the inside of her cheek before he whirls round on her, yelling again. "You're just going to let me leave?" He says accusingly, hand flying out at her.

She flinches at the noise but catches herself blushing, hands clenching angrily around the arm rests of her chair. She's still too caught off guard to think of anything to say, and as if only more frustrated with her silence Wally whirls dramatically towards her bed and throws himself onto it, sending her mattress shaking under his weight.

She watches as he buries his head in his hands, fingers raking almost too hard over his forehead and scalp; for several seconds the only sound in the room is his angry huffing, frustrated breaths firing noisily out of his nose. "... How was Athens?" He asks her stiffly.

It's a stupid question to ask and rather than answer right away she spins her chair back towards her desk, glaring at her homework. For the first time the wild girl doesn't feel up to fighting with him, doesn't want to engage in their usual taunting and spatting, knowing full well that as much as it will rile her up it will also endear her... _It's safer somehow to be quiet than to try to fight_... "You just said you read the mission report." She tells him frankly, fiddling with the placement of her pencil on her desk until it's straight. "You know how it—"

" _Tell me how Athens was_." He repeats through his teeth, cutting her off before she even finishes her sentence; she gets the distinct impression that he's trying to stop himself from yelling again.

She feels her nose wrinkle. "... I don't know. It was a disaster, I guess."

Wally waits several seconds before pulling back from his hands, glaring at her. "... That's it?" He snaps, looking annoyed when she turns back to her desk again. "… Artemis, I had to find out from _Connor_ , who heard second hand from _M'gann_ , that you guys were even home. Apparently you don't even care enough to tell me you're back on the same continent as me, so I sure as hell think I deserve a—"

"God." She sighs, the buzzing in her head now so loud she can hardly think. "I'm sorry, okay? I just didn't have time, and school's been—"

"—since when do you care about school—"

"Shut up." She growls at him, blushing at being caught in the lie.

When she finally looks at Wally again he's shaking his head, heels of his palms pressing so hard into his eyes that she's sure he's causing himself a decent amount of pain; biting her lip, she goes back to staring at her homework. "... Look." She sighs after a moment, still not knowing what to say. "I have a lot of homework to do, okay? And I know you're mad at me so... Just get it over with."

Wally's breath stutters slightly, his head pulling back from hands to look at her properly. "... Get what over with?" He asks stupidly.

"I don't know." She shrugs, leaning forward onto her elbows again and glaring hard at the creases in her textbook. "Yell at me or..." _The Metropolis girl nudges her._ "B-break up with me. Or whatever it is you're planning on doing."

"... Break up with you?" Wally repeats, sound a little stunned. "You think... _Break up with_ —"

She jumps again when he lets out a loud bark of unamused laughter, face contorting into a disbelieving and sinister looking smile before he throws himself back onto her bed, jaw snapping with bitter chuckles as his hands run savagely through his hair again. "You're an idiot, Artemis." He laughs meanly at her, not softening when she winces at the sound. "God, I mean— You are so _fucking impossible_ , do you know that?" He demands suddenly, sitting up again.

She gets the sense that there isn't a right answer and grits her teeth.

"Before you left you told me that _you_ needed a break." He sighs angrily. "Do you even know how shitty that was? I spent the week thinking that I'd somehow managed to screw up the only... And then, you get home and I find out that you've been in a car wreck and attacked by Shadows, and nobody can even tell me where the fuck you are or how you're doing because you've decided to shut down on all of us, _again_ — Artemis, I thought you were lying in a hospital somewhere, I thought— I thought something had happened to you—"

"I get it." She cuts him off, hunching her shoulders angrily. "I'm a shitty person, I know that Wally. Are we done?"

For some reason Wally blushes a darker crimson, getting to his feet. " _Are we done_?" He repeats, yelling again. "What do you think, Artemis? That suddenly every thing is fine again? You can't just—" He snarls at her, starting to pace a bit too quickly around her room. "You can't just disappear on me and not expect me to—"

"Then leave!" She yells back, ignoring the pain in her ankle and finally standing, throwing her chair back behind her so hard that it ruffles the pages in her textbook. "Break up with me! _I don't care_!" She screams, lying through her teeth and gesturing angrily towards her bedroom door, ignoring the way her heart is stuttering, as if already broken, inside her chest. "If you don't like it then go, okay? I'm not going to stop you—"

Wally catches her arm, snarling at her. "You know that's not what I—"

He jerks her a little too roughly and instantly she miss-steps; she can hardly hear her own hiss of pain above the buzzing in her mind but Wally abruptly stops, reading the pained expression on her face. "Artemis?" He says her name, tone quickly changing from anger to surprise, brows furrowing when she screws up her face at the dull echoing of the snapping sensation running through her. "Hey, whoa—"

He makes to let go of her altogether but she stops him, hand reaching out to grip his shoulder tightly. "I—"

 _("I need you.")_

Wally seems to understand even when she cuts herself off, glancing down to where she's bending her injured leg and trying to keep the weight off it; instead of saying anything he lets out an annoyed huff before bending in front of her, elbows curling behind her knees and sweeping her feet out from underneath her. "Wally—" She starts, blushing.

"It's fine." He cuts her off. "Chair or bed?" He asks shortly, not looking at her.

"... Chair."

It's only a few steps to her desk chair but the sudden closeness with Wally is almost insufferable; it's very difficult not to wind her hands around his neck and bury her face in the comfort of his warmth, impossible to remind herself that she needs to stay angry because she needs to end things with him, _needs to let him go so he can be safe—_

He jostles her slightly as he helps her into her seat; she's expecting him to stand up and move away when he finishes, and catching herself scowling when he crouches in front of her, eyes now fixed on where he can see her tensor bandages bulging beneath the length of her school socks. "... You going to tell me what happened?" He says suddenly, not looking at her.

She almost starts arguing with him again, biting back her own insistence that he's read the mission reports already; she hesitates as his gaze moves upwards, glancing at the gap of exposed skin between the tops of her socks and the hem of her skirt, his eyes raking the faint edges of week-old scratches and cuts with such an intensity that it sends her stomach twisting. "I—" She pauses, having to clear her throat. "Jade was coming at me and I... I don't really remember. I must have stepped on it funny."

Wally sighs, breath warm on her knees for a moment before he stands up properly again, arms crossed as he glares at her. "... You don't remember." He says flatly.

She blushes, turning her chair back towards her homework. "Well, I mean... So much was happening." She says vaguely, picking up her pencil. "Shadows were surrounding us, and we had just been in that car wreck, and..." She draws a random curled line in the margin of her page. "Jade kind of lost control for a bit, too."

She nearly bites her tongue when the look on Wally's face flicks rapidly between annoyed to worried, hand reaching out too quickly for her to see and snatching the pencil out of her grasp. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." She mutters, scrunching her eyes closed and ducking her head to avoid the slightly angry look on his face. "I mean, you know how she is. She—"

Before she can even finish she can finish she feels his hand on the back of her neck, the gaping buttons combined with her leaning giving him and obvious look at the bandage that's still placed there. _"What the hell is this?"_

She jerks away from his touching when she feels his nails picking at the corner of the medical tape, trying to undress the wound. "Wally!" She yells angrily, not getting the chance to swivel back in surprise before he's crouching in front of her again, hands moving over her rapidly—and before she can stop herself she's remembering the heat of battle in Metropolis, remembering the chaos and how tenderly he had touched her. That feeling, those touches, they were overwhelming even then; in the tiny room they're completely over powering: fingers probing her cheek bones, touching the days old scratches and cuts on her hairline from the car accident, tracing old bruises on her arms, touching her collar bone—

 _(She wants so badly to get lost in him but she can't, she can't_ — _)_

"Wally." She says firmly, grabbing his hands as he makes to tilt her neck. "I'm fine. Just a sprained ankle." She says, touching him lightly with her swollen sock clad foot, wincing despite the tensor bandage keeping her muscles in place.

He hardly blinks down at where her foot touches his side. "That's not fine." He tells her fiercely, the two of their hands wrestling with each other until suddenly he's got her wrists contained inside his fingers. "Artemis, getting yourself cut open for the sake of a mission—"

"I didn't get myself cut open!" She spits out the half lie. "She was— it was just one of Jade's taunts, okay? Besides, she wasn't trying to kill me, not then at least, it doesn't matter—"

" _It doesn't matter?"_ Wally yells in her face, looking disbelieving at her words. "Are you serious?"

For some reason his fingers go slack around her wrists, and before she can even process that she has her hands back he's up and across the room from her, looking troubled. "What?" She barks.

" _How can you think it doesn't matter?"_ He counters, ignoring her question.

She doesn't quite understand but still bristles, feeling her hands clenched almost painfully tight around her arms rests. "Because it doesn't, okay?" She insists. "It's a mission, Wally, that's what happens— we go out there and sometimes we get hurt. It's just how it is—"

She flinches when he lets out that same mean laugh again, sneering at her. "Don't give me that." He barks, beginning his pacing again. "Don't _fucking_ give me that. Do you even know how selfish that is?"

" _Selfish?_ " She repeats furiously, almost dumbfounded by what he's just said. "Are you even— How is that being selfish?"

"Because it is, Artemis!" He yells, rounding on her. "Before I came to your bedroom that day I begged Kaldur to let me go instead of you. I begged him, Artemis. And when he wouldn't let me, I begged you not to leave instead."

She feels herself blushing. "That's not my fault!" She growls, quailing slightly when he rolls his eyes. "Look, there's— there's some things you don't know—"

"Well, write them down with the list of other things I don't have a fucking clue about!" He snarls, talking over her excuses. "Like how you couldn't even look me in the eye when I begged you to promise me to stay safe. To not be an idiot. Do you remember that?" For some reason she shifts uneasily in her chair, remaining silent rather than answer. "... I begged you, Artemis." He says lowly. "I just had this feeling... Do you even know how worried I was? How shitty I would have felt if something happened and I wasn't there to take care of you—"

" _Take care of me?"_ She cuts him off angrily. "So what am I supposed to do, then? Ask your permission before I go anywhere? Follow one step behind you so I'm safe? Because if that's how you think this is going to be then—"

"That's not what I mean!" Wally bursts out, looking livid. "I just— Look. Everyone else may think you're a hero for letting the bad guys slice into you every other day or for diving in front of bullets when you don't need to. But don't expect that from me, okay?"

She feels her face crumpling into a scowl. "So, what—"

 _"So whatever!"_ He interrupts. "Just— just take a second to think of the people who are going to have to try to put you back together again when you've let the bad guys have their hand at ripping you apart, okay?"

She looks away when Wally pauses to wipe noisily at his nose, pulse pounding at the back of her neck like it always does when she's anxious. "... Look. I'm— I'm sorry." She says clumsily. "But you can't... _You can't keep trying to take care of me, Wally!"_ She bursts out, not knowing where the words are coming from. "We both knew the risks when we signed up for this gig, we both knew that we wouldn't— that there would be some days where we'd have to come home a little beat up. And I'm trying to— there's a future here for me, and I want that, even if it means taking on a few missions that break me down. You have to accept that, Wally."

"How am I supposed to do that!" He yells at her, blinking rapidly. "You think it's easy for me to look at you and— and just be okay with you getting hurt? You think that after everything in Metropolis—"

"Don't!" She snarls at him, for some reason getting to her feet again— she's not entirely sure what she means by it but somehow it makes her feel more in control, standing and screaming at him. "Don't act like you're the only one who was hurt by that—"

"The Exercise, then!" He hurls at her, the redness in his ears seeping down into his cheeks. "I watched you die, _I lived hours of my life thinking you were just gone—"_

She nearly screams out her sigh, hands clenched into fists. "Let it go, Wally!" She yells, suddenly dangerously close to tears. "It wasn't real!"

As she says it he noticeably flinches; there's several seconds of silence that's so loud it makes her ears ache, the only sound in the room their ragged breathing as they glare at each other. He looks as if she's just slapped him, his face suddenly crumpling as he ducks his head to hide from her. "... It felt real." He says roughly.

 _(And for him it was_ — _she can see it in the corners of his eyes when he appears in the kitchens some mornings, can trace it in his blood shot edges and the quiet way he grabs her hand, checks her pulse...)_

"... I'm not... I'm not going to compete with you over which one of us is more broken, okay? I'm not playing that game with you." She says sternly before hesitating, eyes blinking rapidly and ears practically ringing in the quiet. "It's over, it doesn't matter, okay? ... _You need to let it go, Wally._ "

He looks unsettled for a moment before his temper is back, biting angrily out of his throat. "Well what about you, and your Dad—"

"That's different." She says harshly, talking over him. "He's real, Wally. He isn't... I can't turn him off. He isn't just something I made up in my mind." For some reason she finds suddenly that she can't look at him, her still temples buzzing as she glances to her feet. "Look, you need to... You need to stop treating me like I'm the kind of girl who needs taking care of, okay? _I'm fine_."

She glances up when Wally scowls at her, eyes glinting at her dangerously. "You're fine." He repeats flatly.

She swallows. "Yes."

" _You don't need taking care of?"_

Her throat seems oddly tight and rather than say anything back she nods, eyes narrowed and fixing on her _Alice in Wonderland_ poster several feet from his head.

She can feel Wally surveying her, eyes glaring almost mockingly from across the room. "... What about that time I bandaged your hands?"

Almost the second he says it the entirety of her body stiffens, eyes darting from the poster to his face. "What—"

"Or after The Exercise?" He fires out, mouth twisting bitterly when she flinches. "You were crying then, remember?"

She feels her throat growing tight. "... Stop it." She hisses.

"You were crying, and I couldn't sleep." He continues, looking at her fiercely. "And we took care of each other, right? Like that time I found you outside of Black Canary's office, and you were upset—"

"Wally—"

"Because you had to take time off from the Team." His voice is starting to pick up, talking over her louder and louder. "And when I was in the hospital, you came to find me, to make sure I was alright— And on the Bioship, when you were worried— even after, when I was angry at you and you kissed me to try to make me feel better—" She catches herself turning maroon, unable to look away from the ferocity of his glaring at her. "In the closet, when the League was invaded and we both thought we were going to die— don't stand there and lie, don't tell me you don't need taking care of when that's all we've done for each other almost since the day we met— don't stand there and pretend you didn't fire an arrow that saved my life before you even knew who the hell I was, don't lie to me—"

"Shut up!" She snarls at him, voice breaking when she yells. "Get out!"

Wally laughs again when she gestures wildly towards the door. "No!" He screams back bitterly. "Artemis, _we take care of each other_. That's what we do. So don't tell me you don't need that, don't stand there and tell me you don't need me, _I need you_ —"

 _(It's the Metropolis girl's worst fear; she can sense those words, can feel them bubbling up behind his lips_ — _)_

It's about all she can take. "Shut up!" She repeats, reaching blindly behind her and seizing her text book from off her desk and hurling across the room at him.

It's a stupid thing to do; the book isn't even properly out of her hands yet before she feels air whipping across her face, signaling the rapidness of the movement and throwing her off balance. Rocking forward onto her bed leg she stumbles slightly, the hiss not even fully out of her mouth before his arms are around her, jerking her upright.

Once again she's overwhelmed by the walnut scent, by the warmth of his closeness; he got her pinned tightly to his chest, her breasts practically crushed against her own forearms, neck aching as she tries to pull back from where her nose is skimming his. " _What are you_ —" She starts angrily, hating the fact that her toes are barely touching the floor.

She's cut off when Wally kisses her, warm lips pressing against hers so fiercely that for a moment she can hardly breathe, lungs halting and brain whirring as she's overwhelmed with the sensation of his moistened lips prying hers open, tongue tracing her without permission; as if from very far away she hears the surprised hum she lets out, feels her muscles tense and suddenly soften as he forces her to tilt her head properly, lips suckling on hers as he holds her tight to him. Traitorously she feels her clenched palms unfurling against his chest, fingers looping through the collar of his shirt and pulling him closer.

He ducks his head to deepen the kiss, the muscles in her back aching as she instinctively arcs her back to tighten herself to him; she's still not entirely sure what's happening, what he means by it when he exhales into her mouth, teeth nipping at her lips and kissing her a little dirtier than he should, probably still angry from their fighting. All she feels is Wally's heart thrumming almost dangerously fast under her fingers, his hands clawing at her back and forgetting to be gentle with her injuries, hands ripping the elastic from her hair a little roughly—

 _(And the buzzing dulls and then bursts out, screaming against her skull_ — _)_

She lets out a hiss against his mouth and almost immediately he pulls back, still tight against her as he runs a hand through her hair, pinky catching slightly on a tangle. "... W-what are you doing?" She asks him, sounding breathless and angry; she's not sure if she's asking why he stopped or why he even started in the first place.

In answer Wally looks down at her lips again, brows still furrowed and looking almost annoyed. "Shut up." He tells her wisely.

" _Shut up_ —" She repeats, nose wrinkling as she tries to take a step back and is immediately stopped by his iron grip around her.

"Artemis." He says lowly, cutting her off. "... Shut up and let me take care of you."

She starts to say something angrily and is almost immediately silenced by his lips on hers again; this time she's not as foolish, one hand furling into a fist and knocking into his shoulder in a way that she knows is painful. "Wally!" She snarls into his mouth, finally managing to pull back. "Stop it!"

"What?" He yells back, catching her when she tries to take a step back and stumbles again. "I told you—"

She manages to knock him in the stomach; for an instant she feels a sick wave of pleasure radiating through her as he flinches and immediately lets go of her before she's suddenly stumbling around on her own, ankle now incredibly bothered by all the weight she's put on it today. "God." Wally grunts at her, recovering and grabbing at her, steering her back towards her chair. "You're such a pain in my ass, you know that?"

She yelps slightly when her backside collides almost roughly with the seat of her chair, immediately growing furious when Wally gets to his knees in front of her again and spins her chair to face him. "What— _Baywatch!_ " She snarls, flattening her skirt against her thighs and squeezing her knees together as he starts grabbing at her injured leg.

He doesn't bother to look up at her when one of her hands reaches out to slap him away. "God— Artemis, I'm looking at the swelling on your ankle!" He hisses at her, ignoring when her good leg reaches out to try to kick him and easily jerking it out of the way, sending her blushing as her legs are forced to spread slightly. "You're probably not supposed to be on your feet, I bet you need ice—"

She doesn't know why but it's the last thing she's expecting, this small act of kindness when he's got her in such a vulnerable position; feeling her good leg knock a little sheepishly against his side she straightens. "... Oh." She says dumbly, still scowling.

Wally glances up, glaring suspiciously at the sudden softness in her tone; there's a half second in which her stomach twists as he looks almost unnoticeably at how her legs are slightly spread, no doubt able to see up her skirt and see the cotton of her panties. "Y-yeah." He grunts out between crimson cheeks, and as quickly as the moment is there it's gone; suddenly his eyes are staring hard at her ankle and he's shifting in front of her, allowing her to close her legs.

It's suddenly awkward as well as angry, the silence as she sits up straighter in the chair a tenfold more unbearable than it was before. Leaning into her backrest she crosses her arms, forefinger tapping anxiously at her bicep. "... You can, you know." She blurts out, blushing. "Check my ankle, or whatever. I might need to ice it again."

Wally looks up at her, careful to keep his eyes only on her face this time; for a long moment he simply blinks at her, trying to read whatever's written in the blush on her cheeks. "If that's what you want, then fine." He says stiffly.

"Fine." She huffs back, glaring hard at the lamp on her bedside table rather than at him.

There's almost ten seconds where nothing happens, the only noise in the room her annoyed breathing; she's very aware of the fact that Wally's still looking at her, the two of them still furious at each other but out of things to say, out of ways to bother each other with just their words—

She tenses when Wally places his fingers almost tenderly on her ankle, her surprise at the movement sending her sock clad feet fidgeting in response. "Did that hurt?" He asks her gruffly, not looking up at her face.

"... No." She says honestly.

In response he nods, and she almost shivers when she feels him touching her again, fingers gently and inexpertly tracing the bones of her ankle. "... Feels pretty swollen." He says vaguely, glancing up at her once, almost too quickly, as if he's afraid of accidentally looking up her skirt again. "I'm just gonna..." She feels herself stiffen as his hand trails up her calve, and apparently Wally notices too; almost unlike himself he doesn't stop, doesn't ask permission even as his fingers brush the top of her knee, looping underneath the fabric of her sock.

She feels oddly naked as he peels the cotton down her calve, as if he's peeling back a part of her as his hands linger down the bare skin of her leg; he reaches her ankle a little clumsily, glancing up as she hisses at the movement of his undressing, watching as her arms dart out from where she's been clutching herself to clench around the end of her arm rests. They both glance down to where her tensor-clad heel is in his palm, and as if sensing her wincing in disgust Wally lets out a low whistle. "Looks pretty swollen." He says thickly.

She hears herself make an agreeable noise in the back of her throat, stomach twisting. "Do you mind if I...?" He trails off, one hand moving to the top of her other knee, a stray finger running along the edge of her sock almost questioningly. "... So I can compare, I mean."

For some reason she nods instead of saying anything, the seams of her clothing feeling oddly tight as he drops his gaze back down to her knees; almost curiously he hooks his forefinger inside the cotton, dragging it down her leg and letting his free hand trail down behind it, tracing the taught lines of her calve.

She's suddenly finding it very difficult to be angry, to remember why she had found it so necessary to end things between them, watching as her socks crumple to the floor and Wally's thumbs are stroking the hardened bones of her ankles. "... Y-yeah." He stutters after a moment, clearing his throat as he surveys her bare legs, ears still a bright crimson. "... Definitely swollen." She realizes that she's leaning forward in her seat as Wally swallows thickly, one hand straying up the front of her calve to rest just above her knee, fingers barely grazing the hem of her skirt.

It seems to take a lot of effort on Wally's part to pull his hand back; for a long moment he looks up at her, eyes clouded with wanting before suddenly he exhales, hand leaving her thigh and trailing down her leg until he's no longer touching her at all. "I can't tell what you're thinking." He says after a moment.

Almost confusedly she feels her eyes narrow, watching as he gets to his feet in front of her. "... What?" She says dumbly.

"I can't tell if you still want me." He sighs, one hand raking through his hair before it falls almost pathetically to his side. "I used to look at you, and I could just— but I can't right now." He says sadly, shaking his head.

She doesn't know what to say, feeling suddenly broken with her naked legs and heated skin, trapped in her chair as he stands over her. "... Wally." She sighs out, knees knocking together as she buries her face in her hands.

He waits several seconds for her to continue, a disappointed silence stretching between them when she does little more than hide behind her palms. "... Things have been so... Weird lately." He says after a moment, sounding older than he is. "And I know we didn't leave on the best of terms... Maybe I am being a bit clingy, or whatever." He pauses, waiting for her to emerge from behind her hands before he continues. "I'm just... I'm running out of ways to fix things."

"It's not you." She mutters, balling her fingers into fists and pressing her skirt almost painfully to her thighs. "... I'm sorry I ran away." She finally blurts out, turning like a coward back towards her scattered pile of homework. "But I wasn't lying when I said I needed space Wally. This whole thing with my Dad— it's like you said. _We take care of each other_. We keep each other safe and— and sometimes the best way for me to keep you safe is to keep you away from me, okay?"

Wally sighs, crossing the room in a few steps until he's right behind her. "You can't do that, Artemis." He says severely, turning her chair round to face him when she doesn't reply and bending slightly to lean over her. "You can't leave me behind—"

"Sometimes I don't have another option, Wally!" She says, exhaling when she feels her chin wobbling. "I— I don't know how to explain it." She huffs, screwing her eyes shut in frustration. "I just... I can't think straight when you're around. Sometimes I have to leave to figure things out, okay?"

She opens her eyes when she feels his palm on her cheek, turning her face until she's looking him in the eye. "Look at who you're trying to outrun, Babe." He says sternly. "Might as well give it up while you're ahead. You aren't going to be winning any races against me."

For some reason—maybe the severity of his expression or the ridiculousness of what he's saying—she snorts, ducking out from under his hand to glare at him; as if it's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard Wally's mouth suddenly splits into a grin. "God." He sighs, as if actually in prayer, his eyes leaving her face and trailing over her, lingering for a moment on her unbuttoned blouse in a way that makes warmth pool in her belly. "I know I probably didn't help things, with all that yelling... And I didn't... I didn't mean a lot of it. I just hate it when you space out on me like that and... I've just missed you. A lot."

 _(And as he says the last part his voice drops enticingly low and gravelly, making it nearly possible for her to think straight and focus on anything other than the angles of his jaw and the chapped skin on his lower lip...)_

She swallows when she feels Wally's hands on her again; she can feel all her annoyance at him waver slightly when his fingers catch about her exposed collar bone, trailing up the side of her neck to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. "… I missed you too." She murmurs, surprising herself at the emotion she hears there that's barely concealed, her voice catching and breaking altogether when she feels his thumb trailing up her jaw, barely brushing against her lips.

"I know I haven't…" She starts to say, trailing off when she catches her eyes on Wally's lips again, blinking. Instinct is telling her to lie but suddenly her mouth isn't cooperating, cheeks blushing yet again. "... Of course I still want you, you idiot." She says stupidly.

"... And I still want you." He says quietly, thumb pausing in its tracings when she exhales, almost in relief. "But it's more than that. I—" For some reason his voice catches and shifts into a slight huff of a laugh, his thumb pausing in its movement. "I don't know what I'm trying to say. I just really want to kiss you again."

She doesn't know why but she blinks once, almost surprised at this sudden omission. "Oh." Is all she says for a moment, looking up at him for several seconds before she catches up to the sudden switch the conversation has taken. "Okay."

And maybe nobody will ever write poems, or novels, or cheesy romantic movies about the two of them; maybe they don't have enough eloquence to pass as anything other than two stupid teenagers fumbling around three words they aren't brave enough to say, not yet at least. But she realizes she doesn't care, doesn't mind all the fumbling and misspoken words, not if it means getting to see the soft smile that bursts into the corners of Wally's mouth. "Well, alright then." He says vaguely, allowing her hand to reach up to his collar and pull him closer.

* * *

It's clumsy, the way Wally leans into her; she can feel her chair sliding beneath her until she's jostling back against her desk, her homework rattling on the surface and a few stray papers falling to the floor as Wally braces his hands on her arm rests. The kiss is firm, solid, hardly more than a few seconds of the familiar chapped skin pressing against hers before he pulls back, nose brushing hers.

"... I'm sorry." He whispers, breath burning hot against her mouth. "I mean— I've been acting like—"

"Me too, Wally." She breathes back, cutting him off. She finds suddenly that she doesn't want to hear his apology, doesn't want to waste time with words; she settles more firmly against him, hand snaking around the back of his head and forcing his mouth to hers, _forcing the buzzing in her mind to go quiet again_ —

He makes the same guttural noise in the back of his throat that he always does, this time tinged half with wanting and half with surprise; it reminds her eerily of their first kiss in his bedroom, when she had attacked him in a moment of heat and kissed him as a last resort. The memory, so hot and emotionally driven at the front of her mind seems to spur her on slightly, and before she can even spare her anger with him another thought she catches herself wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pulling his weight down on top of her until the back rest of her chair is tilted back, knocking loudly against the edge of her desk again.

Wally groans when she pulls him flush against her, his mouth pulling back long enough for him to let out a ragged breath at the feeling of her breasts pressed against his chest and managed to let out a barely there, "Oh, _God_ ," before she reclaims him, her teeth dragging him back by his lower lip until she's moaning at the feeling of his tongue in her mouth.

Her chair is really too small for the two of them, not at all accommodating for this kind of thing; there's a fair amount of elbows knocking against hand rests as Wally turns his attention to her neck, fumbling for a moment with her hair before he's pressing his lips against her jugular, making her moan almost too loudly as he bites down on the joint of her shoulder. In a half second he's returned back to her mouth, kissing her mewling right off her tongue.

She starts clawing at the back of Wally's shirt in an effort to remove it and nearly groans again when he redirects her hands, instead forcing them upwards to run through his hair. She lets out a ragged pant of frustration before her attention is redirected to the feeling of him suckling at her neck, all tongue and teeth and wet kisses; without thinking she arches her back, squirming beneath him as trying to pull him closer, knees opening where they've been pressing against his hip and spreading for him.

She hears her own breath hitch as she feels the hardness lurking beneath his jeans press against the thin cotton of her panties, the cheap fabric of her academy skirt hitching up over her hips and practically exposing her altogether; his lips pull back in the slightest when her hips begin to jerk of their own accord, an anxious mewl bubbling out of her throat as she grinds against him. She feels the warm breath of his barely audible moan against her neck, and through the haze of the warming sensation rapidly pooling in her belly she can feel the renewed vigor he kisses her neck with, can feel the anxiousness in which his fingers start tending to the buttons of her blouse, fumbling every few moments to paw at her breasts...

She's just untucked her button down from the waist of her skirt when Wally shifts again, the chair shaking slightly as he frantically pulls her mouth up to his; she's in the process of pulling back under the pretext of asking him if he wants to move to the bed when she feels his hand stray across her almost bare hip, thumb skimming the waist band of her panties, running over the seam that's cutting into her leg. There's a moment of hesitation, a moment when her lips are barely off his and he shifts his weight once more, nearly tottering the chair again—then all at once he's pushing the hem of her skirt aside, stroking her through her underwear.

She lets out this ridiculous half moan as it happens, her face only inches from Wally's as he looks down at her, face hard and a little undone in the same way she is. "Artemis—you're so—"

She kisses him rather than let him finish; she doesn't need him to say it. She can feel how wet she is, can feel the way she's dampened the thin fabric of her panties, so pent up both with anger and wanting that she can feel how slick she is for him. She exhales sharply into his mouth, shuddering at the way he traces her through her underwear, fingers barely touching her as if nervous.

"G-god." She stutters out when he takes his hand back, actually afraid he's going to stop altogether; the chair shakes when he removes himself from her, sliding down between her legs until he's on his knees in front of her.

She realizes suddenly that she's the nervous one; she feels herself blushing red when he locks eyes with her, his hands sliding up her thighs and disappearing underneath the hem of her skirt, not stopping until they've grasped the waist band of her panties. "W-Wally." She tries to say evenly, blushing deeper when he begins to peel the fabric off her, her knees knocking together stupidly at the sensation. "You don't have to." She says, voice unnaturally high pitched.

It makes her stomach drop entirely when he looks up at her earnestly, face serious but ears bright red. "I want to. I missed you." He says plainly, tugging the wet fabric away from her folds so quickly that she can't help but let out a shuddering breath. "Unless… Do you want to?"

 _Without saying anything she knows they're both remembering how she had reacted in the kitchen, how off guard she had been by his touching._

As if in resolution she nods at him, watching a little nervously as he drags her underwear over her knees, the slightly wet fabric barely grazing her but still forcing her thighs to twitch. And maybe it's stupid, how hard she watches him as he peels the fabric down her calves, maneuvering her underwear off her good leg; she finds she suddenly can't look anymore when he pauses, unsure what to do next, leaving the thin grey cotton of her panties wrapped ridiculously around the slightly swollen lump that is her ankle. Resolutely she tilts her head back, blinking hard at the ceiling.

It's about the most vulnerable she's ever felt in her life, the second or two that she sits there waiting for him to touch her; she feels helplessly exposed, with her legs spread, skirt hitched up about her waist and breasts practically falling out of her bra. She can tell her nervousness shows, can tell the slight tremble of her thigh and the anxious buzzing that's suddenly back in her head isn't going unnoticed; she can feel Wally glance up at her, can feel the way his eyes linger on the tightness of her fingers as they clench around her arm rests.

"Artemis." He says her name softly, and she can feel the stubble on his chin as he turns to nudge a chaste kiss against her knee, as if he's also trying to work up at bit of nerve. "Artemis, look at me."

She catches herself gritting her teeth and stops, dragging her eyes away from the ceiling to look at him, cheeks blushing. "What?" She says roughly, trying to cover the nervous waver in her voice by sounding rude.

One of Wally's brows shoots up but he doesn't comment, looking back at her glare with as kind of eyes as he can manage. "... It's okay if you're nervous." He says simply.

She feels her temper flaring up, her knees closing as she blushes crimson. "Well, it's okay if you're nervous too." She huffs, glaring childishly back up to the ceiling. "It's not like either of us have done this before."

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Wally's ears going off again. "God, Artemis—"

"What?" She snarls, pushing her skirt back down to hide herself from him.

"Why do you have to be so— Can you just..." He starts, looking furious with her again as he trails off. When he speaks again his voice sounds oddly measured, almost quiet. "... _Can you just let me be nice to you_?" He sighs, looking almost miserable as he looks up at her over her knees. "I feel like I'm losing you and... I..." He mutters, looking sheepish. "I need you to stop hating yourself for a second, okay? Please, Artemis."

His voice sounds so broken, almost pathetic as he begs her, and all it once it hits her—why she'd been so unprepared for him touching her in the kitchen, why she wanted so badly to get lost on the mission, why she'd almost welcomed the pain of getting hit; it's all just another escape for her, another way to get avoid the inevitability of the reappearance of her family… Wally's not wrong, he has been losing her. She's been lost in her own head again, lost in the same way she was before her father went to prison, lost in the same way she was when she would block out the world because it meant blocking out his abuse too; lost in the same way she was until Wally found her, woke her up again, pulled her back to reality—

 _She's been letting the Metropolis girl take over, smother her..._

And maybe it had been easier when she was the one making him moan, when she was getting lost in the pleasure she could make him feel; it's another thing all together to allow herself to be vulnerable in his arms, to allow herself fall apart under his fingers or his lips. But she needs this, they both do—that much is clear at least, by the way the pulsing point between her legs seems to throb as she looks at him, seems to heat up at the feeling of his ragged breath on her knees again, the way her head is thrumming as if it needs release too…

He's not touching her like he was before; his fingers are halfheartedly stroking the tendons of her good ankle but she knows he won't try anything, not until she says yes. And maybe that's one of her favorite things about him, the way he always waits for permission, the way they push each other constantly but never really over the edge. She can still feel him breathing though; can see the way is chest is staggering the way it always does— _ever since Metropolis_ —

"Please." He says earnestly, swallowing thickly before pausing; she can see his mind working, can see some real hesitation there before he speaks, and she can tell by the way the words warble that they're not what he wants to say, not really. "… _Let me take care of you_."

She feels her whole chest tighten, because she knows—she knows how close he was to saying those words she can't bear to hear but maybe secretly wants to; before she can stop herself she's nodding, almost frantically, eyes screwing shut.

It's slow at first, the way he starts touching her again; it's no longer the blind groping of before, the tenderness with which he runs his hands up her legs, gently stroking the swelling of her knees before he parts them, fingers running up the muscles of her good leg and thumbs hardly stroking her thigh. She hears her own breath hitch as he tenderly drags her forward until she's sitting on the edge of her chair, the bends of her knees fitting neatly over his shoulder. She doesn't know why but her eyes open, blinking hard as Wally exhales again and the warm air brushes against where she's still wet for him; moaning quietly she reaches for him, one hand running over his forehead and pushing his hair back.

He pauses, now fitted neatly between her legs, catching her wrist as she pulls back; she swallows thickly when he presses his lips against her pulse point, holding her still long enough to feel several nervous poundings of blood against her veins. "Sit back." He tells her softly, waiting until she's pressing her shoulders against the chair, slouching and spread for him.

Wally keeps his eyes on her as he drags his hand over her hip, pressing the pleats of her skirt further up her waist before dipping down; her lips part and she inhales sharply as his thumb swipes once over her, tracing around her folds and hardly dipping inside her before he circles back up, pressing her own wetness into her bundle of nerves so tenderly that she can't help the soft noise of surprise that bursts out of her mouth.

It's pathetic, how suddenly she can't meet the intensity of the look he's giving her, how quickly she's beginning to feel herself loose control; before she can stop herself she's screwing her eyes shut and tossing her head back, exhaling shakily half in frustration and half in want, hips bucking up to meet his finger as he traces slow circles around her clit, not quite touching where she needs him most. "Wally." She hears herself whimper when he pulls his thumb back.

 _(And she feels as if she's fighting another battle all together, this time inside her own head; there's a part of a her, a more frightened part of her, that's fighting against him, against the her own self... It's the Metropolis girl, tightening her grasp, refusing to let go, refusing to let down her walls and find some sort of surrender from her self-consumption_ — _)_

She tenses up when she feels his forefinger enter her— it's slow, all too slow as he slides inside her, finger curving and unexpectedly sending a twang of pleasure through her; her hips catch ridiculously and more to keep her in place than anything she feels him splay a hand on her lower abdomen, leaning forward to press his mouth against her.

She moans loudly when she feels him suckling hard against her, his finger moving in and out of her in time with the ragged breaths she's pulling through her lungs. "God." He whispers against her, pulling back to press several kisses against her thighs, watching amusedly as tiny quivers of wanting run through the muscles.

She hears him say it and doesn't really understand it, not when his hands are pulling her hips forward and his breath is so warm against the wetness between her legs; she hears herself whimper when he settles more firmly on his knees, trying to decide where he wants to go next— she's fighting so hard to stay in control, to keep herself together, her hands reaching out to fist his hair. "W-what?" She breaths, back arching when he swipes a thumb over her, circling into her wetness before tracing up to her nerves again, watching as her hips buck against the movement.

"You're just so..." He trails off unclearly, rolling her clit between his fingers and squeezing experimentally like the ever present scientist he is, glancing up when she tosses her head back with a moan. "God, Artemis." She still can't figure out what that's supposed to mean but isn't much bothered by it, at least not when he's leaning forward, lips rolling tightly against her, tongue flickering out to run in anxious laps over her.

She can tell he's just as inexperienced as she is, but like with everything he's a fast learner; almost curiously he runs his tongue in between her folds, lapping at her wetness and meeting her clouded eyes when she lets out a particularly loud gasp. It's not smooth but far better than what she can produce with her own fingers, the way his tongue licks a slow line over her skin, stopping just short of her clit in a way that makes her practically groan out in desperation before he takes it between his lips, sucking gently at first and then so hard that she suddenly can't breathe properly, stars bursting out in front of her eyes.

"Wally—" She gasps out as her fingers pull perhaps a little too sharply at his hair in an effort to make him stay put as he drags his mouth away from her clit, tongue dipping downwards and thrusting shallowly inside her before flicking upwards again, drawing uneven patterns against her.

"You taste so good, Babe." He whispers; it's about the most pornographic thing he's ever said to her but something in the way he says it, how low and gruff and almost desperate his voice sounds, makes her entire body shudder—suddenly his tongue is flattening against her, flicking once against her opening before dragging up, his lips closing around her clit just as her thighs begin to shake uncontrollably.

 _(She can feel two parts of herself clawing at each other, teeth snapping at her throat and trying not push her into doing something stupid; the feral girl inside her is afraid, hates losing control, and is pushing her to throw him off her, to get back inside her own head_ — _but there's another part_ —)

He suckles once, twice, against her and she realizes too late that she's fighting a losing battle against herself, against Wally; she feels the entirety of her body tense up, her breath hitching into a feminine sounding gasp before his name bursts in a yelp from her lips.

Wally jerks back as she comes undone, watching a little confusedly for a second as her head rolls back and her breathing stutters; she gets the impression that he thinks he's hurt her before he realizes what's happening, his mouth going back to her and pressing gentle kisses against her dampened skin as if to soothe her through it. She's never felt more pathetic as she feels her thighs spasm against his cheeks but she's never once in her life cared less; it's hard to care about anything at all, actually, not when she feels his thumb rubbing softened circles over her hip, trying his best to help her through it.

 _(She's stops breathing and starts again, mind fogged but oddly clear and_ — _and suddenly the angry humming against her temples is gone, that person with the blood crusted fingers and the snarling voice, she's...)_

"Wally." She croaks out his name after what feels like too long, looking at him for what feels like the first time and staring a little dazedly at his mused ginger hair; she doesn't sound like herself, her voice much too high pitched and feminine. "T-that was…" And suddenly she can't quite talk right, or at least right enough to find the words; a little strangely she realizes there are tears bristling in the corners of her eyes, her whole body shaking as she tries once more to say something, mouth only opening and closing like a trout.

"Babe?" Wally prompts, looking a little confused as he sits up straight, wiping his mouth with the back of his hands. "... Artemis?"

Instead of saying anything she swallows down the emotion in her throat, going back to staring wide eyed at the ceiling.

* * *

Wally leaves to clean himself up and in his absence it finally hits her what's just happened; in the silence of the bedroom she suddenly realizes the silence of her mind, notices the lack of... Whatever the Metropolis girl was. Gingerly she picks her way towards her bed, listening to the sound of the nothingness as she lowers herself to her mattress. There's no buzzing anymore...

 _And she wishes for not the the first time that she could pry herself open, examine the parts of her that aren't quite right, figure out why things are suddenly so different now_ — _it's as if the heaviness in her bones has been replaced by helium, like she's suddenly opened a window inside herself and allowed fresh air to flood through her veins..._

Wally cracks open her door, smiling sheepishly at her; and for the first time in her life she actually feels a cocktail of hormones flooding through her blood stream, bursting so hard at the front of her mind that it's frighteningly clear that the emptiness the Metropolis girl left suddenly isn't that empty after all.

 _... She realizes vaguely that she's in trouble, though maybe in the best possible way..._

He smiles at her, eyes tracing the blush still coloring her cheeks and bursting in blotches along the beginning swells of her breasts; for some reason she's biting back her smile and not able to look at him, her fingers fumbling to redo buttons on her blouse. "... Hi." She says dumbly.

"Hi." He says just as stupidly back.

And maybe it's a little pathetic that she's so caught between the intoxicating effect of her own endorphins and a strange sort of shyness, her eyes glancing to the floor and fingers suddenly busy with extracting her panties from where they've been wrapped limply around her ankle. But she's suddenly not proud enough to care, not anymore. "... Do you want to...?" She asks vaguely, gesturing to the empty space beside her.

She doesn't look up but can still sense his nodding, not sure why she's holding her breath as he crosses the room; crumpling her underwear in her hand for a moment she quickly discards it as he sits beside her, careful to keep a distance between them and unsure of whether or not they're still upset at each other. "That was..." She starts, trailing off to knot her fingers together on her lap.

Unhelpfully Wally clears his throat, a little red about the ears but other wise looking quite pleased with himself. "Yeah."

She hears herself suck in a rattling breath, not quite sure if all is forgiven just yet. "... Look, not that that wasn't..." She fumbles, blushing. "Because, it was. Great, I mean. But..." She bites hard on the inside of her cheek. "You know you can't take care of me all the time, right?"

Wally make an annoyed noise in the back of his throat. "... Well," he starts, and for some reason he sounds almost sarcastic. "To be fair I think it worked out _pretty well_ for you just now."

She can't stop the snorting laugh that bursts out of her mouth, trying to fight her smile as Wally grins a little sheepishly at her. "Shut up." She chuckles, feeling brave enough to look at him properly now. "You know what I mean, Wally. You can't... Neither of us can." She says a little more firmly. "We're going to kill each other if we keep trying to protect each other from every thing."

She doesn't pull back when he reaches for her hand, fingers lacing between hers. "I know. I..." He trails off, bringing it to his mouth to press his lips to the back of her hand. "I'm sorry."

"Me too." She hears herself whisper, stomach tightening when he rotates her wrist, kissing her tendons so delicately she may as well be glass. "... Come here." She whispers, pulling her fingers free from his to cup a palm around his cheek.

The kiss is so soft it's hardly there, her thumb trailing down his cheek ghosting over his freckles; she can taste herself there, folded into the corners of his lips and lingering on his tongue, and without thinking she sighs against him, shifting their weight until he gets the message to lie beside her.

She pulls back a little too quickly, shifting unconsciously closer to him as she feels one of his hands rolling over her hips, carefully smoothing the pleats of her skirt over her thighs. She realizes she's still shaking slightly, both from climax and from something she can't quite understand; that vulnerable feeling, the one that had so unnerved her before, is still with her now. She hates it but somehow finds comfort in it, likes that they can both feel it in the quivering of her thighs and the shakiness with which she draws her breath; a little stupidly she presses herself more firmly to him, trying to burrow under the safety of his skin and lose herself in the protection of his warmth, her head fitting neatly beneath his chin.

"You're ice cold." Wally says into her hair after a while, his hand straying under the untucked hem of her shirt. "You want the blankets?" She doesn't know what he's talking about; the whole of her skin still feels feverish, borderline boiling, and she murmurs as much into his neck. "Still." He says insistently, and she feels the corner of his cheek against the top of her head. "... You want me to warm you up again?"

She decides it's a good sign when she hears herself snort again, pulling back to indulge him in the wink he's so longing to give her. "Don't be an idiot." She tells him quietly, looking up at him through her lashes. A little traitorously the hand that's still wrapped around his neck moves to paw through his hair, his eyes clouding over at the touch.

Wally pupils tighten when she kisses him again, eyes fluttering shut when she's unable to stop herself; for the first time in a long time she feels strangely happy, unburdened. _Young_. "… You know what you said before?" She whispers against his mouth, leaning forward for one more kiss before she pulls back entirely, wanting to try to look him in the eye. "About feeling like you're losing me?"

For someone as fast as he is it still takes Wally a few seconds to process what she's saying, his eyes blinking away the haze she's left there. "… Yeah."

She swallows, perhaps a little visibly, but doesn't duck her head down to hide like she wants to; instead she brushes another piece of hair off his forehead, carefully letting her hand trail down and press against the lines of muscle on his neck. "You aren't, Wally." She says, trying not to blink, to let her chin quiver, to do anything that might make what she says sound like a lie. "No matter... No matter what happens between us— You'll always be my best friend, okay? And I'll always come back to you, like you do with me." She pauses, and says about the stupidest thing she can imagine:

"... I promise."

And there's a reason why she's so careful with those words, why she doesn't use them lightly; for too long these words have gotten her hopes up, for too long she's been broken, shattered by them. For her they aren't a phrase, something to say to get people to agree with her or go along with whatever plan she's brewing. They're an oath, a vow; she's not a religious person by any means but she does believe in the power of these words, at least in what they'll make her do.

Because she will always come back to him, they'll always come back to each other; a small part of her has suspected for a while that Wally West has made a claim on her, has held a part of her in his hands and made it his own in a way so tender and soft that not even her scars can maim it. And maybe it used to bother her, scare her even, the fact that he could do this so easily, but he's been so free with his own heart that it somehow unburdened hers as well.

He will always have her in that he will always be her best friend, always be the boy who— _even if it took the heated blood of the battle field to make her realize it_ —unthawed her frozen bones and made her realize she could still fall in love, maybe, for the first time. He will always be the boy who held her hand when she was afraid in the Bialyan desert, will always be the boy who saw the lights on the Metropolis bridge and kissed her until it went dark; he will always be Wally West and she will always be Artemis Crock, and no matter where life takes them, how far apart they're torn— she'll always find her way back to wherever he might be.

So yes, she promises. She promises to always stand beside this boy— the boy who kisses warmth into her frozen finger tips, who rubs the knots out of her shoulders and braids tangles into her hair— and to always remember his friendship and his kindness. And perhaps that is naïve; but perhaps it is also improvement, a sign that her skin is stretching beneath her rough patches and outgrowing them slowly...

It doesn't matter really what it is, she supposes. Because it's still a promise. And even if "I promise" isn't the three syllables she needs to say she supposes it's better than nothing.

Wally's smile is blinding in the half light and when she feels tears burning insistently in the corners of her eyes she gives in, her head tucking quickly beneath his chin. "… Can you help me with my Biology homework?" She mumbles into the hollow of his chest, trying too hard to change the topic.

In answer Wally's arms tighten around her and she feels him grinning again, breath warm against her scalp as he kisses the baby hairs bursting around her hairline. "I thought I already did that?" He jokes.

She hears herself laugh, the sound that bubbles out of her throat much more high pitched and feminine than anything she's ever uttered before. And maybe she had been right, with what she had said before; they can't keep trying to box each other up, force each other into darkened corners until the danger is past. She can't keep putting pieces of him away and only taking him out when she feels like breathing again.

Because if she wants to love Wally— and she realizes, as he rolls on top of her to plant a wet kiss on her cheek, how very badly she wants to do just that— she's going to have to shunt aside instincts for complications and hiding and embrace a certain kind of quiet simplicity. She'll have to learn to trust him, trust in the knowing smiles he sends her and the way his finger tips can always find the notch of bone on her wrist in the darkness, and learn to believe that someone like her can be good enough to really love someone like him someday. They both needs to learn how to love whole people, not just parts, and learn to accept the running and the clinging and learn to let go of the past, even if they leave behind claw marks.

For the first time in her life she wants Wally more than she's afraid of everything else, and she wonders vaguely if that's what love is supposed to feel like.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! Hopefully that will calm everyone down who was so upset in the reviews the other week... ;)**

 **A quick Q &A...**

 **Q: What's the posting schedule?**

 **A: To be honest, right now I don't really have one. I'm doing my best to update every week/week and a half, and things are going to remain little hectic for most of April as I approach my university finals. Things will settle down around the 25th and I'll start posting again on a steady weekly schedule!**

 **Q: If the posting schedule is so crazy how can I make sure I don't miss anything?**

 **A: Simple, click the Follow button! That will send you an email alert the second the most recent chapter is live. Another good thing to do is leave reviews, or send me private messages about the chapter. I always respond to my reviews and messages about the story with an ETA or countdown till the next chapter is going to be posted and I always stick to it; a lot of my regular reviewers know up to a day before each chapter is live. And as always, the more reviews I get the faster I post** — **so in addition to getting more info about the hectic update schedule and having a nice chat with yours truly you're also getting the chapter you want up faster.**

 **Remember to keep watching YJ on Netflix so we can get season 3! And please read and review too!**


	18. We're Out of Tune

**AN: Sorry for the bit of the late update, my exams have been crazy. Enjoy!**

 **The first section of this chapter is rated M.**

* * *

She falls asleep, hovering in and out of unconsciousness as the anxious buzzing in her mind is replaced by Wally's humming in her ear; it's very hard not to feel relaxed with him curled around her, the warmth of his body intoxicating as he exhales broken songs and random notes that echo inside the blissfully empty space in her head. More than once she emerges from sleep to feel the rhythm of their breath beating in sync with each other's, bodies pressed so tightly together that she feels less like two different people and more like one.

 _(And although it's not the first time she's felt something like this it's by far the strongest... Like so many years ago, when her mother could stand on her two legs and carry in her arms or the not-quite-real memory of laughing on the couch with her father, like the too few times before she feels so completely content in this moment now_ — _she wants to freeze time, live only right here for the rest of her life, with Wally's arms around her and his heart beating loudly against her shoulder blade and her own unburdened admittance that she might be hopelessly, stupidly in love with this boy_ — _)_

She stirs when she starts feeling his limbs fidgeting at the stillness, something inside his blood forcing him to move; she's kicked out of sleepiness once by the sensation of his thigh wedging sharply between her legs, denim surprisingly rough from where she's still sensitive. She can't quiet settle properly after that, excitement still lingering in the flush of her skin.

She's hardly dozing when she feels his fingers starting to move, apparently unable to take the stillness and silence any longer; for some reason she feels herself going stiff beneath his hands, breath halting in her lungs and muscles tightening. It's not out of fear, out of wanting distance like it was before— very suddenly she wants to memorize the patterns he traces into her, remember the shapes he draws along her skin, allow them to mark her deeper and more permanently than any of her scars ever have...

"You can look, you know." She mutters tiredly, feeling the way he traces the curve of her earlobe and down the lines of her neck, pausing a little too purposefully at the edge of the medical tape still adorning the base of her spine. A little stupidly Wally jumps at the sound of her voice, as if he really didn't notice that she was awake. "... I know you want to."

He doesn't say anything for a long moment but she still feels the way his fingers hesitate before moving back towards the bandage; she's expecting him to rip it off in one smooth motion, so quick she can't feel it— instead she hears herself hiss as he drags the tape off at almost a snails pace, making it impossible not to wince as the bandage pulls on pieces of crusted over skin or catches at ensnarled ends of hair. "Sorry." He says in an undertone before he's finished.

When the bandage is off she doesn't feel naked or ashamed like she's been expecting to— but, she supposes, this isn't the first time he's seen her scar. She wonders with a strange air of acceptance what it looks like now, if the warbled skin is smoothened into a clean looking slice mark, or if Jade's touch has somehow made it uglier than it already was.

 _That's the thing about Jade_ — _you never know what those hands are going to do to you._

"... I don't get it." Wally says after a moment, breath warming the back of her neck. "I thought Cheshire tried to stop Sportsmaster when he— you know. The first time." He breaks off, clearing his throat a little gruffly until all trace of sleep is gone from his voice.

She's not entirely sure what he's asking, and she supposes it's her own fault; she's always been so determined not to talk about the past that Wally's grown shy of asking, afraid she'll turn on her heel and run if he intrudes a little too far into her overwhelmingly large vault of secrets. Still, fisting a ball of her blankets tightly in her hand, she tries to do her best to answer him. "I... I mean, you've met her." She starts awkwardly. "When I was a kid, she was kind of like two different people... One was normal, almost— like a real older sister. And the other was just... She was what Dad wanted her to be.

"Sometimes there would be times... There would be times where I'd see her, and she'd see me and it would be like... It would just be us. The two of us as we are, without him." She feels herself gritting her teeth together and quickly stops. "But I said some things the last couple times— right before it happened, actually, and now I don't— I don't know what I'm trying to say. I don't think that part of her is there anymore. The good part." She says a bit thickly. "I think I broke her."

Wally's quiet for about half a second, listening very hard to what she's saying but apparently not having an answer. "... Artemis."

"It's fine." She says quickly, not wanting roll back to look at him when she feels one hand on her shoulder, trying to pull her until her back is flat on her mattress. "... Does it look bad?" She asks childishly.

For some reason Wally lets out a warm breath against the back of her neck, finally succeeding in getting her to roll towards him. "You? Look bad?" He drawls out in his usual Wallman tone, brows raising flirtatiously but lips quirking into a kind smile. "Not possible, Beautiful."

It takes a lot of effort not to send him a warbling smile back and instead roll her eyes. "You're an idiot." She scowls, not quite managing to keep the dry look on her face as he leans in to kiss her.

As he sighs into her mouth she suddenly feels quite stupid for trying to convince herself that she could live without him; if she's learnt anything in the past few months it's been that they need each other, even if they come with bumps and bruises. And she supposes, as she runs her hands through his hair, that maybe learning is exactly what they've been doing up until this point— learning how to side step the sticky patches, learning how to brush around the shadowy parts of her past without lingering too long, learning how to change the subject when they need to—

Wally pulls back before she can really pour herself into the kiss, her eyes blinking open a little confusedly and mouth still puckered in his absence; when she finally pulls him into focus he's still trying to smile at her, brows slightly furrowed. "... Don't hit me, or anything." He blurts out, ears going off when she blinks. "For ruining the moment, I mean. But—" He pauses, swallowing and looking nervous. "... Okay, so, we've had our fight, said all that terrible stuff to each other... I'm just wondering if anything's changed."

She feels her face crumple. "What do you mean?"

"Like..." For some reason Wally props himself up onto his elbow, one finger tapping anxiously against her hip. "Like the fact that your Dad is still out, Artemis. Like I still feel like... Like you're only stopping to catch your breath for a second before you're back to running away from me again."

 _Artemis is a born runner._

As he says it the familiar words bounce around inside her head again, her throat oddly tight as he looks down at her; she doesn't know how to explain it to him, not without saying the words that she's still a little afraid of. "... This time doesn't feel different to you?" She whispers, voice breaking.

 _She's not sure why she asks the question so plainly, giving him only yes or no parameters to reply with. She's afraid of both the answers he might give her._

When Wally looks her in the eye there's a flash of something she can't quite identify behind the familiar apple of his irises; for several seconds neither of them look away, as if they're calling bluffs in a game of poker, wondering who will be the one to fold first. "... It might." Wally admits after a moment, eyes leaving hers to stare at his hand on her hip, fingers smoothing the pleats of her skirt nervously over her thighs. "... Would it sound really lame if I told you I was a bit afraid to trust it though?"

 _So there it is, in simplest terms: all her being afraid of trusting Wally had finally made him afraid to trust her too._

She hates it, because she knows it's exactly what her father would want. Lawrence, her sister, they would both tell her that this is for the best— that keeping people at a distance, operating alone... _That's the only way to make sure you survive_. And maybe at one point that's what she had wanted— to survive, to keep going, to live until her next meal or until the week after next. But she doesn't want that with Wally. She doesn't want fighting for scraps and thirsting for oxygen, for affection, for a reason to stay alive. She doesn't want to keep him at an arm's length— she wants him as close as two people can be together. She wants life. She wants love.

 _She wants Wally._

She wants Wally so badly that for the first time she's prepared to do something she's never done before: she's prepared to try. To try to change, to try to be the kind of girl worthy of his love. The kind of girl who doesn't have memories as sharp and dingy as broken glass. The kind of girl who can hold his hand in public without looking over her shoulder. The kind of girl who isn't so determined to hate herself that she ends up hurting him too. The kind of girl worthy of being loved by Wally West.

 _And more than anything she's going to try to embrace this strange and sure vulnerability that's been with her since she fell apart in his arms, that she suspects has been burrowed inside her since she saw him die in Metropolis. She wants to drown herself in the foreignness of it's waters, wants to feel afraid and excited and a thousand different things at once instead of shutting down like she always does. She wants to feel things, wants to feel things with him_ —

"Like you said before." She whispers after a moment, fingers rising up his arm and brushing through his hair; almost instantly his eyes cloud over at the touch, head tilting against her hand. "... Even if I do run, in the end I'm running back to you, okay?"

It's not quite what she wants to say but Wally seems to understand, mouth quirking up into the crooked smile she so adores, the one that's painted with half-shed laughter and some other happy feeling she's not sure there's a name for; there's a fraction of a moment where his eyes leave his fingers and he sends her such a blazing look that she can practically feel the heat underneath her skin. She doesn't have enough time to process what it means before he collapses onto her, lips claiming hers so fiercely that any other intelligent thoughts are thrown out of her head entirely.

 _(There's only one thing inside her, banging against her pulse as rapidly as her own heart beat_ — _She wants Wally, she wants Wally, she wants Wally...)_

She can taste the grin on his mouth as he presses the whole of his weight on top of her, kissing something she doesn't understand into the seams of her skin. She hears herself moan against him as he rolls on top of her, his thigh returning to it's earlier position and wedging between her legs; like before she feels her hips buck beneath him, sensitive to the coarse brushing of the denim and unknowingly rocking her more surely against his rapidly roaming palms, now running down her neck and cupping her breasts—

"Wait." She moans into his mouth, gasping when his teeth reclaim her lower lip for a moment. "You're wrinkling my school uniform."

Wally snorts, grinning down at her when she pulls back, her loose hair fanning out in waves beneath her on the mattress. "So?" He mutters, ducking his head down to press wet kisses against her neck. "Just take it off."

She can tell it's a joke, can feel the slight chuckle of breath that accompanies the suggestion as he burrows into her neck, nudging her about the jaw and getting her to expose more of herself to him. Unwittingly he shifts his thigh and almost too quickly she can feel her skin flooding with heat, wanting building again under his touch. "Y-yeah." She gasps out, one hand reaching out to pull him back by the scruff of his neck until he can look her properly in the eye. "... Why don't I?"

 _(And she doesn't know why it's just occurring to her now, why after months of wanting nothing but she's suddenly understanding why she had craved his skin touching hers so badly_ — _because if she's going to be vulnerable, going to surrender to this... Feeling, that he ignites in her... What better way of doing that than_ — _)_

There's a half second where Wally looks at her, not quite registering that she's not joking and green eyes still crinkled slightly with mirth; she almost bursts out laughing when his smile fades, reading the seriousness on her face and the blush on her cheeks. "I— What?" He says stupidly, ears reddening.

This time she does laugh as she slides out from underneath him— he's gone suddenly ridged, forearms tight as he braces himself above her, expression looking as if he's recently been knocked about the head and forced into a stunned and embarrassed shock. Punching him roughly about the shoulder _(and the movement feels so rehearsed, so normal, and it feels like a lifetime ago that she used to do that as an excuse to touch him when she was still too afraid to so much as flatten her hand against his back on the rare occasion he would hug her)_ she stands a little clumsily, ankle still bothered from all her walking today, looking back over her shoulder as he settles on the edge of her bed. "... Unless you'd rather I get detention for all the wrinkles in my clothes?"

Wally looks dumbfounded as she limps across the room, approaching her dresser. "I, well— no." He mutters, swallowing thickly and pressing his heels hard into her floor. He looks how she feels whenever he changes pace on her, confused and entirely unsure of what's happening. "I just— we haven't, uh..."

She feels a bit stupid, pretending not to notice the hardened and slightly startled way Wally's staring at her, looking as if he can't quite understand what's happening or what her real intentions are. Without him finishing the sentence she knows exactly what he's thinking— they've never actually talked about having sex before, most of their more heated moments the results of plenty of screaming and even smaller squabbles often sending them into feverish lip locking that lasts for hours and doesn't give any sense of relief. And while she's always sort of quietly assumed it would happen— eventually— she gets the impression that Wally's the kind of guy who would want to plan for it, who would want to map it out in his head before it even got close to happening...

 _(And maybe she's a little curious as to what that would have been like, if she could allow herself to wait for it... But it's too late now, she's too intoxicated by his scent, by the dopamine in her mind and the stubbornness in her veins_ — _she's afraid if she doesn't dive head first into that vulnerable feeling now she'll never get it back, never be ready to...)_

She's always found the idea of sex and seduction a little silly, gotten so used to Zatanna's jokes poking fun at it that she feels almost out of her element whenever she tries to be sexy, as if like with everything else that's softened and intimate it's simply not in her genes. Still, she tries not to blush as she pauses at her dresser, jaw tilting when she looks back towards him.

Wally's throat bobs as she starts tending to her buttons, eyes dropping to the swell of her breasts as the white cotton splits open between them, once again revealing the expanse of black underwire and padding beneath it; faintly she can hear the vibration of his phone in his jeans pocket and almost smiles at the way he fumbles for a button to silence it. She hears him suck in a breath when she drags her shirt down her shoulders, letting it fall teasingly down her body and crumpling it easily in her hands, shoving it unceremoniously on top of her dresser.

"Don't y-you, uh." Wally mutters, ears reddening when his voice breaks. "Don't you want to fold that?"

She nearly laughs again, caught between being endeared and wanting to hit him for the question, somehow managing to contain herself to a wry smile. "Do you want me to stop and fold it?" She asks coyly, one hand reaching up behind her for her bra clasp.

Wally goes a deep crimson, shaking his head. "... No."

It's incredibly satisfying, the way the redness from his ears seems to spread to his cheeks at the sound of her bra snapping open; there's several long seconds where she pulls the underwire off herself and Wally's eyes noticeably widen when he lets out a straggled exhale, hands clenching tightly against his knee caps as if to keep himself from racing across the room to touch her.

She doesn't feel as naked now as the first time she undressed in front of him, in the heat of the moment in the library so many weeks ago; still, she feels herself blushing as her breasts spring free, looking a little shyly at the expression in his face and suddenly frowning when she realizes he's no longer looking at her, eyes screwed up and head turned away from her.

"... Wally?" She says his name confusedly, a little offended by his lack of attention and unsure whether or not to keep going. Tentatively she takes a half step towards him, hand pausing on the zipper of her skirt.

Her floorboards squeak with the movement and almost instantly his head whirs back around to her. "Sorry—" He gasps out, sounding almost strangled as his eyes open for a moment and lock eyes with her nipples before they snap shut again. "I-I feel just feel like a creep, like, staring—"

Once again she feels like laughing, although this time for an entirely different reason; too often she forgets that underneath the Wallman persona he's just as uncomfortable and unsure about this kind of thing as she is, only seeming to have confidence when the two of them are yelling in each other's faces and too overwhelmed by emotion to think straight. "Wally." She tries to say patiently, crossing the room until she's an easy foot in front of him. "Wally, you idiot. _I want you to look at me._ "

She feels stupid for what feels like the thousandth time that night, standing there half dressed and having a conversation with his still shut eyes— his phone is going off again in his pocket but this time he's not moving to silence it. When nothing more happens than a nervous muscle beginning to jump in his neck she blushes darker, deciding to take matters into her own hands; hesitating, she fumbles with her zipper and lets the cheap fabric of the Gotham Academy skirt fall to the floor, the only other sound in the room Wally's phone clicking to voicemail.

Wally's hands are clammy when she extracts them from his knees, feeling almost cold for the first time when she guides them to the narrowness of her waist. The second he touches her he exhales hard through his nose, warm air hitting her across her bare stomach. "Open your eyes." She orders him kindly. Almost helplessly he obeys, now almost maroon as his green eyes flicker open, fingers immediately tightening as he struggles to pull her nakedness into focus. She can see his lips part and form an unintelligible swear.

"You're being weird." She tells him almost a little too frankly, head tilting to follow the almost frantic path his eyes mark on her body, the seams of her skin seeming to heat up again under his gaze. "...You've seen at lot of this before, you know. Or are you already forgetting the last couple hours?"

Wally swallows, glancing up for a second at her face. "That was..." He says unclearly. "— I mean, I've never— you know, all at once." He clarifies, voice still sounding slightly thick as his eyes travel back down her body.

It's very hard not to bite her lips when his thumb traces the indentations of her hips, trailing down to touch the swell of her thighs. "And?" She hears herself say a little breathlessly.

"And nothing." He says more steadily after a moment, still blushing but no longer acting as shy. She can feel her skin burning underneath his fingers, wanting beginning to pool again in the low point of her stomach. "I mean... Don't take this the wrong way or anything. But I... I've imagined you naked before." He says a little sheepishly. "Doesn't compare much to the real thing though."

As if to comfort him she braces her hands on his shoulders; it must help, some of his blush receding back up his cheeks, and as if he can't stop himself he keeps talking nervously. "I mean, I've thought about stuff... How could I not, I mean, look at you." He chuckles nervously, nodding at the bare plane of her stomach. "After that first kiss in my room forever ago... I mean, I've thought about how badly I've wanted to pull you close just to feel you pressing against me."

She feels herself shiver as his hand starts to move, following up the middle line of her abdomen until he reaches the dip between her breasts. "Thought about how when you blush it pools down your chest, wondered if it reaches other places..." She's hardly breathing when his forefinger skims the bottom curve of her breast, still several inches from where her blush is extending; she hears herself suck in a startled breath when he runs his thumb too lightly over her nipple, making it pucker. "And that, right there, that small noise you make when I touch you and you're not expecting it..."

All too quickly he pulls away, hand back to running down her stomach; she can feel her fingers flexing almost too tightly into the material of his shirt. "...Thought about how when you yell at me you get this wrinkle over your nose... How good it feels when your hips are pressing into mine, and how crazy it drives me when you run your hands through my hair..." To her embarrassment her abs tighten when he runs a hand over them, thumbs digging into her hips again. "But it's different imaging all those things, compared to seeing it right in front of you." He says thickly, fingers skimming her thigh. "And different too, when you're not standing in front of me and screaming the whole time."

It's her turn to swallow, cheeks going off. "I don't scream the whole time." She says quietly, shivering when he presses the whole of his palm again her thigh, thumb pressing against the ages-old scar beneath her hip.

Her breath hitches when his fingers drag upward, finding the hot point between her legs that's already wet for him again. "... No." He says thickly, watching as her eyes flutter shut. "You make other noises too."

When he strokes her she hears herself let out a tiny gasp in the back of her throat; it's very difficult not to crumble in his arms again, especially when he starts dragging his forefingers along her opening, pressing her wetness into her nerves in fast, anxious little strokes. She gets the distinct impression that he's eager for more experimenting, excited to find new ways to make her moan his name. Biting her lip and trying not to drop her head back in another moan she does her best to speak steadily. "... Wally?"

"What is it, Babe?" He says very quickly, the hand not busy with her wrapping around her waist and trying to pull her closer.

She nearly loses it altogether when he starts pressing languid kisses into her stomach, her thighs twitching before she manages to get his wrist contained in her hand, doing very little to stop his movements as one finger plunges inside her. "What if I told you that I wanted you?" She gasps out too loudly. "What if I want to... You know. With you."

 _(Privately she wonders if there's a way to ask a boy to have sex with you without wanting to die of embarrassment.)_

It's borderline unbearable to feel his lips still against her skin and watch as he pulls back to look at her properly; rather than wait for an answer she ignores the vaguely confused look Wally sends her and instead forces her hips away from his fingers. "A-Artemis?" He has enough time to say her name before she nervously yanks his shirt from his shoulders without hearing an answer, ears crimson and hair rumpled when he emerges. "... Do you want to...?"

There's a half second that seems to last forever where they look each other in the eye; true to Wally's observations she can feel her blush leaking down to color the tops of her breasts. "Do you?" She asks, trying not to blink. "B-because, you know. _I want to_."

She can't wait for him to answer properly before she launches herself at him, by now wanting him so badly she can hardly stand it; in an instant she's wrapped herself around him, nails digging into his bare shoulders and legs circling around his waist, pressing herself into the thick fabric of his jeans and nearly sending him toppling backwards against the mattress as she kisses him. Wally for his part is stunned enough to kiss her back for several seconds before he frees himself, looking embarrassed when she keeps pressing her mouth frantically against his skin. "But, I uh... _Oh God_." He mutters the last part when she licks her way up his neck, teeth nipping at his earlobe. "I don't have _anything_."

It takes a few beats of nothingness for her to understand what he's saying, mouth stilling on his ear and fingers slacking their grip on his shoulder. "... You don't..." She repeats, still a little cloudy from the heat of the moment, both of them ignoring when his phone goes off in his pocket and vibrates loudly underneath her thigh. It takes several long seconds for her to pull back entirely, one hand turning his jaw towards her and looking him in the eye. "Well I don't have anything either."

"Yeah." He blushes, thumb stroking tender circles into her back. "I mean— not like I planned on this happening."

"Right." She says gruffly, feeling stupid with her nakedness and the way she's coiled her way around him. "... We could... Without it?" She suggests half heartedly.

Wally snorts almost immediately, the sound so obnoxious that she instantly extracts herself from around him, embarrassed. "I'm not even going to answer that." He says severely, ignoring her when she rolls off him and flops beside him on the bed. "That was one of the stupidest things you've ever said."

"It was just a suggestion." She snarls, hating that she said it in the first place when Wally laughs again. "I wasn't like— I mean, I wasn't being serious."

"Then why did you suggest it?"

"Shut up."

Wally keeps grinning cockily at her when she loses patience with him, reaching to the foot of her bed for the previous night's pajamas so she doesn't have to keep being naked and embarrassed about it. "So what?" He laughs at her, grabbing at her wrist when she yanks an oversized t-shirt over herself. "Now you're mad at me again? Because I didn't have the foresight to bring a condom with me when I came here to yell at you?"

"Shut up." She repeats, listening hard to the silence of the apartment; she's just about to start swearing at him again when she hears the bell of the elevator in the hall chime out. In a half second she's yanking Wally's hands off her, searching frantically for his watch and twisting it on his arm until she can read the face. "... Shit." She mutters, blanching when she looks at the time and immediately flying off her bed, trying and failing to not bother her ankle. "My mom's home."

" _Your Mom's—"_

She winces at the volume of his voice when she races back towards her dresser, one hand waving at him as she yanks sweat pants and a hoodie from a drawer. " _Clothes_ , Wally, we'll—" She blushes. "We'll talk out about that... The other thing later. Just get dressed, _please_."

She's in the middle of yanking her hoodie over her head when she hears her mother's key in the front lock; without looking at him she pulls the sweater over herself, the hood sticking up ridiculously on the back of her head. "You don't have to leave or anything, but—" She pauses when she hears him swear under his breath, realizing that he's extracted his phone from his pocket and is staring at the screen with furrowed brows. "What's up?"

Wally's across the room in a second, the speed of his movement send a back draft across her face and forcing her hood to fall from the back of her head. "Like, a dozen missed calls from my Dad." He says nervously, looking troubled as he backs towards her window. " _Fuck._ He's going to kill me."

Something quirks in her stomach when he says it, something in his tone sending a wave of nervousness through her. "Blame it on me, tell him I lost track of the time—"

"Two bad ideas in one night, Blondie." He says quickly, blasting once across the room and kissing her so briefly on the lips that for a moment she's almost sure she's imagined it. "We'll talk tomorrow, okay? I have to get going."

She gets as far as watching him scramble up onto her night table and start opening her window before she snaps out of it. "You can use the front door, idiot. What are you going to do, run home?"

She doesn't get an answer, and when she blinks she feels the familiar blast of air smacking her across the face. Before her eyes are even open he's gone.

* * *

Wally's not even gone an hour before her own curiosity gets the better of her; grabbing a looking glass from a drawer in her dresser she stalks off to the bathroom, seeking answers to a question that he wasn't brave enough to really give her.

It's still sensitive from where he pulled the bandage off before, rubbing almost painfully against the seams of her hoodie as she yanks it over her shoulders. Strangely she feels more naked now, alone in her bathroom, than she had ever felt underneath the warmth of Wally's fingers. It takes her several seconds of breathing loudly through her nose before she gets the nerve to do what she wants to, the small of her back digging into the edge of the sink as she flips her hair over one shoulder, exposing the back of her neck. All at once she lets out a snarling huff and thrusts the mirror out in front of herself, staring hard and trying to get the angle of the reflection right between her shaking fingers.

The first thought that passes through her head is that Wally lied to her.

But she doesn't cry, like she expected to; for several long seconds she stares at the place where all that warbled skin used to sit, feeling an odd sense of emptiness run through her. Maybe he hadn't lied, not exactly. It isn't bad looking.

 _It isn't beautiful, though._

It doesn't look like much of anything, anymore. All the bumps and uneven skin have been cleanly removed by Jade's slicing, and its place sits an over-large scab, cracking around the edges and stitched up in others. She's sure that whatever mark it leaves will be permanent, although perhaps not quite as ugly.

She only manages half a minute of looking at it before she finds she has to stop, growing dizzy and realizing suddenly that she's not breathing; with a loud stutter of breath she lowers the mirror, placing it clumsily against the sink and listening to it clatter loudly against the counter top.

She's not entirely sure what's worse— The mark from her father or the one from Jade. They're both awful in several regards, both born from screaming and brokenness and put there by people who she was always told weren't supposed to hurt her.

"Artemis?"

She blinks out of the thought when her mother taps against the door, a little surprised to find her eyes oddly wet. "One second." She mutters, yanking her hoodie over her back to hide the mark.

* * *

A few days later she's back to clenching her cellphone like a lifeline, pacing back and forth in the tiny Gotham apartment. She had had every intention of keeping Wally unusually close, worried that the nervous buzzing in her head would return in his absence. She's not sure why it's happened but the Metropolis girl remains silent as the hours tick on— as silent as Wally, who for some reason doesn't return her calls.

 _Had she imagined it? That he had said he would call? Or is that just a thing all boys say when someone tries to have sex with them and it doesn't go as planned?_

 _And the more she thinks about it the more she realizes that she had kind of just assumed that Wally wanted her as badly as she had wanted him_ — _did she push herself on him?_

 _(But then she remembers the way he touched her, and no_ — _he had wanted her just as much as she had wanted him, she's sure...)_

Nearly three days later she's replaying every moment of their last night together in her mind, running over scripts of all the nasty things they yelled at each other and how they had said goodbye; she worries that she came on to strong, between screaming at him one moment and curling herself around him the next, taking off all her clothes and whispering how badly she wanted him into his neck...

 _("Fuck. He's going to kill me."_

 _And then she thinks about how Wally had talked about his father and she gets a tenfold more worried...)_

She feels oddly helpless, going about her routine of school and promptly going home and avoiding the Cave; she knows she'd probably stand a better chance of finding Wally if she went there but something inside her, something rooted in embarrassment and pride and maybe an annoyance at Kaldur stops her. She's still sore from the mission, both from it's failure and the risk he put them all at in his thoughtlessness, and rather than do the healthy thing and yell at him like she wants to she sits on her couch and broods, checking her phone and glaring at all the missed calls that are from everyone but Wally.

* * *

She's still a little rickety on her feet but gets the sense that she's healing; her injures from Athens while numerous aren't nearly as bad as those she received in Metropolis, and before long she can settle her weight more evenly on her feet and walk through the hallways without sending an odd swish to her skirt and attracting the attention of a few too many boys.

 _It's been five days since she last saw Wally._

The final bell's just rung when she senses eyes on her; like an idiot she fumbles with her book bag, still half-convinced that the trouble she encountered in Greece isn't over, despite the amount of time that's passed. Handling the straps poorly and sending the edge of a textbook clanging loudly into her locker she looks, perhaps a little too wildly, over her shoulder. For some reason it takes her a second to place the stunning blue of his eyes, looking a little strange without a domino mask or shaded lenses to conceal them.

 _(Dick is on the roof and she's gripping the wheel as tight as she can. Tires are squealing and there's a cliff, she's sending them towards death and she can't save them, she can't save them all_ — _)_

He's staring at her from across the hallway, squinting slightly with his hands in his pockets; perhaps it's just because she's looking for it but she can see the weeks old marks from the car accident, her throat tightening as they lock eyes. It strikes her that they're both looking for the same thing.

 _But that's the thing about the two of them. Whether they like it or not they both know a little too much about each other, have gotten to that point where a look is more than a look, it's reliving a moment, a nightmare_ —

His staring has attracted the attention of his friends, the same loud group of rowdy boys he always hangs out with at the academy, their conversation abruptly cutting off as they all follow his gaze and spot her.

She feels herself blush at the attention and goes back to her locker, shoving notebooks and the day's homework inside her bag and ignoring the shouting now being directed at her. She's always found the school dynamic with Dick quite strange, always found it difficult to not let on just how well she knows the boy across the hall. It's just odd, coming from a place on the Team where they're... equals, and returning to the crowded Gotham halls and realizing that she'll never be more to anyone here than the scholarship pity case, someone who doesn't really belong...

She doesn't see him waving off his friends but she does hear the lone sound of his tread across the tile; she's always found Dick's stride strange and distinctive to listen to. It's too light, as if he's hardly touching the ground. Most people drag their heels, the edges of their feet but Dick... Dick rolls his whole foot against the ground, high arches balancing his weight too evenly to be entirely natural, every part of his foot ghosting against the ground whether barefoot or clad in the highly polished leather shoes he always wears to school.

She can sense him when she stops beside her, leaning almost too easily against the row of lockers, one hand shoved in his pocket and rumpling the clean lines of his blazer. "What do you want?" She asks instead of greeting him, not looking up from her book bag.

 _It feels easier to keep up the charade they always do at school_ — _like he's just some annoying freshman who bothers her from time to time, like he isn't one of her best friends in the world._

In answer Dick lowers his jaw, the unnerving blue of his eyes surveying her sharply as his friends keeping hollering obnoxiously across the hall. "A word." He says seriously, jerking his head round to send a look to the group of boys when they start whistling.

She rolls her eyes when he hisses a few choice swears across the hall, slinging her bag over her shoulders. "Not today, Grayson." She says easily, scowling. "Don't have time for—"

"Artemis." He cuts her off, looking at her seriously. Something in the way he says her name makes her stop, the way the syllables in the word don't just roll off his tongue but fly, and instantly she knows it's not just a name, it's a mantle. _It's all business_. "A word."

She forces the surprised look on her face to fall and instead replaces it with a scowl, too pinched to be real. "Fine." She says shortly, slamming her locker shut. She glares when he straightens, the both of them ignoring the jeering of his friends as he passes her, steering her by the crook of her elbow down the hallway.

The both of them go quiet until they're blended into the crowd of academy students all squacking and excited about the end of the school day, allowing the noise and jostling of the people around them to steer their wandering. She's just got the main doors of the Academy in sight when she can't take it anymore, finally glancing at him. "You wanted a word, remember?" She reminds him, pulling her elbow out of his grip. "... It's nice to see you looking like... Like you." She adds in an undertone.

 _...Because the last time she saw him he was still mumbling at the wall, eyes unfocused and head rolling on his shoulders..._

"It's nice to feel like myself again too." He nods back, hands shoving in his pockets again. "... You're doing okay?" He asks after a moment, glancing down to where she's still limping slightly.

"I'm... Alive." She says honestly, unconsciously gripping the straps of her bag tightly. As if they've previous agreed on it they both walk through the main doors, feet slowing as they both emerge, blinking, into the late afternoon sunshine.

Dick sighs. "Yeah. I guess we're all lucky to be just that after everything." For some reason he stops walking, several feet in front of the doors and in everyone's way, forcing the mob of students leaving school from the day to weave around the two of them. "I wanted to ask... Have you talked to Kal? Since everything... Happened?"

Without thinking about it she presses a hand against the front of her thighs as the wind picks up, forcing the pleats of her skirt to stay flat against her legs; several people are muttering angrily as they have to dodge around her. "No. I mean he— He called me once last week, but I didn't pick up."

"And you haven't seen him or anything?"

"No."

"I figured, since you haven't been around the Cave much..." Dick says the last part almost peevishly, as if he's annoying by her not visiting more often; one of his hands leaves his pocket to smooth back his hair— he's let it get a little longer than usual, the onyx locks looking a little strange when they're so slicked back. "... Kal's been sent back to Atlantis. Happened a few days ago."

It takes almost a whole second for her to process what he's just said, the realization being suddenly knocked into her when someone angrily elbows her out of the way. "What?" She bursts loudly, stepping a little too hard onto her injured ankle; instantly she's rewarded with a sharp pain shooting up to her lower back, muscles and tendons twitching at the movement.

Dick looks impatient when she grimaces down at her foot, wobbling unsteadily when another student bumps her in his anxiousness to leave school for the day. "God, Artemis." He sighs, looking around to see if they were overheard; grabbing her elbow again to steady her he drags her away from the school doors towards a bench in the front courtyard. "Shouldn't you be using crutches or something?"

"What do you mean?" She ignores his question, impatiently ripping her elbow from his hand before he can force her into sitting. "What do you mean they sent him back?" She hisses.

"I shouldn't have said it like that." He mutters, hand musing his hair again as he frowns. "Look, I don't know the whole story—" He sighs, dropping his tone so low she can hardly hear him over the boisterous after-school chatter. "... Aquaman's son had just been born and I guess it was... _Suggested_ , that he go with Tula and Garth to pay a visit to the newest heir to the throne. Take a little time off. That's all I know right now."

She feels herself scowling, ignoring him when he gestures for her to sit. "Is it?" She asks suspiciously, glaring. "What about that little girl— Cassie? Or the diary, I mean, do we have anything—"

"Hey." He cuts her off firmly, glaring back. "Concussion, remember? Been kind of hard to find anything out between all the vomit and migraines. If you don't believe me then ask Wally."

"So much for being a detective." She snorts before hesitating, looking at him warily. "... Speaking of Wally. Have you heard from him? Or seen him? Or anything?"

Dick frowns at her before glancing around the courtyard. "No. Not since last week."

The way he says it is so uncaring, as if it's not odd for Wally to vanish off the face of the earth like she so often does. "So, what? That doesn't bother you? Not hearing from your best friend? Don't you worry that something might be wrong?"

He looks as if he's trying very hard not to roll his eyes at her, the corners of his mouth quirking patiently. "Look who's talking. When was the last time you went to the Cave?" She glares at him, watching as his hands press his hair back against the top of his head. "...Listen, you haven't known Wally as long as I have. Every once in a while he'll... Sometimes he'll just space out for a while. Kind of reminds me of you, actually." He adds as an after thought, smirking when she blushes. "Happens every couple of months. There's some stuff... It's not my thing to tell, alright? But you don't have to pretend to be worried about him or anything. He'll come back."

She feels a pang run through her, annoyed that he doesn't believe she's actually worried; ignoring this she continues on, glaring. "It may be normal for him to space out on you." She says severely. "But Wally's never disappeared on me. Ever."

"Last Christmas never happened, did it?" He counters, a brow raising.

Before she do more than blush and open her mouth angrily she's cut off by a shout across the courtyard, both of their heads turning and catching sight of a redheaded girl across from them, waving Dick over.

She catches herself wrinkling her nose. "Who's that?" She asks, turning just in time to catch the wave he sends back at the unknown girl.

"A friend." Dick says vaguely, looking slightly red about the collar. "By the way, Zatanna's getting annoyed with you skipping out all the time. And the rest of us aren't impressed either. I'd come back there before she starts taking matters into her own hands."

"Right." She nods, eyes flickering back to where the other girl is still waving, beginning to look annoyed. "... Zatanna."

Dick seems to notice her frown and raises a brow at her. "What are you looking so mad about?" He chuckles, eyes catching on something over her shoulder. "You have someone waiting on you too."

She feels like an idiot when she follows his nod, turning to look over her shoulder towards the main gates of the school. She blushes bright red when she sees Wally, grinning sheepishly from the sidewalk, gesturing a little helplessly at her with two ice cream cones in his hand.

* * *

"What the hell are you doing here?" She asks rudely when she finally reaches him, so surprised to see him that she can't quite be bothered with being anything other than slightly angry.

 _(As she walks over she can feel the words pounding into the ground through her feet_ — _It's been. Five Days. Since she. Scared him off.)_

Instead of answering right away Wally simply grins at her, extending a cone towards her and raising his brows when she doesn't take it. "What?" He asks a little accusingly, still grinning when she squints up at him, the ends of his red hair fading into the brightness of the sun. "You don't like chocolate?"

"You're an idiot." She tells him, finally accepting the cone and rolling her eyes. "Everyone likes chocolate."

"Not everyone." He counters, not bothered by the fact that there are still dozens of uniformed students passing them, sending curious glances at the rumpled collar of his shirt. "Rob hates it. Says it gives him headaches."

She watches for a moment as Wally twists his cone in his hand, tongue trailing up the soft serve. "Yeah, well." She mutters, still too surprised to see if him so suddenly that she can't think of anything better to say. She squints again, not quite able to see his face against the sun, finally bringing the cone to her mouth. "Are you going to tell me why you're here? Or why you decided to completely disappear for the better part of a week?"

Again Wally avoids the question, frowning at her as she sinks her teeth into the top of the cone. "Are you going to tell me why the hell you're biting your ice cream?"

"I'm not biting it."

"Artemis, if you use your teeth it's called biting—"

She makes to roll her eyes at him again, one hand raising absently to shield the sun from her eyes. " _Wally_ —" She starts to say exasperatedly, cutting herself off and feeling a panicked jolt run through her before she realizes why. "Wally, what happened to your eye?"

Now that she's looking at him properly she can tell something's wrong with it; there's a yellowness to the skin around it, the swelling mostly gone but still leaking out into faded purple bruising. "Oh." He says unhelpfully, grimacing and turning to walk away from the main gate of the Academy. "Yeah, that."

" _That_." She repeats, a little surprised at her own annoyance; Wally doesn't even look back over his shoulder at the word, already walking down the street.

It takes her longer than usual to catch up; Wally's walking so briskly that she doubts she'd even be able to keep up without her ankle still so fragile. In the back of her mind she wonders if he's in the middle of a growth spurt, the both of them having been too busy being angry or mysteriously absent to notice the fact that his stride has gotten so big. Either way it takes her the better part of the block to catch up to him, one arm reaching out to seize him about the elbow and force him to stop. "Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?" She snarls, annoyed at the deliberately blank expression on his face. "First we... _That night in my room_ — and then you're completely gone for the next week, and then suddenly you're at my school and— _and what the fuck happened to your eye?"_

She says it all too quickly, sounding both angry and worried; the tips of his ears blush red when she reachs up to yank on his jaw, tilting his face down to hers so she can better look at him. "It's not a big deal." He mutters easily, slipping out of her grip and not looking at her.

She feels her brows furrow, hardly glancing down when her own cone begins to dribble melted ice cream onto her hand. "Not a big—" She starts, huffing herself into silence as she catches up to him. "Wally, you have a black eye!"

"Is it still black?" He asks almost conversationally, back to licking his cone. "I figured it would be mostly healed by now— you know, fast metabolism."

He's not expecting her to rush in front of him when she does, ignoring the pain in her ankle as she cuts off his walking, arms spread and cone still dribbling. "Wally." She says as firmly as she can, feeling like a mother forcing the truth out a child as she grits out words between her teeth. " _What. Happened_."

He exhales hard through his nose, looking anywhere but her. "I kind of had it out with my Dad." He mutters, ears still red. "After the other night, after we... He wasn't happy... Took my phone and everything. This week has been pretty lousy at home."

"Oh." She manages to get out, eyes narrowing hard at the bruising around his eye. With a lurch in her stomach she thinks she sees the faint outline of a wedding ring carved into the top of his cheek. "So he... After you got home?"

"This morning was the tipping point." He mutters, running his free hand through his hair. As if he knows what she's thinking or can somehow sense the anger beginning to bubble inside her he finally looks her in the eye, jaw tight. "... It's fine, Artemis. It— Every once in a while it happens, and if I don't take it he'll..."

When he trails off she feels her hand clench tightly around her cone, some of the starch cracking loudly between her fingers. "... He'll what?"

Wally shakes his head. "Doesn't matter." He tells her, shrugging around her and ignoring the astonished look she sends him as he starts walking again. "It's not a big deal." He repeats.

"Oh, right. Of course it isn't." She snarls out sarcastically, staring incredulously at his back and watching as his one hand keeps ruffling his hair nervously. "So what if your Dad beats you. Sure."

Wally sighs angrily, turning back to look at her. "... I shouldn't have told you. You don't need more stuff to worry about—"

"Yeah, why should your girlfriend know something like that?" She snarls out, glaring at him. "Who am I to worry about something as trivial as, you know, your safety—"

"I told you, it's not a big deal, okay?" He huffs, glancing at a passing car on the street. "He gets mad and I take it, I heal fast. It's fine. Fast—"

"Metabolism." She finishes for him, and more out of frustration than anything she throws her melted cone to the ground, shaking the dribbles of ice cream off her fingers and fumbling angrily with her napkin. "I get it."

Wally looks at her fussing with her sticky hand for a moment before sighing again. "So what, I get the shit kicked out of me and now you're mad too?"

"I'm not mad!" She says childishly, glaring at her cone on the ground and now wishing she had thrown it at him instead. "I'm just... I don't know." She snarls out, finally looking at him.

 _(Because Wally's hurt and once again it's her fault. If she hadn't been such an idiot, if she hadn't run away and made him chase her like always he would be fine_ —)

Something in the backs of Wally's eyes hardens, jaw tightening for a moment before he walks back to her. She doesn't know why but the movement feels almost predatory, as if he's got her cornered in an alley rather than in the openness of the late afternoon light. "... I can't believe you just dropped that cone." He finally says, trying to smile and not quite succeeding. "I thought you knew better than to waste food in front of me?"

She exhales loudly through her nose. "... Why are you here, Wally?" She asks, sounding exhausted.

He's not stupid enough to ignore the finality to the question and sighs, taking the least sticky of her two hands between his. "I've had a shitty week." He admits after a moment. "And I just wanted to see you... Look. Can we just... Do you want to be normal for a bit with me?"

He asks her the last part very suddenly, and before she can silence it the memory is sharp in her mind: her father just getting out of prison, the wildness of her demanded normalcy in the darkness of her bedroom. And all at once she thinks she understands this evasiveness, understands what he needs of her even if she doesn't like it and only wants answers for his leaving her and for the mark on his face and whether or not he still wants her at all, after how wild she acted the other night...

 _(It takes a lot of effort to swallow her own feelings down but she reminds herself that she's supposed to be trying. Supposed to be trying to be the girl he needs.)_

 _((And if he needs someone to get lost in, she can do it, like all the times he's done it for her...))_

She forces a smile to her face, getting the sense that Wally's patience for talking about the subject is beginning to get a little strained, in need of distracting. "Fine." She says as evenly as she can, gripping his hand tightly. "How about we start by getting me another ice cream cone?"

* * *

The two of them walk _(or at least start out walking— after a block and a half Wally loses patience with her slowness and talks her into climbing onto his back, her skirt creasing as she circles her legs around his waist)_ nearly half a dozen blocks before they find a shoddy looking diner.

She catches herself looking at him a little too closely after their food arrives, eyes narrowed and watching intently as he sets to work on the large amount of food he's ordered. In typical Wally fashion he's trying to keep conversation light, trying to distract the two of them with food and forced laughter, as if he thinks he can somehow ease the harshness of the mark on his face into the back of her mind.

She's always knows things between him and his father haven't been... The best. She gets the impression that his family works very hard at pretending to be normal, pretending they don't have some dark secret lurking in the corners of their home like she does. And she's always known that Rudy has a temper, has known it since that night all those months ago when Wally had come slamming into the Cave...

 _But before he had been running to her... Not running away..._

The thought sits oddly in her stomach as her fingers fiddle with the straw of her milkshake and guide it to her mouth. And what had Wally said? _"If I don't take it he'll..._ " He'll what? What happens if Wally doesn't let Rudy hit him? What happens if he fights back?

Wally seems to notice her staring, throat bobbing as he swallows a very large mouthful of burger. "What's up?"

"Nothing." She says quickly, reaching across the table to steal a fry. He's trying very hard to pretend things are still normal between them, and she knows him well enough to understand that she shouldn't breach the topic until she knows exactly what to say to make him feel better.

Wally lets her be quiet for a half second before he forces himself to smirk. "I've been meaning to ask." He grins, taking a bite of his burger and then speaking through a rather full mouth. "What's with all the _Alice in Wonderland_ stuff?"

She pauses in her reaching across the table, the fry she's stolen hovering above the half empty pool of ketchup smearing across his plate. "... What?"

"In your room." He clarifies, and she feels a jolt run through her— she's forcing her mind to be so far away from what happened in her bedroom that it takes her several seconds to remember staring at the poster angrily while they were fighting. Apparently Wally's still dwelling on it. "The poster, above the other bed? And every time I've been at your place I've always seen a copy or two on your book shelves. Is it your favorite book or something?"

She blushes, dunking the fry mercilessly in the ketchup and popping it into her mouth. "Not mine." She says evasively.

The smile on Wally's face crumples slightly as something clicks into place. "Oh... Jade's?"

"Guess it's obvious." She shrugs, leaning back against the red vinyl of their booth. As if knowing what they're talking about she can feel the mark Jade carved into her skin burning slightly at the movement, silently screaming at the feeling of being pressed against the sweltering plastic. "I remember her reading it all the time when we were kids. I guess I just started liking it too, after a while. But that was all when she was just Jade not... Cheshire."

Wally goes quiet, glancing out the window beside them and staring out at the Gotham streets, still managing to look grey and depressing even in the early spring sunshine. "... So, if she's Cheshire, does that makes you Alice?" He asks suddenly.

She hears herself snort. "Doesn't make me anything."

"Come on, blonde hair?" He teases, gesturing at her pony tail. "And you both look good in blue."

She glances down at the navy of her blazer and scowls. "I'm not anything in that stupid story."

Wally keeps talking, ignoring how annoyed she is by the suggestion as he starts eating again. "If you're Alice then who am I? The Mad Hatter?"

"You're both big enough lunatics." She mutters peevishly, trying not to smile when Wally makes a face, eyes crossing. "... Maybe the White Rabbit."

"Is that supposed to be a metaphor for something?"

"Metaphor? I means you're always late. And getting me into trouble."

"Oh." Wally swallows another large mouthful, nearly finished. "I thought you meant like... Never mind."

He misses the almost expectant look she sends him but he can't avoid the kick she aims at him underneath the table, the toes of her good foot prodding him a little painfully until he gives in, ears going crimson. "I thought you meant— you know, after the other night, like... I mean. Rabbits are— _they fuck a lot_." He finishes badly in an undertone, going red.

Wally's blushing seems to set off her own, and suddenly the two of them are as red as the booth they're sitting in. "Oh. Right." She mutters, horrified, shifting her weight in her seat.

"I mean, not that we actually, you know—"

"Yeah. No. I get it."

They're suddenly back to doing what they do best— specifically, not talking about it. Rather than embarrass herself anymore she avoids his eyes as he watches her look wildly around the diner, staring hard at the other patrons and wondering there's ever going to be a time where she won't be this embarrassed around him.

Wally allows her almost a minute of doing this before he loses patience; out of the corner of her eye she watches as he sets down his burger again, wiping his hands on a napkin and leaning across the table to whisper at her. "I just want you to know... I wanted to, the other night." He says very quickly, eyes fixed firmly on her as she keeps blushing brighter. She doesn't know why but she can't bring herself to believe him. "I was just kind of surprised, like, we've never really talked about.." He trails off for a moment, waiting for her to stop pretending to glare at another customer and tilt her jaw towards him, listening properly.

"... Okay." She says evasively, wishing he would stop talking altogether.

"And I mean, when it happens— I mean, I'll make sure it's really—"

She's now blushing so hard that she can actually feel the temperature of her cheeks reaching a boiling point. "Wally." She murmers, hiding behind her hands. "Don't do this, okay? Let's just... Forget it happened, alright?"

When she peeks out at him between her fingers he's looking at her a little blankly, blinking once. "Forget it happened?" He repeats.

She's mortified that they're even talking about what happened at all. "Yeah." She shrugs, removing her hands. "I mean... It was a bad idea in the first place." She mutters out, not meaning what she's saying but still putting it out there in case it's what he's thinking.

Wally looks confusedly at her for a several more seconds before he seems to lose some of his nerve, going back to his burger that's nearly finished and looking muddled. She feels like crying when he doesn't disagree with her. "I... Okay. If that's what you want, I guess."

"Great." She sighs, tapping her good heel moodily against the floor and watching for several minutes as he finishes off the better part of his food. It takes her a little too long to remember that she's supposed to be trying to be more caring, and take better care of him. "... You going home tonight?" She asks after a while.

Wally takes another bite, nearly finished. "Not sure." He shrugs at the table. "Probably just go to the Cave. Or maybe Dick's, that's where I've always gone when... Yeah."

She nods, her bare thighs sticking against the booth when she shifts her weight again. "Okay. Well... Do you want me to go there with you?"

"To Dick's?"

"To the Cave, idiot." She corrects him, scoffing. "Because— I mean, you said you wanted to see me, or whatever."

Wally's eyes catch hers, remnants of the burger suspended halfway to his mouth and looking at her as if he doesn't quite understand her at all. "Oh. Yeah, actually." He says very shortly. She doesn't know why but she scowls.

* * *

She feels a strange surge of protective energy building up overwhelmingly inside her, all her pent up frustration with Wally and what would have happened in her bedroom if she hadn't been an idiot turning inward and making her startlingly clingy despite her bad mood; as if the Metropolis girl is somehow back but with better intentions she tightens her grip on Wally's hand, hating his absence between her fingers in the few seconds they're forced to separate for their atoms to dissolve in the zeta tubes.

It bothers her, truly bothers her, than someone could look at Wally and... And hurt him like that. Like some sort of water torture it drips and aggravates her all day, the idea that someone supposed to protect him, supposed to raise him would hurt him. She feels an angry surge of hatred for Rudy, for the man who gave Wally his red hair and his freckles and his temper.

 _A part of her wonders if maybe this is how he felt when he found out about her father, and vividly she remembers the moment her first saw her scar, the anger and disbelief that had passed over his features..._

 _... And another part wonders if they're really as different as she once thought..._

They get to the Cave late, the hallways seeming oddly empty as they walk through them; either everyone is out or avoiding them in their annoyance, and either way she finds she doesn't care. She waits until later, when they're both curled up on the couch in their pajamas and Wally's head is in her lap before she brings it up again, hoping the comfort of the half darkness and the sappiness of the show they're watching will somehow hide how disturbed she is. Unthinkingly she knots her fingers through his hair, watching at his eyelashes flutter at the touch. "... How come you never told me?" She asks quietly, half embarrassed and half curious. She can't bring herself to be more specific.

 _(She had always thought there was a magic in the way Wally came back to her, how she could push him away and he'd still be there, fighting to stand beside her for a few seconds before she started struggling against him again. It had been endearing. And her speech the other day, she had thought she was being noble, vowing to find her way back to him but..._

 _Is he only coming back to her because he has nowhere else better to go?)_

In answer Wally shifts, back flattening against the couch and head rolling on her lap, neck arching over the swelling of her thigh. Without her explaining he seems to understand the question. "... I don't know." He mutters, sounding tired with the lateness of the hour. "I guess it felt... Like I would be whining? Because... I mean, Dad's an asshole." He shrugs, and she catches herself staring a little too hard at the bruising on his face that she can hardly see anymore but still knows if there. "But you know... He's not like Sportsmaster."

Her nail slips, scraping a delicate line across his forehead and prompting her to whisper an apology when he lets out a small hiss of pain. For several seconds it's very quiet in the half light of the common area, her eyes locked on Wally's as he looks up at her. "I thought we were done with that." She says vaguely, swallowing and resuming her fiddling with his hair. "With trying to out suffer each other."

"We are." Wally says firmly, rolling back to face the television as if the matter is settled. "... But if we weren't, you know you'd win this one."

The comment bothers her, her eyes narrowing to glare at him even though he isn't looking— she doesn't need his pity. But maybe that's what he's saying too; maybe neither of them need to compete with the other about who's been through more. Maybe they've outgrown their childish games. Maybe they just need to be there for each other.

Still, she catches herself biting her tongue, twisting a ginger lock around her forefinger. "... You can tell me stuff, you know." She says, repeating his words from so long ago, back when she was the one trying not to break down and he had been the one to comfort her. "... I don't want you to feel like... You don't always have the be the tough one here." She says badly, blushing when the corner of Wally's mouth perks up. "I'm pretty tough too."

It's not exactly what she wants to say— _that he's supported her through a lot worse and it's the least she can do, really, to listen to his problems_ — but it seems to be enough for Wally; at the very least something seems to settle between them, as if her just attempting to say it aloud is enough for him.

Instead of saying anything he hushes her, head rolling underneath her hands in an attempt to get her to start playing with his hair properly again. "Sure, Blondie. As if you'd ever let me forget it."

* * *

Wally jerks violently in his sleep, one hand flying upwards and knocking her about the chin; it's not hard enough to bruise by any means, but it's hard enough to jolt her out of her sleep.

They've fallen asleep on the couch and in her own unconsciousness she's managed to end up slumped against the cushions, neck lolling uncomfortably against the bend between its back and arm; either in his sleep or in a few moments of wakefulness Wally's thrown himself almost entirely on top of her, his body boiling hot as always and the weight of his head pressed so surely between the slopes of her breasts that she's suddenly wondering how she managed to sleep through hardly being able to breathe.

She makes tired noise in the back of her throat and shrugs off Wally's hand from where it's now been tickling her neck, one of her own removing itself from where it's been looped between pieces of his hair to scrub the sleep from her face; there's a kick of the familiar walnut smell that seems to wake her, eyes squinting up to look blearily at the light of the television.

 _She likes being close to Wally, especially with how... Precarious, things have been between them._

 _(But when have things ever not been precarious with Wally? When has she ever felt like she's really been on solid ground? There's always something..._ _)_

 _Maybe she should wake him, convince both of them to get up and go back to their rooms... But it is quite nice, she supposes, his warmth, the closest she's been to him since her bare breasts were pressing against the muscles of his chest, lips opening under his_ —

"Hi."

She's just registered the static on the screen and nearly jumps out of her own skin when someone speaks out to her in the darkness; instinctively all her muscles jolt into readiness, both hands clutching tightly around Wally as she inhales sharply, the tiniest frightened squeak firing out of her throat as if ready to scream.

In the less than half second it takes her eyes to recognize the familiar broad set of shoulders sitting in the chair across from her Wally's awake, one leg firing out wildly and smacking against the coffee table. "Babe?" He chokes out after a hiss of pain, trying and failing to get onto his elbows to look at her, her grip not yet loosened around him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She gasps out, heart still thundering under his ear. "Nothing. Connor just scared me, it's fine."

"Sorry."

Wally mutters something she doesn't quite catch, head burrowing against her shoulder; now that she's so incredibly awake she's realizing she's starving, being so distracted with comforting Wally and worrying herself sick over him that she's forgotten to eat more than a few of his fries that afternoon. "Move." She nudges him. "I'm hungry."

He mutters something again, finally obliging her and sliding off. "... Get me some to."

She rolls her eyes even though his aren't open to see it; as she gets to her feet she thinks she can see Connor staring at her in the dim light.

She hasn't spent much time with Connor, just the two of them; vaguely she remembers her initial attraction to him, trying and failing at making nice with a cup of tea. Since then any moments shared between them have been scarce and slightly embarrassing for her, usually accompanied by the swift appearance of M'gann or another teammate who cut some of the tension. It's not that she doesn't like Connor—he's a good guy, he treats M'gann well and Wally seems to enjoy his company. But she mostly senses that they simply don't have much in common, despite what she first thought, beyond participation in the Team.

It's a little hard to ignore his stare as she rounds the back of the couch, especially when both their eyes fly to Wally when he starts snoring. "... What, do you want something too?" She asks a little coldly.

"No." He replies in his typical short sentences. Suspecting he's nearing his word limit for the day she shrugs, giving him up as a bad job and making a beeline towards the refrigerator.

She's immediately disappointed when she examines its contents; there aren't any good leftovers inside it, and judging by its more barren than usual shelves those who were around for dinner must have eaten the best of what was left. Scowling slightly, she pushes aside a tupperware full of an unidentifiable mush and pursues deeper inside the fridge.

She's just pulled a take-out container clearly marked with Zatanna's name—she's put out to discover only stale looking fries inside, as if the main entre has already been eaten—when she realizes the buzzing static of the television is no longer present, only the muddy sound of Wally's snoring filling the room. Popping one fry into her mouth she straightens and makes to glance back towards the television, curious.

Like an idiot she jumps again, mouth fumbling around the fry and sending her hacking for a few seconds; the television is off and Connor's somehow managed to sneak up on her, the door of the fridge colliding with his chest as she swings it open a little wildly in her surprise. Connor looks only mildly confused at the reaction, one brow quirking as she presses a hand to her mouth to contain her coughing.

The snoring on the other side of the room stops almost immediately. "Babe?

"M'good." She chokes out, forcing her screaming lungs to go quite, eyes streaming. "Go back to sleep."

Connor doesn't say anything as she tries to glare at him, cheeks red and lungs still not quite working. "I thought you said you didn't want anything?" She wheezes.

She gets a single blink. "I don't."

The way he says it— the overwhelming plainness of his tone, as if something is obvious to him that isn't to her, strikes a nerve. "Okay." She says back the same way, scowling and fetching a bottle of ketchup from the fridge.

He's back to staring at her, eyes slightly narrowed as she walks a little unsteadily towards the island; she can tell by the weight of the container that there's only enough food inside it to satisfy her, the stale leftovers nowhere near what's needed to tackle Wally's infamous late night snacking. Almost defiantly she stares back at Connor as she drags a chair out, wondering vaguely if she's about to be yelled at.

There's nearly a minute of silence in the kitchen, consisting of Connor and her staring each other down from opposite ends of the room; she doesn't realize what she's waiting for until Wally starts snoring again, a loud rumpling noise from the couch telling her he's thrown himself back against the cushions, sleeping again. "... Can I help you?" She finally asks in an undertone.

"You're back."

"From Athens?" She guesses, bracing her elbows on the counter. "Uh, yeah."

Before she's even finished speaking he's shaking his head, a few stray pieces of onyx hair falling across his forehead and reminding her quite suddenly of how handsome he is. "No. I've known you've been back from the mission for a while." A pair of bulging arms cross in front of his chest, blocking the stark red "S" from view. "I meant you're back at the Cave."

"Oh." She croaks out, a little confused. More to give herself something to do other than stare at the hardly blue irises of his eyes she opens Zatanna's take out box, fumbling with the ketchup bottle and wincing when it squeaks. "Didn't realize I was gone that long."

"Almost three weeks. That's not like you."

"Didn't realize you knew what I was like."

There's more quiet after she says it, the only sounds Wally's increasingly obnoxious snores and her teeth grinding between bites of Zatanna's food. Unlike herself she drops his gaze and ignores it when he starts staring at her again, face almost vacant of expression; despite being free from Cadmus for almost ten months he's still a little off.

Out of the corner of her eye Connor finally nods vaguely, still watching her eat. She's just started wondering if he means to talk to her about anything more specific or if this is about as close as he'll allow himself to get to having an actual conversation with her when suddenly his fists flex for a moment, forcing the tendons to pop on his arms. "… We all know." Connor blurts out, eyes narrowed. That Sportsmaster is out of prison. You don't have to hide it from us."

She thinks she deserves credit for not choking on her food again; out of all the people she's been expecting to have this conversation with, Connor isn't one of them. Still, she swallows her food a little painfully, her eyes watering at the sudden pressure in her chest. "Right." She says almost warily. "Okay..."

Connor stares at her for a solid ten seconds, seeming to study her expression in a way that makes her blush; she manages to hold his gaze dazedly for a second or two before hungrily returning to Zatanna's fries.

"… Do you want tea?"

She looks up from the nearly empty take out box so quickly she can feel her neck spasm, looking at him with a ridiculous amount of surprise despite her slightly bulging cheeks. "Do I—what?" She asks between her food.

"Do you want tea?" He repeats, and suddenly she's hit with a hard sense of déjà vu, as if its months ago and she's still new to the Team, still trying desperately to prove herself and attempting to make friends in all the wrong places. "Wally says you're better at talking when you have tea." He adds, jerking his head towards the couch as if to clarify.

She hasn't even properly replied and yet he's already setting to work, moving quickly around the kitchen cupboards; instantly her cheeks blush again, and more to give herself something to do other than watch him fumble with preparing the kettle she tosses the empty take out box a few feet beside her and into the trash. "Connor." She says seriously after a moment, folding her hands neatly on the island counter, feeling as if she's talking to a small child. "Is there something you want to talk to me about?"

He keeps his back to her as he messes with the burner. "… Wally thinks you don't talk enough."

Instantly her brows furrow, glaring at the back of his head. "… Really." She hears herself say coldly.

As if understanding what her tone means Connor turns back round to her, posture still stiff. "Yeah. He was telling me—he gets really worried when you stop talking and disappear on all of us. He doesn't think it's healthy."

She can feel her blood beginning to pound angrily in her ears, and she supposes he must be able to hear it too; suddenly the serious look on his face is cracking, looking anxious. "Not that he was talking about you behind your back or anything." He says quickly. "He just—he's my friend. And he says it helps him when he talks to me about stuff. So I just figured… You know. You can talk to me about stuff too."

For some reason she feels oddly taken aback; she always forgets how kind Connor actually is, forgets that his soft, unfailingly loyal center is hidden beneath such a hardened and encrusted outer layer. Despite herself she feels her brows raise just as the kettle behind him starts hissing tiny streams of air, signaling it's a few minutes away from being boiled.

"... Wally talks to you about stuff?" She hears herself ask suddenly, fingers clenching so tightly together she can see lines of white popping around her knuckles.

Connor seems to notice too, his eyes falling to her hands. "Yeah." He shrugs, arms crossing again.

She can sense the slightest bit of unease there, as if they both know they're tiptoeing around something they shouldn't be talking about. Still, she doesn't hesitate, even with Wally's snores coming so loudly from the couch. "... Has he ever mentioned his Dad?"

This time she's the one watching his hands; there's the distinct sound of joints popping and knuckles cracking as he clenches his fist, so tightly for a moment and hardly hidden underneath the fold of his arms. "Not a lot." Connor admits after a moment. "He doesn't like talking about him."

"Do you know why?" She presses.

Unconsciously his head turns back towards the couch, looking on for a moment and listening hard to the snoring that must be almost thunderous in his ears. When he looks back towards her something in his jaw is set, making him look suddenly more sinister. _Less human_. "I know you've met him." Connor sighs. "I've met him too, right when I first left Cadmus. Wally let me stay with him for a few days."

She nods encouragingly but it still seems to take him a few seconds to decide on the phrasing; one thing she's noticed about Connor is that he never says anything without meaning it. Every word he utters seems to carry a heavy amount of significance and thought with it. "... Wally's dad is a bully. I don't think there's another way to put it." He finally gets out. "I'm sure he loves his family but... He likes picking on them. Likes controlling them.

"Not in a sinister way, or anything. But I guess Wally grew up watching him pick fights with his mother, sometimes getting a little rough... Wally doesn't tell me much. But it kind of seems like he started standing up for his mom when he got old enough."

Connor breaks of and too late she realizes that she's had one of Zatanna's fries suspended halfway to her mouth for nearly half a minutes. She clears her throat, suddenly not hungry. "... It's just weird to me." She mutters. "When I went over there it was like... It was like they were the perfect family. I couldn't image anyone being unhappy there."

 _And she feels like an idiot for being jealous_.

"I don't think it was all bad." Connor admits after a moment. "Wally loves his parents... I just think sometimes he runs and finds his own happiness somewhere else, is all."

She wants desperately to keep talking but suddenly he's got his back to her, hand removing the kettle from the burner seconds before it boils. She doesn't offer him any help when it comes to making tea; this is his idea and he should be the one to do it. Still, she wrinkles her nose when he pours too little water and plops two bags into two separate cups after, and nearly stops him altogether when he spoons a heaping teaspoon of sugar into each one without stirring; instead of saying anything she bites the inside of her cheek, wondering when they can start talking again.

Connor passes her a cup and takes a seat across from her, his own mug in his hands. She can tell immediately that the tea is made all wrong; it wasn't steeped for long enough, the hot water hardly softening the leaves before he had removed the bags—he's more prepared her sweetened leaf water than actual tea. More to be polite than anything she raises the cup to her lips, trying not to grimace when she tastes it.

"Thanks."

He nods pointedly, taking a sip of his own cup; either he actually likes what he's drinking or he doesn't really know what it's supposed to taste like, and regardless his face remains impassive as he swallows. She keeps her eyes on the liquid in her cup, mind, listening hard when she hears his cup settle against the counter, her own hands clenching tightly around the porcelain. "... I don't want to talk about Wally anymore." He says plainly.

It's so firm that she can't help but look up, stunned. "What? Why?"

Instead of answering he drops his jaw, surveying her. "… Are you scared?" He asks quietly.

She feels her head duck down as she scowls, as if her neck is suddenly unable to support its weight. Her nose whistles as she inhales. "I don't know." She says honestly, hesitating. She hears Wally's snoring from the couch and decides to change her answer. "… Not as much as I was a couple weeks ago, I guess."

She glances up in time to see him nod thoughtfully at her, his lower lip stiff like the rest of him. "I don't think you should be." He tells her.

"Yeah?" She's not entirely comfortable talking to him about this, and she still can hear the slightly biting edge of her sneering; Connor for his part seems unbothered by her renewed coldness, no longer earnest and desperate to talk to him. "Why not?"

He pauses, sipping the tea again; this time she actually sees his mouth pucker behind his cup in disgust. "You're a good fighter." He says after a moment. "I think you could take Sportsmaster, or at least hold him off for long enough."

The way he says it makes it sound as if it's the most rational place to start an argument; she snorts slightly into her cup as she lifts it to her mouth again, slugging back the foul tasting liquid. "Right."

For some reason Connor smiles at her, a wreck of perfect teeth, shining eyes, and a dimpled chin. "I think you'd be less scared if you stopped trying to deal with it on your own." He adds thoughtfully. "M'gann gets really upset when you spend so long away from the Cave. She misses you."

"Oh." She tries to say, instead getting stopped by an odd tightening in her throat.

"And Wally doesn't like when you don't return his phone calls." He adds almost as an after thought when she stay quiet. "... You make him really happy, Artemis."

She ignores the pained jolt that runs through her and tries to look as if what he's said hasn't just stopped her heart altogether, not knowing what to say. "... That's another good point." She says hoarsely.

She looks at him expectantly for another few seconds, watching his handsome features suddenly go flat again. "That's about all I have, off the top of my head." He says honestly after a moment; she can see his hand reach up to clap the back of his neck, and she realizes with a pang that it's a gesture he's borrowed from Wally. "Did I help?"

She doesn't know why but she nods, allowing herself to try to smile back at him as he drains his cup of liquid entirely. "Yeah." She says, and she's surprised to discover that she's not entirely lying. "Thanks, Connor."

He shrugs at her, and not long after he rinses his cup out and bids her goodnight; she has the tact to wait until he's left the room before dumping the rest of her tea down the sink.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up, even if it is one of the transitional ones I always hate. Sorry about the delay again, exams have been hectic and this has been sitting almost finished for the better part of a week.**

 **I received a ton of reviews for the last chapter, mostly people demanding for an update... Sorry to keep you waiting!**

 **A quick Q &A...**

 **Q: When are these chapters taking place? What year is it?**

 **A: The first season of the show covers the better part of Team-Year 1, and Parenthesis starts immediately after all the kissing on the Watchtower. In my story I mark New Years Eve as the start of a new year in Team time. So right now it's Team-Year 2, sometime towards the end of April.**

 **Q: What happened to the playlist before each chapter?**

 **A: If I'm going to be plain and simple, I thought it was a waste of time. Only two people over the course of writing this have ever mentioned it to me, and to be frank I thought nobody was interested. I still have the songs that I work to, and the chapter titles are still given their names from the lyrics to these songs. If there's a popular demand for them I'll start putting them back up, but if there's no interest then I figured why bother?**

 **Read and review (especially if you want ETA's on new chapters!)**


	19. We Carved Our Love

**AN: Aaaand we're back. Enjoy.**

 **This chapter is rated M.**

* * *

After an action packed April the month of May seems to roll into Happy Harbor almost lazily, bringing with it the first taste of real heat they've had all year; suddenly she's not the only one looking out wistfully towards the beach when there's homework to be done.

Wally and her seem to talk about everything and yet nothing at all; topics seem to spur rapidly from approaching final exams and the laughable offer the school's track coach gave Wally the other week to her mother and their favorite ice cream flavors— other than chocolate, of course. The conversation seems endless as well as somewhat menial; Wally's bruise disappears fairly quickly and she finds she doesn't have the courage to ask anymore about his family, his father, or how many times he's had to wear that darkened smudge of abuse on his cheek before.

 _(And although they continue to kiss each other goodnight and lean against each other's shoulders in the evenings neither of them try anything as adventurous as what happened the one time in her bedroom; although it frustrates her, all this talking but not talking at all, she decides there's no way she's going to be the one to break the silence that's quietly stretching out between them, that there's a kind of humiliation in speaking the words "do you still want me?" that she's not quite brave enough to face...)_

Kaldur remains noticeably absent as the days stretch on and despite herself she catches herself missing him; the Cave feels oddly empty without his flat footed tread marking paths in the halls, and although she hasn't quite forgiven him for his blundering that put her life _(And Dicks, and Roy's, and Garth's)_ in danger she catches herself muddling into a foul mood, sitting angrily along the Happy Harbor shorelines and wishing he was there for the sole purpose of her being able to yell all her nasty thoughts at him. Wally doesn't understand her surliness but still accompanies her during these strange bouts of anger and listens to the worst of what she has to say.

 _She wishes he wouldn't, sometimes. This spot over looking the broadest part of the water has always felt like her and Kaldur's place_ — _it's not that she doesn't like Wally's company. It just feels wrong, how easily she can say her horrible thoughts to him, as if her words will somehow burrow into a sand and repeat themselves to Kaldur later._

Although she pretends otherwise she can feel herself growing worried over his long absence, both for what it means for the Team and what it means for their friendship— has Kaldur been forced to leave the Team altogether? Will she ever see him again? Does this mean Dick— _or one of the others, for that matter_ —is about to be promoted to leader? She can't imagine anyone but Kaldur guiding them into battle— he's easily the oldest of all of them, both in age and maturity, how would things change if he wasn't in charge?

 _(In the middle of her worrying she remembers she's still angry with him, and promptly stops thinking about it altogether.)_

Or at least tries to stop; she still catches herself in moments like now, her eyes growing weary both from the lateness of the hour and the dim light she's trying to read her book in, realizing that she's no longer paying attention the the words she's skimming, mind elsewhere. She supposes it's natural. After Wally, Kaldur's probably the person she likes the most around the Cave, the person she most easily trusts... Or used to trust, at least.

When her ears pick up the sound of footsteps in the hall she automatically starts, sitting up stick straight in her bed and throwing her covers back before she can stop herself— she's just hearing it because she's been thinking about Kaldur, mind bothered by her tiredness and worry and tricking her into thinking she can hear the sound of his flat feet slapping against the floor, some twenty feet away from her door. It's only when she hears the sound of voices... It's too muffled through the walls to properly identify either of them at first; but one is sharper, more hostile, but the other—

Her stomach leaps up into her throat and she bolts across the room, realizing but not caring that she's forgotten to mark her page in her book; suddenly all she can feel is a swirl of emotion at the front of her brain: elation, excitement, annoyance and anger, real blazing anger—

She throws open her door just as the latter wins out, calling out into the hallway before she's fully out of her room. "You're back, are you?" She snarls. She has enough time to feel stupid, tottering on her newly healed ankle and glaring at the wrong end of the hallway; to her embarrassment she's forced to spin ungracefully on her toes before she finds her quarry.

Kaldur looks politely confused as she glares at him and she tries her best to feel nothing but furious at his presence; it takes her a moment to register Roy's presence, standing a foot from the Atlantean with his hand on his shoulder, posture sloped and face set in such a serious expression that she knows immediately she's interrupted an important conversation.

It takes a second or two for both of them to recover at her outburst, Kaldur inclining his head in her direction and shrugging out from under Roy's grasp. "Artemis, is it good to—"

"And what are you doing here?" She turns to Roy, finding she can't quite handle the friendly smile that bursts across Kaldur's face and instead rounds on the other boy.

The reddened ends of Roy hair seem to bristle but instead of yelling at her he smirks, as if he finds the way her hands are perched against her hips amusing. "Always charming, aren't you?" He says easily, turning to leave. "You should go to sleep, sweetheart, it's past your bedtime."

She practically inflates with annoyance when he waves the two of them off, leaving them standing awkwardly in the hallway. "Shut up!" She hisses, angry at herself for not having anything better to snap back at him.

Now it's just her and Kaldur in the hallway, and as badly as she's wanted to scream at him the last few days she's suddenly finding she can't stand the thought of being alone with him; for his part Kaldur continues to smile politely as she silently fumes at him, as if waiting for her to make the next move before he decides how to approach her.

"... Well." She starts, hating that her cheeks are blotched with anger. She feels as if she's been rehearsing what she wants to say to him for so long but is now forgetting the words. Instead of continuing she glares at her feet, hovering awkwardly for nearly a minute before she turns her back on him, stomping towards her bedroom.

She paces out four clomping steps before she pauses, opening her mouth and glancing back over her shoulder at him; the smile is gone from his face but he still looks expectant when she draws a breath. Once again she loses the words.

As if she's already yelled Kaldur closes his eyes, head nodding solemnly when she exhales as if she's actually saying the thousand horrible things she's buried in the sand along the beach. "... You are allowed to speak your mind, Artemis." He says suddenly, raising his head to look at her.

"I don't need permission." She spits out automatically, her tone a little sharper and more cutting that what she would normally address him with; once again he nods at her and she feels a sudden surge of hatred for him burning tight in her chest. "... _I can't believe you did that to us._ " She snarls out suddenly, hating herself too as she says it.

"I am sorry."

"You're sorry?" She says the words a little louder than she should, knowing that if she hasn't already awoken the rest of her Teammates she's bound to soon. "That doesn't mean anything, Kaldur."

She pauses, waiting for him to interject or make some sort of excuse; instead he remains quiet, as if willing her to spit out the worst of it now. For some reason his silence and the fact that her voice is loud enough to carry through the walls makes her feel oddly used, as if he wants her yelling to be overheard by the others, and her anger suddenly doubles. "So what, you don't have anything to say back?" She snaps. "Red is torn to shreds, Rob is vomiting up his insides, and I get myself carved open, and you can't look me in the eye and say anything for yourself?"

The last part isn't entirely true; he's been staring her down for the better part of a minute, his gaze so intense that she's the one who can't really stare back. "... What would you like me to say?" He offers after a second, looking too calm for her liking.

She's sure the question isn't meant to turn the tables on her but it does. "I-I don't know!" She stutters out, mouth gaping open and shut for several seconds and making her feel like a trout. "Why don't you tell me why the hell you would send your Team— _your friends, Kaldur_ — into the field with hardly any prep? I'd like to know why. Because I would have never done that to you, none of us would have risked your life like that!"

Kaldur studies her face for a very long time. Fighting with Kaldur isn't like fighting with anyone else; everything he says is meticulously calculated, hardly ever the emotionally charged outbursts she's so prone to having. Too often it's filled with long stretches of silences that simultaneously enrage and calm her, designed to force her into thinking about her words before they even leave her mouth. "What I did is inexcusable." He says lowly after a while. "But if you think I did it intentionally you are wrong. We are all entitled to making mistakes, not fully ruling out consequences— and you have had your own indiscretions as well, Artemis." He gives her a half second to open her mouth angrily before he continues, cutting her off before she even speaks. "Particularly in missions involving Sportsmaster and Cheshire."

Instantly her cheeks flood crimson, teeth biting angrily on the inside of her cheek. She can't believe he's bringing that up now, months after it happened— yes, she had made a mistake, had sent her Teammates on a wild goose chase while she had pursued her father and Jade on her own but... _But that was different_ , that was to protect a secret, a secret she wasn't sure would be safe with them yet. She can feel the old wound stinging, shame bobbing in the back of her throat, and before she can think over the meanness of her words they're flying past her lips. "Well at least when I take a risk I have a good reason to, not just because I feel like sucking face with my best friend's girlfriend!"

It's childish to say it but she feels a sick satisfaction at the strange purple blush that rapidly bursts across Kaldur's cheeks and neck, knowing full well that anyone who was awake and listening is now privy to his secret. At last his calm and collected surface is crumbling but she finds that as soon as the flash of anger crosses his cheeks she no longer wants to see it, turning on her heel and stomping back to her bedroom.

He has enough time to call out her name angrily before she slams her door shut on him; fiddling with the lock and pressing her shoulder blades painfully against the wood, her back thrumming with the loud vibrations of his knocking several seconds later. She's irresistibly reminding herself of Jade, a fact that only seems to make her heart ache and the new scar on her neck twinge with discomfort— she's remembering very suddenly her sister's moodiness in her childhood, her frequent fights with their father and her locking herself in their bedroom out of anger. She used to hate when Jade would do that, leaving her nowhere to escape to while her father still roamed the house, looking for another outlet for his anger; she would try her best to blend in with the furniture, hiding and hardly breathing until her mother would come home.

Paula's appearance would always bring an odd sense of calm in the apartment. Her father was always inexcusably rough with his children but he never quite bullied his wife the same way. She always wondered why. Perhaps it was out of love; perhaps it was simply out of a slight fear— maybe he was frightened of Huntress and her working legs and her nails sharpened into talons and the unblinking way she fired her crossbow. It doesn't matter, she supposes, why things were the way they were. Paula would still arrive home and with her a large sense of peace, and after wheedling what she needed to out of Lawrence she would be the one to knock on Jade's door, the one to coax her out of her hiding place and back into the danger of the world she brought her children into.

 _(And maybe on her softer days she wonders if her mother will ever coax Jade out of the world of shadows she lives in now, if somehow she'll bring her back to them like she's always done. If maybe one day her mother will hunt her daughter again, entrap her and tame her and keep her from locking them out. But then she hardens, and thinks only of the Huntress she has now: a Huntress who cannot chase her prey, whose talons have been clipped and filed into ovals. A Huntress whose crossbow was dumped unceremoniously in the Gotham river when her husband gave her up as a lost cause...)_

Kaldur is still knocking and she realizes suddenly why Jade had caved so easily to her mother; she feels an odd surge of pity, second-hand embarrassment, at the insistence of his knocking, so much so that she can't bring herself to ignore it. Finally relenting she opens the door, just wide enough to jut her chin out and glare at him.

Kaldur still looks angry with her. "May I come in?" He grits out between his teeth.

"No." She snarls, but still moves aside anyway.

He waits until the door is clicked firmly shut behind him before he speaks, voice low and fast and cutting her off before she can even decide what awful thing to say next. "You have a right to question my leadership." He says firmly. "But you do not have a right to do so as maliciously as you just did. I do not believe that was fair."

"Fair?" She bursts out, crossing her arms. "You know what wasn't fair? Being set loose in a foreign country without knowing the language. Sending a newbie, _who has no idea of our protocols_ , on such a small squad mission where there aren't enough of us to keep an eye on him. Letting Red go along, when I told you I didn't think we could trust him."

Kaldur sighs, some of the color leaving his cheeks. "I have already apologized and admitted my mistake— I anticipated the mission being much simpler than what you encountered. I should not have over-estimated you—"

The way he says this last part bothers her, as if she didn't perform the way he expected. As if she failed. "It wasn't me you over-estimated Kal— you underestimated the job itself." She snarls.

"Regardless." He says shortly, mirroring her position and crossing his arms in a way that makes her sure they're about to reach a stalemate. "Whatever happens on missions is different than what happens between the two of us. I did not deserve to have my secrets screamed in the hallway after dark."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, well, I didn't deserve to have my neck carved into like a Thanksgiving turkey. And Rob didn't deserve to get his head smashed in and Garth—" She catches herself rambling and quickly stops, hating the way the Atlantean's name sends a foul taste through her mouth, her skin unconsciously prickling in discomfort.

Kaldur seems to have noticed her pausing and decides to change tactics, suddenly looking much less angry at her. "... And Garth did not deserve to get his nose broken?" He guesses, watching her reaction.

"... Yeah." She tries to say indifferently.

He seems to be waiting for her to speak again, looking bemused when she doesn't say anything more. "... I deserve your anger." He admits very suddenly. "Do not think I do not know this. Perhaps you will think it cowardly but that is part of the reason I have stayed away so long... I thought it prudent to allow you time to gather your thoughts."

It takes her several seconds to mull this over. "... I thought maybe you were being forced to stay away."

"By no one's hand but my own." He nods, shoulders relaxing slightly. "The break was, of course, needed. Necessary to make introductions to the new heir to the throne and visit my mother. But I thought it best to allow those who suffered because of my actions to get their thoughts in order before they yelled at me. To prevent any thoughtlessness."

"Didn't stop me from saying the most horrible thing I could think of." She mutters darkly; for some reason the corners of Kaldur's mouth quirk up at this. "... Is that what Red was just doing?"

Kaldur shifts his weight from foot to foot, probably feeling odd back on land and without the weightlessness of water. "Not in the hallway, no." He shrugs, face falling into seriousness again. "Although when he greeted me at the zeta tubes he was quite vocal. What you saw in the hallway was... A catching up, of sorts."

The way he says it is odd, and despite her eagerness to keep yelling at him she's curious. "... What were you getting caught up on?"

Kaldur sends her an analytical look, as if debating whether or not to tell her certain details. "Nothing much of interest to you, I am sure." He says quickly, and she knows instantly he's lying. "Although I formally refused him— on your word, of course— Roy has taken an informal research position with the results of the Athens mission. Doing some private investigative work. If what I was told is correct he is coming up with very little on tracking the Doctor— he is quite furious with me for not giving him access to her diaries, which Black Canary is still translating and citing through— but he has taken quite an interest in her daughter. Cassandra?"

"Cassie." She corrects him automatically.

"Cassie." He nods politely, obliging her. "That interest has also extended to Batman and Wonder Woman. I cannot tell you much more— the full extent of the information the Justice League has gathered on her is very tightly classified. But you were right in your observations— she is not an average human."

She doesn't try to stop her snorting. "That's the understatement of the year." The noise that comes out of her mouth makes him smile again, and it takes her a bit longer than she would like to remember her annoyance, remember her conversation with Red all those weeks ago and pick up a lingering worry that she's nearly forgotten. "Did Roy mention anything else?"

"... He did."

She doesn't like how deliberately vague his response is. "About Jade? Is he still living with her?"

She can tell by his expression that her question catches him off guard, as if it's not quite what he's expecting. "No. Not about your sister." He admits, uncharacteristically glancing at his feet. The tightness is back in his shoulders. "... He did, however, mention something about Garth."

She feels her stomach sinking, the uncomfortable prickling flooding back through her skin. Without wanting to she can feel his scratches digging into her arm again, long healed save for the faint white lines on her bicep.

Kaldur opens his mouth to ask a question and instinctively she cuts him off. "Doesn't matter." She says as firmly as she can. "I don't need to know what he said."

There's a long pause where she won't look at him, turning back to her bed and walking towards it evasively. "Artemis." He says her name very gently, one loud foot hitting her floor as he takes a step towards her.

"I don't want to hear it." She insists a little more aggressively, glaring back at him over her shoulder so fiercely that he actually stops moving altogether. "It doesn't matter to me anymore."

The lie is laughable but she's very thankful when Kaldur exhales, allowing her several seconds of silence in which she ruffles a little violently with her bed covers, collecting her book from where it's fallen on the surface and slamming it a little too hard on her bedside table. As usual he doesn't remain quiet for long. "It matters to me." He says very clearly. "And it matters enough to Roy that he mentioned it to me."

She frowns, staring hard at her pillow, her back still to him. "... It would also matter to Wally."

It's not really a threat but it still makes her whip her head around to stare at him, haunches rising automatically in a fear response. She had made the decision, quietly, not to tell Wally about what Garth had... Tried to do, when they were alone in the Doctor's office. She hadn't seen a point to it, could only see it causing more trouble than anything— could only see it making him angry, making him think her broken or hurt in some way, causing unnecessary quarreling on the Team. Could only see it making her feel more uncomfortable about the fact that Garth had later saved her, only make her hate even more the fact that she owes him her life.

 _The secret is hers to keep, to protect her and Wally from one more thing driving them apart._

 _And if anyone tells him other than her, it will break him._

She swallows, mentally calculating escape routes from the conversation, from the secret itself, and finding none. Finally she's forced to stiffen, looking him hard in the eye. "... What did Roy say?"

In answer Kaldur blinks at her— she can tell by his expression that he's thinking hard like she's just done, trying to find a tactful and gentle way to breech the subject. But she supposes he finds there is no way to ask what needs to be asked, because after nearly a minute of silence he sighs, looking troubled.

She just convinced herself that the conversation is over when he starts walking towards her— for one wild moment she's caught between comfort and memory, between remembering who she's talking with and reliving the frightening moment in the Doctor's office when she had been slammed up against a desk, and before she can reason with it her heart is beating in her throat and there's adrenaline banging hard against her bones, and Kaldur isn't Kaldur _(isn't her best friend who has salt lingering in his skin and likes swirling caramel candies in his hot chocolate during the cold days of winter)_ but someone else entirely...

Despite instinct screaming at her she remains still when he reaches for her— her fingers are itching to smack him away, itching to reach behind her for a pillow and smother him with it— a muscle in her arm jumping when he pushes back the sleeve of one of Wally's old tee shirts she's been sleeping in. They're barely there, so faded out now even she can hardly notice them unless she's looking for them. But Kaldur, with his milky eyes that he once told her see the surface's lights and colors much more acutely than hers, is looking. And she can tell but the way his exhale freezes in his nose that he can see the marks his best friend made on her.

It's over very quickly; his looking at them can hardly last longer than a half-second before he's smoothing her sleeve back into place. She almost can't read the emotion on his face, can see how hard he's trying to smooth out his features into something impenetrable. But even he can't quite hide the shifting in his eyes or the way the light in the center seems to retreat inside itself.

"It doesn't matter." She repeats halfheartedly, feeling as if she's trying to talk down a protective older brother. "I— He saved my life, Kal."

As she says it she thinks that Kaldur understands these things— or at least he understands them better than someone like Wally would. Wally wouldn't see the connection between the debt and the wrong-doing, would only see it in its parameters of right and wrong and would dismiss the debt as being finished once the time passed. But Kaldur, who she gets the impression grew up slightly scrappier than Wally, who probably spent his whole life working to get out of owing strangers for their kindness, would understand how heavy a debt like that could weigh on her back.

Or at least she hopes he understands; she looks up at him unblinkingly, watching as his face ripples with emotions he won't quite show her and finally grows blank, like the tiny waves a pebble makes as it disappears beneath the surface of the water. "You will not have to worry. Garth will stay in Atlantis." He says very suddenly, turning on his heel.

"What?" She says stupidly to his back.

"He will remain on the Team but he will not be living here." He says simply, voice low and unfeeling. "He will return when he is needed. And he will not be left alone with you."

It takes her several seconds to chase after him, not quite following his thought process. "But— but what about Tula? I thought you wanted them—"

"If she will not leave Garth behind then she will remain in Atlantis as well." He says darkly, not looking at her when she tries to jerk his arm back, trying desperately to meet his eye. "I will not be responsible for this."

He's yanking her door open when she finally manages to cut in front of him, stopping his process of leaving her room. "Kaldur!" She bursts out, both hands raising as if to shove him in the chest should he try moving again. "Just—"

She cuts herself off, taken aback by the furious expression on Kaldur's face that he's not quick enough to hide; for a half second she's afraid of this anger, no longer laughing at the purple blush that colors his gills, before she realizes he's not angry at her.

 _He's angry at himself._

She thinks very quickly of her own anger at him, at his time off which was probably spent less visiting with his mother and more brooding in silence; if she knows him at all she knows how he fears failure, fears letting others down. Fears hurting the people he cares about most. Hearing the results of his mission probably tore him apart...

 _"I won't be responsible for this."_

She realizes very suddenly what "this" is— "this" is hurting people with his own rash decisions, "this" is all the times he's lost focus and someone else has bled because of it. "This" is all the feelings he has for Tula, for Atlantis, for his own emotions and memories... "This" is a luxury he won't allow himself to afford. Not anymore.

She nearly opens her mouth to say something, to argue with him, before very suddenly she remembers another time... Remembers another argument in this very bedroom, remembers the intense worry that bit at her throat as she realized his trust in her had faltered, realizing he had put her mother in danger... Dick's muttering flashes at the front of her mind, her own nausea at his vomiting and the shredded skin on Roy's arms hitting her hard.

 _Maybe it's time she outgrows believing the best in him. Maybe it's time they both grew up._

She realizes that she's still blocking his progress, an unfinished sentence still hanging between them. "... Just don't tell Wally." Is all she manages, moving out of the way.

* * *

Several days pass and Kaldur stays true to his word: Garth remains absent from the Cave and by extension so does Tula, neither of them allowed back to say goodbye. Although she's sure everyone else has questions about their disappearance she's thankful when none of them reach her ears.

Kaldur adopts her old position of sitting and staring out moodily at the water, and in the few glimpses she gets of him through her and Wally's window she wonders if he's waiting for her, if the empty space beside him is supposed to be filled. She can't decide if she's forgiven him yet, not even when Dick and Roy show nothing but friendliness when they're summoned on a low-ball ringing in of Clayface, apparently unbothered with taking his orders again. As always, she slips seamlessly into being raw and untrusting, trying her hardest not to feel guilty for what she's inadvertently forced him to do.

"You should talk to him, you know." Wally blurts out as they pass the training room. She's stared inside it a little too long, intrigued by the tell-tale hum of electricity and the humidity of water, a scowl crossing her face when Kaldur's eyes find hers and she's forced to look away angrily. "You can't stay mad at him forever."

"Says who?" She mutters peevishly, unaware of her fingers tightening between his. Although they've both been wandering around this part of the Cave for the sake of training she refuses to go inside while Kaldur's there; although she can tell he's annoyed by her childishness, Wally decides to humor her and change their pace back towards the beach.

They spend the rest of the Saturday morning running drills along the shore, their feet pounding into the uneven ground and the sunshine so warm on their backs that before a half-hour is even passed she's soaked through with sweat. If either of them feel a little strange when she discards her shirt and finishes the work out in just her sports bra and shorts they don't say it, although she does catch him staring.

Her skin is still damp from her shower when M'gann barges into her bedroom without knocking, catching her just as she's finishing pulling a pair of jeans over her hips. Despite the fact that M'gann has seen her in plenty more vulnerable positions she's still embarrassed, crying out in surprise and immediately blushing.

"I need your help!" The other girl bursts out, ignoring her red cheeks and entering; before she can even release her hold on the denim she can hear the martian's toes grazing the carpet as she glides towards her, seizing her wrist and dragging her towards her door. "It's an emergency!"

Her questions are ignored and she's thrown unceremoniously from her own bedroom, yanking a shirt over the underwire of her bra just as she realizes Zatanna is with them. "What's going on?" She gasps out, feeling alarmed when she receives little more than a shake of the head, M'gann already flying down the hallway. "Should I get my arrows?" She asks stupidly.

In answer she watches from a distance as the green skin she's so accustomed to seeing peels slowly back into ivory, M'gann's uniform retracting into her body and twisting into civilian clothes. "Hurry up!" She calls.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Zatanna tells her dryly.

* * *

She's expecting a fighting, at the very least to be led to an unconscious Connor with blood leaking out of his nostrils. She's not expecting to be led into a dress shop.

" _Prom_?" She asks almost accusingly, ignoring a passing sales woman as she glances pointedly at her dirty running shoes. "That's the big emergency?"

It's odd to see M'gann wearing her Caucasian skin; she's never really noticed her prominent freckled cheeks or soft brown eyes—she supposes she's always been so blinded by the abnormality of her emerald cheeks to notice much of anything else, to notice that M'gann is beautiful by any planet's standards. In response to her surprise the martian combs through a rack of brightly colored dresses absently, lower lip jutting out at her cluelessness.

"It's not just Prom." She says exasperatedly.

She feels her eyes nearly roll out of her head and turns to Zatanna for back up; unlike her the other girl doesn't seem at all off-put by the dramatics, her brows raising good-naturedly as she picks up a blue number and holds it at an arm's length, looking at the detailing of the stitching. "Yeah, Artemis, it's not just Prom. _It's Senior Prom_."

She feels her nose wrinkle when Zatanna holds the dress up first towards M'gann, navy eyes critical for a moment before she turns to a nearby mirror, holding the dress up against herself instead. Dresses. Make-up. Hairstyles. As usual she feels out of her element when it comes to this kind of thing, not entirely sure what made the dress in question unsuitable for M'gann but apparently satisfactory on Zatanna, who's now folding it over her arm and looking pleased. "Yeah, but… It's still Prom." She replies, refusing to let her eyes stray and scrutinize the frilly number M'gann's just extracted from the rack, holding it up for her approval. "It's not really important or anything."

"How Wally has managed to put up with you for so long is beyond me." Zatanna grins cheekily at her, turning away from the mirror she's been admiring herself in and addressing M'gann. "Not that, you'll look like a wedding cake. Besides, you're just annoyed because he hasn't asked you yet."

It takes her a few seconds to realize the last part of that sentence is directed at her. "Please." She snorts, blushing and reaching for a flowing lemonade colored dress to fiddle with its trim. "Wally and I aren't going to prom. He knows I don't care about that stuff."

"But he does." Zatanna counters, eyes bright with teasing. "You know Wally— He's a romantic. Bet you he asks you by the end of the week."

As if it's a challenge the raven haired girl extends her hand not preoccupied with dresses, and without thinking she shakes it, snorting again. "Bet you he forgets, like everything else." She counters, their intertwined fingers bobbing once before breaking apart. She feels an odd pang of disappointment run through her and doesn't know why. "Besides, he knows that even if he asks I won't say yes. I'd rather stay at home and watch movies than bother with getting dressed up for a couple hours."

"I don't think anyone really wants to go to Prom." M'gann interrupts, still riffling through the rack of dresses. "I mean, the dancing is fun. But I've always thought— well, doesn't the best part usually happen after Prom is over?"

For some reason M'gann's cheeks go off as she says it, freckles underneath her eyes fading as she turns a rosy hue. There's something odd about the way she mutters the last part, so much so that when she awkwardly folds another dress over the crook of her arm she catches herself exchanging a look with Zatanna, the two of them curious about the implication of the sentence. "You mean... like after parties?" Zatanna prompts, being deliberately vague with her guessing. Between the three of them they've seen enough cheesy movies to understand what's supposed to happen after Prom, especially to pretty girls like M'gann with handsome boyfriends like Connor.

As usual it takes her off guard, the presence of M'gann in her mind—there's no way to fight it, no way to stop the invading gentleness that seems to creep up the back of her neck and settle at the joint at presses her skull so tenderly against her spine. _"I just thought…"_ She hears M'gann whisper, soft and if she's not mistaken slightly hesitant. _"Prom might be the night Connor and I… You know."_

M'gann can't quite control the sudden flash of emotion there, and despite herself she feels unsettled by the sensation— there's a tenderness too it, an intimacy, a surge of thought that she knows isn't meant for her to be felt. Her own surprise isn't hidden from M'gann, not on her face and not inside her own head; before she can really stop it she hears herself letting out a rush of surprised breath. "Oh." She mutters out loud.

M'gann's cheeks blush even brighter, and suddenly the martian won't even look at either of them anymore, instead staring wide eyed and embarrassed when Zatanna starts sounding out loud in both their minds. _"You guys haven't done anything? At all?"_ She sounds almost impolitely surprised. _"You guys have been going out for, like, forever! How the hell_ — _"_

It's difficult, not letting her mind run slightly rampant—Connor and M'gann have been going out for months now, she's seen their comings and goings out of each other's bedrooms, walked in on them kissing feverishly multiple times. She's assumed up until this point that for all the intimacy of their public moments there'd at least be something more substantial in private.

 _"_ _We've done… I mean, we've done some things."_ M'gann says defensively, turning back towards the rack and flicking through hangers just for something to do. At once she can feel something lingering in the back of her mind, some sort of emotion she hasn't felt before; she can sense it, can sense the memories that cling to it, waiting to be pursued should she want to take advantage. Pointedly she ignores that foreign sense of intimacy, of trust, of alienated love and forces herself to focus on M'gann when her voice is back and hesitant at the front of her mind.

 _"_ _It's just… It's hard for him. And for me, too. All that human emotion and impulses inside two non-humans, it makes things… Difficult. And strange, sometimes. I just thought—on TV it always seems to happen after Senior Prom."_ She mutters. _"..._ _I just really want it to be special."_

She senses that disembodied emotion again, this time the lingering fear and sadness, and she thinks she understands why M'gann had told them this was an emergency; she's scared, nervous for her first time. For losing her virginity to her first love, like any normal human girl.

She feels a surge of fierce affection that she knows is entirely her own; she doesn't know why she was chosen for this task, why she was dragged off to a boutique when Zatanna alone would have been a better choice. But she knows she was chosen for some reason, chosen to hold M'gann's hand as she negotiates human emotions and experiences she's not entirely equipped to handle.

As usual Zatanna's tasked to break the awkward silence that's enveloped all of them, both in their heads and outside it. _"It'll be special, M'gann, you know it will."_ She says kindly, before pausing. _"I mean, a Kryptonian and a Martian doing it? How could that be anything other than cool?"_

At once all of them burst out into stupid sounding laughter, M'gann's girlish giggles far louder than she's heard before; it takes several minutes and an annoyed look from a sales woman before they all manage to settle themselves, hiding childishly behind a rack of frilly looking cream colored gowns. "You two are awful." The martian tells them both, pretending to scowl.

* * *

The heat wave continues and seems to double in strength; suddenly her jeans feel almost stifling in the high-seventy degree weather and she laughs in Wally's face when he shows up at the Cave with a sunburnt nose after helping his mother in the garden. Nearly a week passes and nobody else breathes a word about Prom, senior or underclassmen. She supposed they're all busier now; the warm weather seems to make things busier around the Cave, and it feels like every second day there's a new mission waiting for them and keeping their minds otherwise occupied.

M'gann is the only one who seems to have a one track mind about Prom; more than once her and Zatanna are roped into experimenting with hair styles, selecting Connor's tie color, or smearing mud masks on their skin in solidarity with the martian. When they point out politely that all this care is unneeded _("Because you can shape shift, M'gann, who gives a damn if your actual face has visible pores?")_ it falls on deaf ears.

She manages to avoid M'gann one weekend in favor of lounging in the late evening sunshine leaking in through her and Wally's window; despite the heat it still gets quite cold on the beach when the sun starts disappearing behind the water, as if the weather as well as their homework is still reminding them that summer hasn't quite hit Happy Harbor yet. She feels like a cat as she sits, back pressed against the warm glass, reading until she's lulled into a relaxing half-sleep with her book held limply in her hands.

It's a blast of air that wakes her hours later, long after the glass has cooled and the sky outside has changed to a bloody maroon color; suddenly her hair is being whipped around her and the pages in her book are flipping wildly, making her lose her place. A little stupidly she jerks back, banging her head on the window and looking around, stunned and swearing at the pain.

"What—" She starts, and it's only when she raises her hand to push her hair off her forehead that she notices it—it's a flower of some sort, a white lily bent and twisted into a corsage and tied firmly around her left wrist, so fresh that it's still fragrant and cool against her skin. There's still a string of disjointed swears running through her head as she looks at it, not quite connecting its meaning to anything other than the dull ache sounding at the back of her skull.

She must look stupid, holding her wrist in front of her face and staring at it wide-eyed through a messy pony tail for several long seconds, the aching and half-asleep cogs in her mind struggling to whir into life and find any significance as to why someone has secured a corsage to her wrist. A little dazedly she flexes and straightens her fingers, watching the way the springs of fresh garland quiver with the movement, before her eyes catch red hair on the couch.

When she finally gets the sense to drop her hand Wally's grinning at her, looking sheepish as he rests his head against the cushions; it's as if he's hiding from her, burrowing into the stuffing until all she can see of him is reddened ears and apple colored eyes. "Uh?" She hears herself say dumbly, blinking once at him before she seems to come back to herself. She can see the collar of his shirt— it's a crisp blue one that's she always quite liked on him, the way it sits on his shoulders telling her that he's got it buttoned up properly rather than hanging loosely off his frame like he always does. "What's this?"

Wally grins even wider when she gestures weakly to her wrist; like a child he practically flings himself to his feet, sauntering towards her with such an air of confidence that she immediately discards her book, sensing that this is going to take a while. "It's a corsage, idiot."

"I know that." She says almost warily, eyes narrowing when he stops in front of her. He's dressed unusually well— it's not just the buttoning of his shirt, he's wearing a pair of dark jeans she's never seen before, and his shoes look so distinctly un-scuffed that there's no way they can be anything other than new. There's also a strange sweet scent in the air, nothing like his usual walnut flavor, so strong it's as if he's bathed in it. "I was wondering why the hell it was on my wrist?"

Wally's grin wavers slightly, one foot reaching out to prod her. "Stand up." He tells her instead of answering.

She obliges, taking the hand he extends to help her and abandoning her book on the floor; she's oddly stiff from sitting for so long, the old injuries in her left leg from Metropolis sputtering to life and sending a wave of almost predictable pain through her muscles. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?" She sighs, impatient.

Wally doesn't release her hand when she tries to pull away; before she can even blink she realizes he's seized her other one as well, clutching them tightly. "Yes." As he says it a strange look crosses his face, a sort of emotion she can't quite pin down: he looks as if he's caught between teasing and embarrassment, between happiness and nervousness. For some reason he nods several times, as if gathering his nerve, and before she has time to figure out what that's supposed to mean or ask him what the hell his problem is he's getting down on one knee in front of her.

Instantly a thousand different alarm bells are going off inside her head; she can feel her very temperature increase to a boiling point, her heart beat pounding dangerously loud in her ears as she sputters out a few attempts at swearing and screaming actual words. It's horrible how crimson her cheeks are turning, even more so with Wally's grinning at her reaction as if it's simultaneously the most predictable thing in the world and funnier than what he had been hoping for. She's thankful when some higher power seems to prompt her mouth into working rather her hands, which are itching to strangle him. "Wally West, _what the fuck do you think you're doing—_ "

It seems to stop being funny to him when she starts trying to yank her hands back, like he can sense that she's about to start hitting him; with a surprising amount of strength he manages to keep a grip on her, his finger nails digging into her palms and forcing her to stay still and bear witness to his ridiculous kneeling position. "Artemis—God, will you relax?— _Artemis, I'm asking you to Prom_!"

"You're such an idiot—Stand up!" She snarls out, finally grabbing her hands back and cuffing him once, too lightly for her liking, about the head; she can feel beads of terrified sweat beginning to form in the small of her back, suddenly too furious to look at him and realizing that staying still is impossible, her feet forcing her into frantic little half-steps that surely make her look like a scatter-brained squirrel. "What was— _Oh my god, Wally_!"

"What?" Wally's caught between being amused, annoyed, and perhaps a bit embarrassed when she rounds back on him, yanking him by the shoulders until he's fully upright in front of her; to her chagrin he lets out a laugh-like snort when she hits him again, punching him in the shoulder.

Wally catches her hand when she reaches up to hit him for a third time; she's still red in the face as she struggles to get out of his grip, hating that he keeps adjusting his hand so as to not damage the corsage he's put on her. "You did that on purpose!" She snarls out.

"No I didn't!" He laughs back, looking affectionately at her reddened cheeks and furious expression before quailing slightly. "Okay, maybe a little. But I've never asked a girl to prom before—at least, I've never asked anyone who said yes—"

The idea of Wally asking another girl out send a intolerable clenching to her stomach, the same one that she realizes has been there since M'gann first started bugging her about dress shopping; still angry, although not entirely sure about what, she bends a little too quickly to retrieve her book; her leg is aching again when she straightens but she refuses to acknowledge it, turning quickly away from Wally and their window. "You're a complete asshole— _who gets down on one knee to ask someone to Prom,_ of all the goddamn—"

Wally snorts, probably thinking she's overreacting, and allows her to get as far as just past the kitchen before he catches up to her, speeding easily around her and cutting her off before she can get very far down the hallway that leads to their bedrooms. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry I scared you. Although good to know where you stand on marriage." He grins down at her, not looking very sorry at all. "Are you going to answer me or what?"

"You're kidding." She glares, ignoring the fact that she resembles a tomato with the depth of the redness on her cheeks; clutching her book like a lifeline to her chest she reaches up with her free hand to seize his shoulder, pulling him out of the way so hard that she hears him collide with the wall beside them. " _No, Wally_."

She's expecting him to pause, to be somewhat hurt by her reaction—at the very least she's expecting him to take a moment to regroup as she shoulders around him, stomping her way back towards her bedroom. She's unpleasantly surprised when she makes it no more than three paces before he's back in front of her, infuriatingly walking backwards with his arms folded behind his head. "We both know you're only saying that because you're annoyed at me. Come on, what's your real answer?"

She feels her whole face sour at his chipper tone; her door is coming up on the left, and she has a feeling that if she doesn't get him to shut up soon he's going to spend the evening repeatedly rapping at her door, pestering her. "My real answer is no, Wally." She says sourly. "I don't do Prom."

She nearly bumps into him when he abruptly stops walking, arms falling from behind his head. "What?" He says dumbly, jumping in front of her when she tries to walk around him, and again when she tries to move to the right, the two of them bobbing and weaving ridiculously. "You don't _do_ Prom?"

She lets out an annoyed huff of air when he extends both of his arms, as if trying to create a physical barrier between her and the path towards her bedroom. "Yeah."

"So what, you don't like them?"

"I don't know. I guess."

"How can you not like Prom?" Wally bursts out almost disbelievingly, ruffling some of the hair around her face. " _You're a girl!"_

She snorts loudly, trying not to sound too spiteful. "Wow. Very astute, Wally. Any other revelations in that brilliant brain of yours?"

He glares but lets her duck under his arm, turning to look at her skeptically as she humors him, glancing back at him as she walks towards her room. "You know what I mean." He shrugs, hesitating for a moment before following her. "All the guys I know are usually being dragged there by their girlfriends, or stressing about their ties matching dresses—"

"Sounds like I'm saving you a lot of trouble."

"But why don't you want to go?" Wally presses, rounding in front of her again just as she's a few feet from her bedroom door. "What don't you like? Too many people? Dancing? Having to get dressed up?"

She doesn't know why but something in Wally's face stops her from blowing him off again; she hesitates, staring hard at his knitted brows and earnest expression, trying to find a reasonable excuse. "I don't know." She pauses again before throwing out a random answer. "I don't know how to dance."

"Well, neither do I." Wally says confidently, shrugging off her excuse as if knowing it for what it really is. "So we can both not know how to do it together."

She's just about to argue right back when to her annoyance Wally actually grabs the book out of her hands, tossing it vaguely towards her bedroom door and ignoring the angry hiss she lets out when she hears it smack against the wall. "Come on, _it'll be fun_ —just imagine the face I'm going to make when I realize I'm the lucky stiff who's managed to snag the prettiest girl in the room—"

" _Wally—"_

"You're not imagining it, Artemis!" He insists, grinning goofily down at her; she can't stop her mouth as it quirks up to smile back, and seeming to take it as a good sign Wally grabs her hands again.

She sighs and tries her best to continue to look sour when he makes a show of placing one of her hands on his shoulder. "You're being an idiot." She tells him frankly, allowing him to weave their hands together and take her waist.

"But I'm your idiot." He grins endearingly, and despite herself she feels her resistance begin to crumble as he tries to take a step forward, immediately stepping on her toes. "Work with me, Babe." She hears herself make an annoyed noise in her throat, but it doesn't stop her feet from moving when he takes another step forward.

It's clumsy, awkward, as many things are between them; she can't stop herself from glancing down nervously at their feet as Wally begins to trying to maneuver them in a wobbly circle around the hallway. Her palm feels oddly clammy in his, as if they've never really touched, and before they've even really gone anywhere she's accidentally stomping on his feet. "This is stupid." She says lowly, only kind of meaning it as her hand drifts across the tendons of his shoulder, pressing against the back of his neck.

"Prom in general is supposed to be stupid." Wally reminds her, looking at her through his ginger lashes before abandoning the pretext of dancing properly all together; suddenly both his arms are winding around her waist, pulling her flush against him until her chin is resting on his shoulder and his cheek is pressed into her hair.

There's a half beat of silence between them where he absently hums a few stray notes of sound; like always the small whispers of music he strings together don't really form a proper melody, not any song she can recognize as the noises reverberate in the hollow of his chest, and before she can begin to wonder what he means by it he stops. "…I'm going to be wearing this dumb suit that I'm pretty sure doesn't fit anymore, my Mom is going to take too many pictures and all my friends are going to make fun of us. It'll be awesome."

"Sounds great." She snorts against his shoulder. In response Wally squeezes her more tightly against him, leaning back so far that her toes momentarily leave the ground.

"You're being stubborn." He tells her when he sets her back on her feet, loosening his hold on her waist just enough for her to pull back and look him in the eye.

She doesn't miss the brief moment his eyes stray to her mouth. "So are you." She tries to sneer, voice wobbling slightly when she sees something shift in the back of his irises.

It's soft at first, the way he kisses her—its tender, barely imploring, as if he still thinks he can change her mind about this when they both know that the two of them are too set in their ways to cave. She told him long ago, and many times since, that she simply isn't the kind of girl who was meant to fill this role, wasn't mean to don a dress and allow him to step on her toes for a full evening in front of strangers—

 _But didn't she just promise herself that she would try?_

She hears him let out the softest of noises, a hardly there moan in the back of his throat; for some reason she feels her heart tighten in want, at the way he's suddenly tilting his head and fitting more surely against her, and before she can stop herself she's remembering all the other times she's heard it. Against her blackened eyelids she sees jumping on him in his bedroom, sees the Watchtower, the beach, their window, countless other moments and places and kisses and breath being blown into her lungs…

She sees also the boy who carried her out of battle and soothed her through a concussion when she was little more than an annoyance to him; she sees the boy who's hand she held under the Bialyan sun when she was a terrified mess of brittle blonde hair and death threats; she sees the boy who was once too nervous to kiss her and decidedly corrected her homework instead; she sees the boy who drew moans out of her only a few weeks ago, who held her when she was shaking and soothed her through her vulnerability, through her fear at his closeness—

She sees, more vividly than anything else, the boy with the freckles and the apple eyes and the mysterious walnut scent; she feels him as he wraps his arms more tightly around her waist, refusing as always to let her run away from him. She feels his muscles shift up against her, feels the tendons and bones and heartbeat and atoms of Wally West, who she met less than a year ago and has been running circles around her ever since. For the first time in a long time she feels the part of herself, the frail and terrified and fragile part that she buried alive and was forced to resurrect and then bury again; she feels that part of herself lift its head from where it's recently been hiding, been cowering at the fear of her past and the dirt that comes with it, and as it does so she feels herself let out a sigh of defeat that escapes her mouth and trickles into his.

 _Maybe she should stop denying it, pretending it's less than it is, or only acknowledging it in a few stray seconds she's always afraid will be her last._

 _She's in love with Wally. She knows she is._

She pulls back, lower lip quivering when he encases it between both of his and tries to reel her back in; she's not sure why she needs to look at him suddenly, why her eyes are sharp and focused when his are still opening a little languidly. She doesn't know why it's hitting her as hard as it is now, as she rolls her neck backwards to look him dead in the face, why— even though she's admitted it, quietly, in the abandoned corners of her mind where the buzzing used to live— why the twisting in her stomach is tightening but also warming, why the one promise she made to him is suddenly increasing in pressure on her shoulders.

 _But that's a lie, not knowing why. Before this love for Wally... It had been a maybe thing. It had been a possibility, one that she had opened herself up to. It had been there but it hadn't been solid, fully formed_ —

Wally blinks at her, one of his eyelashes fluttering down and landing on the apple of his cheek. She watches as her exhale sends it scattering.

 _Loving Wally had never been a maybe thing. It had never been a possibility, she sees that now. She had loved him before she really knew what love was, had been too blinded by the Metropolis girl to realize what was happening_ — _it's taken all this silence, all this nothingness to realize that there hadn't been nothingness in the back of her mind at all, there has always been Wally..._

"... Shit."

She doesn't know why her first instinct is to swear; she's not aware of saying anything out loud until Wally's laughing, loud and brash as always, in her face. "Excuse me?"

For some reason she's immediately caught between wanting to run to the safety of her bedroom and grab him by the cheeks and pull his mouth back down to hers again. She's not entirely sure which impulse she's acting on when her mouth stutters to life of its own accord. "I-I—"

When she doesn't do much other than sputter stupidly Wally grins down at her, one hand leaving her waist to brush against her the crown of her head, smoothing a few stray hairs back into place from where he had scattered them before. "What?" He laughs again, hand rounding and cupping her cheek almost teasingly. "Don't tell me all it took to change your mind was one kiss?"

She's not sure what does it. All she knows it that suddenly her stomach is quiet, her resolution is sealed, and she decides to act on an impulse more wild than anything else she can imagine. "I-I have a counter proposition."

Wally snorts slightly but decides to humor her, pulling her flush against him again and bumping her chin on his shoulder. "Oh yeah? And what's that?"

She thinks it's impressive that it only takes her a fraction of a moment to get the nerve to say what she wants to, even if it does come out sounding slightly high pitched and nervous. "How about we skip Prom—"

"—Big surprise—"

"—And just get to the good part now?"

She feels Wally go slightly still beneath her, and she can practically hear the confusion and bewilderment beginning to bounce off opposite ends of his skull. She's supposes she didn't really word it that well, that maybe her innuendo wasn't really an innuendo at all; either way, she's not surprised when he pulls back, snorting. "The good part?" Wally asks, eyes flickering between both of hers. "What does that mean?"

Even though she's settled on the matter she still feels her cheeks redden, eyes narrowing as if his confusion is a big inconvenience to her. "Think, Wally." She sneers, pulling back from him entirely until she's slouching over crossed arms in front of him. " _What usually happens on Prom night?"_

There's several long seconds where Wally simply frowns at her, looking like he sincerely thinks she's completely lost her mind; it's almost endearing when something suddenly clicks into place, his brows shooting up into his fringe and ears flaming. "Oh." He says stupidly. She supposes he's entitled to be a little confused— after the disaster that was that moment in her bedroom both of them have firmly avoided any topic or action that would get them close to it again. "Y-you mean…? Right now?"

She catches herself smiling and quickly ducks her head, taking his hand. "Yeah." She sighs teasingly, practically dragging him towards her bedroom door, afraid that if she slows down for a moment she'll lose her nerve and want to stop.

"Uh." Wally gets as far as starting his sentence this way before his voice cracks, looking simultaneous confused as to how they even arrived at this moment and completely dumbfounded by his good luck. Her bedroom door is already open when he seems to come back inside his own head, pulling his hand out of hers. "A-Artemis—I mean, if this is about Prom—you don't have to do this just to get out of going, I mean, I want to—with you, I mean, right now—but—"

"Relax, Wallman." She grins, and despite her outward confidence she can feel her own fear suddenly burning hot at the back of her throat, nervous at what they're about to do. She refuses to indulge it, refuses to let her mind slip into any other thoughts, and instead she reaches up to grip him by the collar as she repeats his earlier sentiment. " _It'll be fun_."

Wally's face splits into a nervous smile when she tugs him forward, clicking the door shut behind them. Her book, and any possibility of Prom, stay forgotten in the hallway.

* * *

The door shuts behind them and for a brief second her and Wally simply look at each other, a mess of excited energy and nervously twisting stomachs; it's about as much as she can take, watching the way his eyes seem to flicker between hers, trying to figure out why this is even happening with almost no warning. A little wildly she rushes at him full force, hearing his back being knocked too hard against the door as she kisses him.

She's nervous, and she knows it shows; her lips are moving too quickly and she can't quite seem to fall into their predictable patterns like they always do. Instead she's pulling his jaw a little too firmly against her mouth, her lips sucking and teeth biting at odd moments—she can sense she's moving too fast for even him to follow, not when his mind is so boggled, and it seems to take several seconds too long before she can feel his cheeks heating beneath her finger tips, his breath coming out a little ragged between kisses.

When she shifts against him and feels him pressing stiff against the denim of his jeans, she realizes that this time she's sure she's not the only one who wants this.

 _Really wants this._

Wally lets out a breathy pant when she pulls back, the sound quickly turning into a groan when she starts attacking his neck with anxious kisses. He's hardly touching her, his hands ghosting along her ribs and expression still slightly dazed as his head lolls back against the door. "I—" He starts, cutting himself off with a grunt when she bites down hard on his pulse point in a half attempt to shock him into responding back just as feverishly. There's a pause in which he shudders against the feeling of her tongue quickly licking soothing lines into the mark she's just left, and vaguely— _as if he needed the pain to come back into his own head_ —she hears his hand reaching over to fumble with the lock on the door.

"I-I don't get it." He stutters out when she kisses her way up his neck, letting out another low hum when she exhales against the shell of his ear. "I… Why?" He asks, not bothering to clarify.

"... Why not?" She breathes against him, deciding she'd rather play coy than dissect what's happening like Wally wants to; pulling back in the slightest she claims his lips again, tongue dragging across his mouth and burrowing past his lips, as if hoping to shush him.

Wally's fingers finally tense on her waist for a moment before he pulls back, both their lips making a loud suckling sound as he ducks his jaw away from hers. "Artemis." He says seriously, gently extracting himself from her. "Talk to me, please. I don't— you've been all over the place lately, after that one night and—just tell me what you're thinking."

"I don't know." She lies—because she knows what she's thinking, she's still racing around the fact that she's an idiot in love with an even bigger idiot, but there's not a chance in hell that she's going to tell him that, not going to ruin the moment with too many feelings. "Why do I have to be thinking anything, why can't I just—you know?"

As if he knows that she's not telling the truth he shakes his head, brows furrowing as his eyes quickly switch between hers. "You're not thinking anything? At all?"

"No.." She says stubbornly, beginning to grow embarrassed.

Wally glances once at her cheeks—which she knows must be firing out that ugly blotchy red— but decides to ignore them. "O-okay. You're telling me I'm the only one who..." He trails off, not finishing his sentence.

She wants to kiss him again but gets the sense that this is the wrong thing to do; she's quickly beginning to feel stupid when he releases her waist to run a hand nervously through his hair. "… What's wrong, Wally?"

"I don't know." He sounds almost frustrated, hand straying over his face and fingers spreading so as to glance at her between his fingers. She feels as if she's crowding him, still standing so close to the door, but knows it would be a mistake to move back. "I mean... I feel like I'm missing something. There was the library— but then the kitchen. And then my house and your house— Look, you're just a little hard to read about... This kind of thing." His fingers snap shut for a moment before he drags his hand away from his face. "You're not nervous? Or anything?"

 _She's underestimated him_ — _as she feels she always does. Wally's smart enough to know something's changed..._

 _Not that she's going to tell him exactly what._

She hesitates, and even though it can't be longer than a second it feels as if his questions hangs in the air between them, unanswered, for half a century— she wants desperately to answer him, to find the right words, but is oddly coming up even shorter than she usually does with this kind of thing. She's a little surprised to discover that her resolution has very little reason behind it, based more on blind, loving impulses that she's too afraid to own up to.

There are so many things she wants to tell him; for too long he's been the romantic one, the one to poke and prod her with affections until she's annoyed enough to pull herself out of her shell. For once she wants to be the brave one, the one to take him by the hand and give him reassurance, to help him through the parched sand and the blazing heat that only ever really seems to be on her mind when one of them is falling apart.

And maybe she'll never be brave enough to tell him what she's thinking right now, never be able to thank him for finding her when she was lost inside her own head and the lights of the Metropolis Bridge were blinding her. Maybe she'll never be brave enough to admit that even though he doesn't believe in magic she does, because she feels it every time he disappears and comes back to her without fail. And maybe she'll never be able to say it out loud—or even allow herself to think it, really, except in early mornings when she wakes up to an empty bed that's beginning to grow shallow on the side he usually occupies—that more than anything all she's ever wanted is to be close to someone, to feel as if she weren't alone, and that he gives that to her every time he appears at her side, annoying and endearing and relentlessly making her somehow realize that she isn't all bad, not really—

Maybe she'll never be able to say those things, but a larger part of her—a part that isn't afraid and hasn't lost its instinct for this kind of thing—knows that maybe she can make him feel it. Maybe he'll understand, be able to decipher the emotion her fingers trace into warbling patterns in the contours of his muscles; be able to sense it when he draws ragged breaths that taste like her— _stale tea leaves, juniper berries, and something warmer and sweeter that she can't properly place_ — in through his mouth…

She's a coward, and in the silence broken only by Wally's soft breathing and flickering eyes she decides what she wants to say; it's a cop out, and she knows it, but it's better than saying nothing at all.

Wally glances down when she takes his hands, barely squeezing them and hardly giving him enough time to properly feel her callouses before she trails upwards, fingers skimming tendons and veins and pressing against lines of flushed muscle. It's easier to speak if she talk to the corsage still fastened to her wrist. "… Remember in Metropolis?" She says vaguely, pinky catching on a dry patch of skin on his elbow.

When she glances at his face she can see his blush has spread to his cheeks, his eyes growing half lidded when he finally looks her in the eye again. "Yeah?" His throat bobs when her palms press against the roundness of his shoulders, dragging up the back of his neck and into his hair.

"… You told me not to over-think this." She says clearly. " _And I'm not_."

When she pinches the ends of his hair between the webbing of her fingers he closes his eyes, head rolling back into her palms just as a heavy breath fires out of his nose; she can tell immediately that she's getting close to winning this fight, that whatever resistance, either nerves or some sort of internal prodding, are all beginning to crumble.

His breath catches when she drags her nails across his scalp, gently smoothing his hair back across his forehead; when he opens his eyes to look at her his vision seems clouded, and she wonders if the taste her tongue has left in his mouth is making him drunker than any liquor ever could. "So you don't want to talk… About anything? At all?"

"No." She whispers, hesitating slightly. "… Do you?"

Rather than answering her question he lets a burst of air fire out of his mouth, a ghost of a half chuckle that splashes across her face and warms her feverish cheeks. Wally's shakes his head beneath her hands, eyes softening when her fingers trail down the back of his neck. "You're the weirdest girl I've ever met." He snorts, and before she can even realize that it's the best compliment he's ever given her his mouth is crashing against hers.

There's so much force behind it that she feels her whole body physically jerk backwards, the muscles of her knees aching as she stumbles, hands flying from Wally's hair as he crushes himself against her; there's a moment where she's actually convinced she's about to fall, her lips still occupied with his and not quite able to make the noise of distress she wants to. For a moment she feels weightless, breathless, one complete second where she's certain she's about to ruin the moment by crashing against her bedroom floor—

She hears a hiss of breath escape her mouth when his arms wrap around her waist, righting her stumbling feet and yanking her closer until her ribs feel like they're bursting and her breasts are pressed achingly against the swell of his chest; it's not violent, not angry—there's something there, a want, a need to be closer, his tongue darting into her opened mouth and catching her off guard.

It's very fast, instantly sweltering; like everything they do there's a greater purpose behind it, raw emotion guiding her fingers and forcing them into a flurry of movement over the muscles of his shoulders—it's a fight like it always is, only this time they're on the same side, the one that's trying to steady shaking hands and level uneven breaths, one that's trying to hide their nervousness in the heat of the moment, in hardly there pain of her skin being broken under the grip of his finger nails, the yanking of his mouth away from hers and the impatient brushing off of her pony tail as he drags his tongue down her neck…

She hears herself gasp out when he yanks the neckline of her shirt off her shoulder, forcing the cotton to widen as he burrows his lips into her collar bone, suckling her closer. She can hear the sound of thread ripping and stretching, can feel his tongue dampening the fabric as he kisses her, pulling the skin off her bone and marking her, and suddenly it's all she can do to keep herself from shredding the clothes off his body.

She only has to claw once at the back of his neck he gets the message to remove his shirt; there's a loud slurping noise when he pulls back and she nearly clicks her tongue when she realizes he's left a bright purple bruise behind, hot and painful and no doubt going to be clearly visible no matter what she wears tomorrow. She's just glanced at him, perhaps to chastise or tease him about it, when her own snort cuts her off.

"You're wearing a button down, idiot." She tells the top of his head that's poking out of his neck hole, hands struggling to rip the fabric over his shoulders and fumbling with the buttons he can't quit reach anymore.

Laughing but still taking pity on him she yanks his shirt back down to his shoulders a little rougher than she should, pausing to kiss him once before tending to the buttons. "Right." Wally says a little dazedly when his lips leave hers, still looking slightly punch-drunk when he glances down to watch the progress of her fingers.

 _("Huh. So you're kind of forced to live with no vices." She had teased him, wondering how he would manage his life without coffee or alcohol, how he would never know her father's shaky cravings for cigarettes or the cheek blotching happiness her sister would get after only a few sips of vodka._

 _She had once thought of him as somehow better than her, purer without his addictions. But maybe Wally does have a vice, after all...)_

It feels like the moment in the library all over again, but as if the drugging heat of the moment has finally stilled, the passion and intensity still there without pushing her to rush things. She's on the second last button when Wally leans in to kiss her again, this one much slower and languid than all the others, his tongue pressing into her mouth and teeth biting into her lips in such a way that her fingers actually start fumbling, her whole body suddenly becoming feverish just like his.

He stares at her, hard, neck tight and throat bobbing as she pulls back, fingers slipping between the folds of the fabric to run up his chest; she's never understood why he insists on wearing layers. Wally exhales sharply when she reaches up, shoving the pristine blue shirt down his shoulders until it's crumpled on the floor behind him.

She glances pointedly at his tee shirt—old habits die hard, and regardless of her feelings or the moment she's not the type to pass up the opportunity to tease him. "A Flash logo?" She sneers, one hand reaching out to trace the lightning bolt. "Subtle, Wally."

"Shut up." He grins at her, not allowing her to remove his shirt and instead pulling her mouth back to his as if to prove a point.

Just like that they're back in the thick of things; she registers his hands reaching up behind her head and yanking the elastic clean out of her hair, fingers tangling in her locks as he's suddenly nudging her forward, forcing her blindly back towards the bed. She can feel her lips swelling beneath his, can feel the lines of his stomach mesh against hers, the pulsing point between her legs beginning to ache with want, shifting and throbbing against the seams of her jeans when he reaches behind her to squeeze her rear.

Wally's mouth doesn't leave hers to ask permission before one of his hands disappears under her shirt, creasing it momentarily as his palm cups the shells of her bra; she lets out a ridiculous sounding mewl as he jostles her breast, the edge of her nipple just barely slipping out to be touched by him. As if this is what he's been waiting for he lets out a grunting huff of approval, mouth releasing her long enough to undress her.

She feels her calves bump against the edge of her bed just as Wally whips her shirt off of her, one hand yanking her closer to reclaim her lips while the other reaches behind her to tend to her bra clasp. There's a few seconds of fumbling and twisting and she nearly cries out when he bites his lips against hers in frustration, and decidedly she reaches around behind her to just do it herself.

She's just sprung free _(bra falling between them and quickly being flung away,)_ Wally's hands palming at her and lips still suckling so hard on hers that she nearly forgets what she's about to ask, her breath coming out in feral pants when she tries to speak. "D-do you— _Wally_." She starts to ask between kisses, cutting herself off when she moans his name, the heat between her legs doubling when he catches one of her nipples in between his fingers; without thinking her hands fall below his waist, hand palming hard at the stiffness in his jeans. "Do you have s-something?"

"Back pocket." He groans, whole body stiffening for a moment when she stops touching him to reach around behind him.

She feels a little silly, palming at Wally's rear and feeling the thick lines of muscle hidden beneath his jeans that she's noticed his uniform barely hides; ever the opportunists Wally drags his tee shirt off, muscles stiffening slightly as she feels around, breath warm against his chest before she extracts his wallet confusedly. "Uh?" She pants out, sending him a quizzical look as he leans in to kiss her.

"There's a few condoms in there." He says, sounding slightly breathless at the feeling of her bare breasts pressing against him. "I—you know. After the other day…" Before she can blush or even pursue the wallet's contents she feels him give her right shoulder a slight push, forcing her backwards onto the bed.

She makes a stupid sounding surprised noise when she hits the mattress, nearly losing her grip on his wallet as her hair falls in front of her eyes; she can tell she must look stupid because she hears Wally let out a snort, looking amused when she starts trying to push her hair back into place.

"Shut up—" She snarls at him, voice wavering slightly when she emerges from her platinum locks. It strikes her suddenly, watching him smirk down at her with his hands fiddling at his belt, how handsome he is. There are pieces of him that seem exactly as they were the day they met: the green eyes, the freckles splattered across his body, the reddened tips of his ears and the wind swept appearance of his hair. But then there are other things—like the angular lines of his jaw, the defined muscles of his biceps, the twisting auburn hair that's sprouting much thicker than the last time she saw it on the bottom half of his stomach that feels alien, too new to belong to the boy whose body she had once tried not to admire for the sake of sneering at his sunblock covered nose. She realizes that she's staring far too late, her cheeks coloring when she finally pulls her gaze to his face; as if he knows what she's thinking and knows that she's slightly frightened by it he keeps his eyes fixed on hers, mouth curving in curiosity as he fumbles almost teasingly with his belt.

She's never seen him undressed completely before.

She's seen parts of him; touched him, felt his thighs shaking underneath her hands as her mouth had worked against his length. But he's seen every part of her, felt the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips, traced lines of her muscles to find the heated point between her legs. Knowing Wally he's probably memorized her down to the smallest detail.

She doesn't know why but the thought of him knowing more of her than she does of him makes her feel oddly unprepared for what's happening, as if she's showed up to a test without the time to pursue her textbook.

She blinks rapidly when he yanks his jeans down his thighs, half wanting to watch and half afraid to study the way he fumbles with stepping out of the fabric and tugging his socks off his feet; she realizes she's got a death grip on the brown leather of his wallet just as he stills in front of her, clad in only the blackened cotton of his boxers that do little to hide him from her.

She feels herself swallow thickly just as Wally's ears go off, and suddenly the tension between them seems to thicken to a breaking point—as if guided by some sort of instinct her mouth starts fumbling through words, eyes too busy following the v-shaped muscles to the stiff point between his legs to pay attention to what she's saying. "I—Wow. Uh…" She says dumbly eyes trailing over the muscles of his abdomen, realizing she must look stupid but for some reason unable to stop.

Wally doesn't seem to mind; his ears are calming and there's a loud laugh shooting out of his mouth, one hand splaying across his stomach as it tightens with mirth. She feels an odd spasm run through her at the sound, as if she were recalling an old memory very suddenly, and without really knowing why his laughter seems to send a wave of warmth rushing through her veins almost as powerful as any touch before.

She relaxes at the noise, muscles unwinding and one foot reaching out to press against his hip, a toe trying and failing to dip below the waist band of his boxers. "Come here." She says a little sheepishly.

Wally grins and grabs her ankle, spreading her legs as he falls between them; her bed, not usually very springy, jostles underneath them as he lies on top of her, hips pressing against hers and elbows propping him up. "Let me enjoy this." He murmurs against her mouth as he kisses her, pulling back to nudge her head into turning, lips pursuing her neck again. "Not very often I catch you looking at me like that. Usually you're a lot more subtle."

It seems stupid to tell him to shut up again, but she can't stop her mouth from spitting out sentences; never before in her life has she started babbling like this, voice not sounding teasing like she wants and instead sound high pitched and nervous. "Well, not everyone can be like the Wallman. You know, drool hanging out of their mouths and—" His fingers are back on her left breast, gently pinching her puckered nipple just as he bites the thick point of her neck again; rather than finish her sentence she hears herself gasp out, hips bucking against his and legs wrapping automatically about his waist, forcing him tight to her.

Instantly she hears him groan into her neck, tongue dragging over her collar bone and onto her shoulder; without knowing why she does it she feels her hips bursting into a frantic rocking motion that seems to follow the timing of his ministrations, grinding herself against the thickness of his shaft that's pressing so hard against her. "… Condom?" She hears Wally gasp into her neck, hand leaving her breast to splay against her hip, trying to soothe her.

"—Right." She pants; it's sweltering beneath him and all the unnatural heat he seems to produce, her jeans practically sticking to her. She feels hazy and too slow, almost drunk, tiny beads of sweat beginning to form in the crease between her breasts as she struggles to extract the hand that's still holding his wallet.

Never being one to wait on anything Wally allows her only a moment of peace to crack it open; when he suddenly shifts his weight she's half expecting him to snatch it out of her hands and do it for her. It's odd, so much so that her eyes actually leave the task at hand to examine him closely as he raises himself above her with one arm, the other tenderly stroking the bunched denim at the curve of her hip. "… _God_." He says huskily, looking at her naked breasts with the same fascination she had given him a few moments before.

She's expecting it when he leans in to kiss her again; it's soft, unhurried, his mouth unfurling and tongue flickering against hers when she responds, hands stilling on the wallet when he groans into her mouth, breathing into her. " _Wally_ —" She groans when he pulls back, eyes suddenly clouded and missing his taste as he dips below her jaw.

"Shh." He hushes her, lips dripping down her neck but not stopping to bite or suck against her the way she really wants; he pauses only briefly on the mark he's left on her collar bone to kiss it tenderly before he slides downwards, muscles dragging along hers and making the throbbing between her thighs increase by a tenfold at the friction.

It takes a lot of effort not to gasp when he kisses the point of her nipple, her back arching up against his mouth as he swirls his tongue around her. Even here he's not giving her quite enough attention, only teasing as his teeth barely graze her, glancing pointedly at the way her fingers are clenched around the leather as he drags his tongue along the dip between her breasts, licking up the moisture of her sweat. "Artemis." He says her name coyly, mouth pausing to work against her other breast and hand already tending to the one he's just abandoned. "Wallet."

"Sure." She breathes, fingers practically shaking as she starts fumbling it open again; it's hard to focus on what she's looking for, hard to think about anything, really, other than the rush of cool air as he blows against the tracings his tongue has left on her, the way his fingers lightly squeeze her before his lips start working lower, tracing the underside of her breast before working down her ribs.

Her eyes flicker over various cards, thumbing through cash and accidentally checking the zippered change pocket twice; she feels incredibly dumb when a few stray pennies tumble out, smacking against her neck and immediately slipping underneath her. She's just about to make a mad scramble to reclaim them when two things happen at once: Wally drags his tongue along the waist band of her jeans and a condom falls out of an unseen pocket and lands smack between her breasts.

"I—" She starts panting out, throwing his wallet sideways towards the pillows as she glances down at him; they've been lying almost diagonally on the bed this whole time, her toes hanging off the mattress as he pulls back, almost crouching over her and feet surely touching the ground, watching the way her breasts are heaving as she draws in wanting breaths. "Wally—" She says vaguely, pinching the square wrapper between her fingers and looking for his gaze to show him that she's found it.

She feels her stomach twist at the way he's looking at her, jaw clenched and ears red with wanting; a little pathetically the hand about to pass the condom towards him stills, only the corsage still attached to her wrist quivering, before falling beside her face as if afraid of moving. She's seen this look before, seen it thousands of times—the wanting he feels, his overwhelming need for her. And yet somehow it's different, more pressing, more anxious and feral but simultaneously Wally-ish yet completely unlike him; it makes her whole stomach clench up as he stares at her, the hand that had so recently returned to her hip hesitating before moving.

It's calculated, the way his fingers move achingly slow towards the button on her jeans; it's as if he's giving them both time to think this through, change their minds now as if he's afraid he won't be able to stop once he starts. Traitorously her hips jerk up at the sound of the fabric releasing the metal, thighs quivering as the teeth of her zipper unbind; she doesn't miss the asking in his eyes when he glances up at her, waiting for her to nod.

Wally whisks her jeans and socks off in one slightly clumsy motion; she can't take her eyes off him, can't stop herself from staring at intensity in his expression and the tightness of his mouth. She feels oddly unprepared for him as he glances down at the dark grey of her panties in front of his hips, a spasm of anxiety leaking through her whole body as he looks her up and down, one hand placing itself on her knee and spreading her legs wider. "A-Artemis." She's surprised when he shakes his head and stutters. "… Are you sure?"

She hesitates, heart thundering against her ribs and wondering how brave she is—brave enough to stop this now? Brave enough to keep going? Brave enough to tell him that she's in love with him?

"… Are you?" She croaks out.

Wally shakes his head at her again, mouth seeming to curve up slightly at her answer—it's so typical of them, bickering even at a time like this. "That's not the question—"

It's probably not her most elegant move but rather than risk her nervous mouth making things worse she seizes his hand from where it's resting on her knee, yanking him downwards along with it and forcing him to clumsily catch his weight on his other arm. "What—" He breathes in her ear, tensing when she forces his hand between her legs. "… Oh."

"I'm sure." She whispers in a husky voice, not quite managing to sound sexy.

She tries not to shudder when he strokes curiously her through her dampened panties, fingers pressing against her wetness and forcing the slightly slicked material to stick to her folds. "… I found a condom." She breathes. In response Wally's fingers press against her, his exhale against her neck long and loud before he starts fumbling with the waist band of her underwear, tugging it down her thighs and trying to keep a steady pattern of kisses against her neck as he undresses her.

His fingers are warm as they always are, tracing her and dipping once, shallowly, inside her before dragging her wetness up to her clit. She feels pathetically close to coming already, all this drawn out pawing at each other and his teasing seeming to build a heat burning deep inside of her; she inhales sharply when he presses against her nerves, pinching her slightly and twisting gently like he did with her nipples, not quite enough to do anything but more than enough to send her hips bucking.

Wally presses his lips against the underside of her jaw and immediately pulls back, eyes finding hers just as his fingers dip back inside her, this time deeper and more penetrating. "Your heart beat's going crazy." He whispers, fingers thrumming hard against her walls in a way that makes her head toss back against her blankets before he pulls out again, dragging upwards to press against her clit as his bright irises look at her through half-lidded eyes.

She feels her thighs beginning to tremble, muscles locking up and shaking as she tries to pull him closer, legs wrapping around his waist and trying to force his fingers circling her clit to slow—she's close, she's so close, but she refuses to go without him, not the first time. "C-condom." She stutters out, breath beginning to come out in mewls as she claws at his wrist.

Wally fights her on it as he does on most things, his arm tense as he ignores her grabbing, thumb rubbing small circles against her as the knuckle of his pinky presses against her opening; despite her insistence she can feel her resistance weakening, all the muscles in her body tensing and heating and seeming to melt along the seams where he's touching her.

Her mouth bursts open in a sharp exhale just she climaxes; she manages to stutter out the first syllable of his name before his lips are suddenly on hers, forcing her to keep quiet as his hand keeps working between her legs, trying to soothe the anxious rocking of her hips. She feels as if she can't breathe, not when his mouth is pressing so furiously against hers.

By the time her hips still Wally's hand is slick with her wetness she's light headed and dazed, her whole body shaking beneath him.

* * *

"I-I was trying to—"

"I know." He cuts her off, fingers slowing against her but not entirely stopping; she feels so tender beneath him she can't quite take his touching again so soon, as if every sensation is magnified, his gentle circling making her shudder and twitch in a mix of wanting and discomfort. "I know what you were trying to do, it's just—I don't know how long…" He trails off, looking embarrassed. "… It's not like I've done this before."

She doesn't quite know what to say, not when her mind is so foggy and her body is still buzzing underneath him; despite everything she can feel her stomach beginning to twist again, can feel the familiar tightening sensation building in the brittleness of her bones as Wally shifts between her legs. A little pathetically she whimpers, finally succeeding in pulling his hand away.

"What are you—" He starts, some of his weight jostling above her as he struggles not to topple onto her; as if impatient his hips buck in surprise when she reaches between them, stroking him through his underwear, the wrapper of the condom crinkling loudly in her other hand.

As if finishing his sentence for him his length twitches against her hand as she tightens her grip, the gasp of breath that fires out of his mouth as she does so splashing the familiar walnut smell across her cheeks. "I…" She trails off, her other hand reaching down between them and grabbing for his waist band, forcing the swelling of her breasts to press together. " _I want you_ …"

Wally's hands feel like a cage on either side of her as he remains still, letting out one excited shudder as she sits up and drags his underwear down his thighs, muscles popping as he wobbles from foot to foot; she tries not to stare, tries not to look nervous when he's naked between her thighs, the bulk of him looking so wonderfully hard and taut.

There's a predictable amount of fumbling with the condom wrapper; he takes it from her first and realizes all too late that his hands are sweating, and when she tries to help there's their usual amount of bickering. She has to physically slap his hands away before the wrapper finally bursts open, and before he can get out the sneering remark he wants to make she's rolling it down the length of him, his mouth splitting into a hiss when she pulls back to trace the v-shaped lines she loves so much, following his muscles until they guide her to where he's hard for her.

It's still boiling hot underneath him; her cheeks feel ridiculously red with the combination of nervousness and heat. Wally for his part is still blushing tremendously as he hovers over her, reddened blotches from his ears leaking down the side of his neck now and beginning to speckle across his shoulders as if her were some sort of crimson leopard.

He only hesitates once more, his hands braced on either side of her face and hips hovering over hers; she can feel the tip of his length barely brushing the heat between her legs, his hips rocking unconsciously with anxiousness and hardly touching her. "Just go slow, okay?" She whispers a little stupidly, trying not to sound afraid. She can feel how wet she is for him, can feel the way the swelling of her breasts tremor with the anxiousness of her breath, can feel the way her muscles are tightening and ready and craving him inside her. And yet Wally's looking at her as if he's still wondering if she wants him.

And maybe that's why she doesn't feel pathetic when her hand strays up beside her face to search for his wrist; maybe that's why her ankles skim up the back of his thighs and encircle his lower back tightly, as if to comfort him. Her fingers find his wrist, feel the familiar hardness of his bones and the tendons that hold him together. More out of habit than anything she shuts her eyes, turning her head to press her lips to the place where she can feel his heart beat pounding, far faster than she's able to count. It's all these things, so stupid in their familiarity, that make her feel safe. And maybe that's why, when he still doesn't move, she isn't too proud to beg him for it. "… Please, Wally."

 _Please._

 _Please._

 _Please_.

She hears them both cry out when he pushes himself inside her; instantly her low hiss turns into a gasp that she needs to bite her lip to contain, and she hears Wally mutter one choice swear a bit too loudly before he drops his head into the crook of her neck, hiding from her.

She doesn't know what she's expecting—it's not painful, exactly, like Zatanna had warned her in a way that sounding more teasing than serious. For a moment she can feel all her muscles contract, can feel her legs tightening around him as he tries to rock himself gently inside her. It's an odd sort of a fullness, a tender kind of fullness, that her body seems to adjust to too slowly and that sends her belly twisting as her walls clench tightly around him, an involuntary groan bursting from her lips before she can quiet it.

She can't stand it when he stops moving altogether, trying to give her time to adjust; feeling out of her element she insistently presses her heels against his back, trying to guide his pace as he slowly starts thrusting. She can tell he's trying to be gentle with her like she asked, can tell that it's in his instinct to be fast and that this is no different; what surprises her is that she needs it as badly as he does, her hips raising and back arching every time his thighs brush against hers.

With every thrust he gets deeper inside her, the swears he's whispering into her neck growing more disjointed and intelligible; once his hips jerk up into her, pumping hard for a half second before he can stop himself, and for a wild moment she hears herself moan at the sensation before it suddenly disappears, her fingers digging into his shoulders with frustration. "Sorry—" He grunts out, pulling back enough to look her in the eye, checking that she's alright; she's a little alarmed when she realizes he's got his face screwed up in concentration, in restraint, and as if to make it up to her he shifts his weight, his hips slowing to a gentle rocking motion as one of his hands makes its way between them.

"A-Artemis—" He pants out when her hips twitch underneath his at the feeling of his fingers, her heels pressing against the small of his back and unconsciously increase the speed of his thrusts; she's so sensitive after her recent orgasm, even if his fingers are clumsy she's beginning to feel the familiar build inside her again, her hips beginning to buck of their own accord and her mouth firing out these pathetic sounding whimpers. "I can't… I have to go faster—"

As if to prove a point his hips crash a little too hard against her, air hiccupping out of her lungs and forcing her to let out a straggled groan. She can feel her core throbbing around him, can feel the way her sweat slicked thighs are beginning to squelch on either side of him with her own wetness; each stroke inside her feels like a thrumming of his pulse underneath her fingers and— _and she's close, she's so close_ —

Without thinking she feels her hands clawing at his back, nails flying through his hair and pulling his mouth to hers to kiss him; both their faces are sweat slicked and their kissing is marred by messy exhales and without waiting for her to do anything other than pull back with a sudden moan at the feeling of his skin grinding against hers he exhales sharply and withdraws his hand, her heels guiding him as he starts bucking into her faster.

She can hardly breathe as he thrusts inside her; she can feel herself almost there, can hear him alternating between swearing and panting her own name into her ear as one of his hands squeezes her breast a bit too tightly. She's hardly aware of the noises coming out of her mouth, doesn't know if she's saying real words or simply falling apart underneath him—

And then he shifts, propping himself up to look her in the eye and suddenly she can feel herself crumbling around the edges as his length throbs inside her, hitting something that sends a dull ache of pleasure through her with each stroke. She doesn't know what does it, doesn't know how she even manages to look him in the eye as a part of her slips away, head tossing back and nails so sharp on his biceps that she's sure she's breaking skin— _she's never come this hard before, never once in her life—_

She gasps out his name and suddenly he's coming with her; his hips hammering clumsily but perfectly against her, all his walnut flavored oxygen bursting out of his mouth and hitting her in the face. There's a moment where his eyes screw up and she can feel him shaking all over and— _and she has to physically tighten her lips together because the impulse to tell him that she loves him is incredibly strong but she can't ruin this, she can't ruin this—_

Several of his muscles seem to give out at once and vividly she thinks that he looks how she feels after a particularly long run— muscles quivering, sweating, not entirely in control. Wally whispers something she doesn't catch, maybe another swear, and drops his head to her collar bone.

She can't quite tell where his shaking ends and where hers starts, only the feeling of his skin _— which is always hot but now feels absolutely sizzling, less human and more fire_ _—_ brushing against hers marking the division between them. "It's alright." She hears herself pant out, thighs still twitching around his waist and arms automatically wrapping around him to soothe him through it. She locks eyes with the lily on her wrist, still pristine and white despite everything. "It's okay."

* * *

 **AN: A lot of you have been waiting for this moment since _Artemisia_. I know this was by far one of my favorites to write. I hope I lived up to expectation!**

 **Please read and review (and keep watching YJ on Netflix!)**


	20. A World Alone

**AN: Enjoy the update!**

 **This chapter contains mature themes.**

* * *

It's dizzying, coming back down from the heat of it all; there's several seconds of panting breaths and sweat slicked kisses being pressed against her lips before it silently occurs to both of them that there's no need to be joined anymore.

It's very hard not to look at him as he rolls off her, his entire being still rocking with tremors as he wobbles over to her garbage, cleans himself up and disregards the condom. It's not just that she's never seen him naked before, it's that she's never seen him like this—never seen him completely out of breath, never seen his muscles inflated with testosterone and tendons popping along his arms and legs. She's never seen the crimson of his ears extend so far, never seen that telling red trail down his cheeks and drip off his chin, splattering patterns below his clavicle and into the hollow of his chest that she sometimes wishes she could occupy—

She catches herself staring again and, feeling sheepish, busies herself with removing the corsage on her wrist and promptly hiding beneath the covers; it's still sweltering in her bedroom, a combination of the heat of the moment and of Wally's unnatural warmth, and despite that fact that she can still feel her sweat pooling in the small of her back and rubbing against the sheets she does the cowardly thing and hides from him. It's just hitting her ( _all as she sees him out of the corner of her eye, palms pressing against his face for a moment before he runs both his hands through his hair, mouth quirked in happiness and length still stiff between his legs)_ what they've just done, how stupid she must have looked and sounded while it happened, and suddenly it feels safer to hide under the only layer of cotton she can reach.

Wally turns to her just as she settles against the pillows, face still set in that goofy smile and unbothered by his own body in the way she is; she can see his chest stuttering again, moving bumpily and stretching the scar over his heart a bit too tightly. She doesn't know why but the memory stirs something, something a little desperate and dangerous like the Metropolis girl used to be, and before she's thinking about it she feels her wary gaze soften.

"Come here." She tells him, sliding over and gesturing to the empty space beside her.

He doesn't need telling twice, but almost unusually he doesn't speed towards her—instead his grin grows more serious, more tender, his chin dropping to survey her as he walks in deliberately measured steps towards her. "That was…" He starts, trailing off when he reaches the edge of the bed, bending slightly to retrieve his underwear from the floor.

 _Amazing._

 _Spectacular._

 _Incredible._

 _Phenomenal._

 _Unbelievable._

 _Something she wants to do again and again, right now, please_ —

"I know." She tells him, even though as usual she doesn't. She wonders why she always feels the need to stop him before he finishes the endings of these unknown sentences, as if she's afraid that whatever comes next will change something between them or change how she thinks she's supposed to feel.

As he clambers into his boxers she wonders instead if there's a polite way to stop him from putting on his clothes, wonders if there's a way that doesn't sound pathetic to ask him to remain naked, to indulge her curiosity at his body… She can't figure out what to say and has to settle for watching him yank the fabric up his thighs, reminding herself that there will be other times. Or at least, she hopes there will be.

Wally seems to notice her gaze, brows raising at the slight wrinkle that appears over her nose as he pulls his waistband above his hips. "What?" He asks dumbly, one hand splaying on his stomach as he glances down to where he's still straining against his boxers.

As if she isn't hot enough her cheeks go off, blushing red as she glances up at the ceiling. "Nothing." She hesitates, hating herself. "… I've just never seen you—you know. Naked."

When she gets the courage to glance at him he's grinning wildly again, looking excited at how uncomfortable she is. " _You've never seen me naked_?" He snorts at her, repeating her words in a slightly mocking voice. "So, what, the last twenty minutes don't count?" He chuckles, and in the most Wally-ish manner she can think of he throws himself across her, half squishing her as he rolls onto his side of her bed. "We couldn't have exactly done that if I was wearing clothes, you know that, right?"

"Shut up." She sneers, one foot stretching out underneath the blanket and kicking him. "You know what I'm trying to say. It's different, in the moment. I mean—how often are you, are we, together—without, uh…"

She flounders slightly before she trails off, blushing hard again before she looks away from his cocky grin, yanking the blanket more tightly against her chest. Wally's blush, for its part, is quickly receding back to where it belongs the longer she's acting so stupid, only the tops of his cheeks remaining colored beyond his ears. "… Artemis Crock, are you trying to tell me that you think I'm hot?"

"No!" She bursts out, and it's the absolute worst lie she's ever told, with both of them lying hardly dressed and her body still pounding from the impact of his. Trying her best to look angry she hears herself snarling over his snorting laughter. "God, no, _that's not what I'm trying to say_ —I mean—"

Wally ignores her rambling and leans in to try to plant a rather wet kiss on her cheek, not looking bothered when her palm catches him about the lips and forces him, head first, back into the pillows. "Yeah, yeah. Heaven forbid you're attracted to your own boyfriend." He chuckles when she pulls her hand away angrily before he gets settled onto his back, hands folding behind his head and eyes closing leisurely, looking incredibly content despite her seething. "Whatever, Babe. You can look all you want, I don't mind."

She catches herself glaring at him and immediately forces herself to stop, tearing her eyes from the smugness of his expressing to scowl at the ceiling instead. She doesn't know why she's acting like this, so rattled, undone—after all, it had been her idea to do it, her idea from the moment she realized she loved him and wanted some way to show him her feelings rather than say them out loud.

 _(Would it have been easier just to say it, she wonders, mouth opening automatically as if to test it. When all that happens is a slight clearing of her throat and a twisting in her stomach she decides she might have made the right choice after all.)_

She just didn't expect to feel… like this. She's heard Zatanna talk about sex before—heard her describe the sensation of being pressed between the leather seats of a Cadillac and the muscles of a senior boy at her private school, remembers descriptions of moaning and sweat in between lewd details of things she didn't really want to hear in the first place. And yet she doesn't feel at all like how Zatanna described—she doesn't feel… detached from the moment. It doesn't feel like a conquest, another tally to scratch into the underside of her bed frame. It feels so much more… Real. Defined, as if it changes her in some way, maybe for the better.

She keeps expecting it to scare her, this feeling of… Easiness. She keeps expecting the girl from Metropolis to emerge from wherever she's run off to, expecting the other girl to be angry and frightened and lashing out against the bars of her cage, keeps expecting her temper to flare up around the spark of her insecurities and attack at Wally; and yet that angry part inside of her stays burrowed, the flames staunched. The feeling of him lying beside her, humming half with his own self-satisfaction and with the aftermath of so many overwhelming sensations… It feels exactly like when he had held her hand in Bialya, like the first time he hugged her (only a few feet from where they're laying now) and their seams had perfectly aligned to form something bigger than the two of them—

 _(And she's never believed in soul mates, never trusted the idea that someone could love another person so much that not even death could keep them apart, that they habitually come back to each other lifetime after lifetime_ — _but isn't that what her and Wally do? They come back to each other?)_

And maybe that's a little scary, if she stops to think on it, but for once in her life she doesn't allow herself to dwell on the thought; she feels her mattress creaking as she rolls towards him, still holding the blanket tightly to her breasts as she takes him up on the offer to look at him.

He's cooled down now, feverish skin no longer blotched and ears no longer crimson; his breathing has levelled out too, chest huffing out in an even pattern that's so slow that she's sure he's relaxed, on the edge of slipping off to sleep. It's strange, she'd been expecting him to want to talk about things, want to analyze like he always does—she isn't expecting the quiet that he's immersing them in, nor the satisfied smile hardly quirking around his lips. She wants to say something, anything, to break the silence, and once again she finds that her body is being led by her mouth; in the absence of words she reaches out for him, fingers brushing along his forehead and pushing his fringe off his face.

Almost the second she touches him Wally's eyes flicker open, looking slightly clouded as she runs her fingers through his hair; after a moment or two his amber lashes blink, head turning towards her and unconsciously pressing into her palm as she rearranges the permanently mused pieces at the crown of his head. "… You are, you know." She says quietly.

Wally blinks again, looking politely bemused as her fingers run down the side of his face, pressing the beginnings of stubble around his jaw back into his freckled skin. "What?"

She can feels herself blushing and quickly drops the intensity of his eyes, instead following the map of freckles she'd traced months ago into his skin—already there's unfamiliar ones erupting along the sunburnt bridge of his nose, fresh and unexpected with their newness. "Attractive." She says softly, thumb skimming the line of his jaw down to his chin, hardly brushing his lips before she loses her nerve and rounds back to his cheek bones. "… I don't think I've ever told you that before."

"Hm." Wally hums in the back of his throat as she follows the indentations of his bones back to his mouth, her thumb hesitating before tracing the bow shaped figure of his upper lip. She decides to take it as a good sign when Wally's eyes grow clouded before drifting shut, the rest of him remaining still beneath her fingers.

"I think it, a lot." She continues, fingers pausing at the dip in the center of his chin and dropping off his jaw, nail catching on the sharp curve of his jugular. "All the time, actually. Even before we got together—" She can feel herself trying too hard to be romantic, too hard to be kind to him, and suddenly her voice catches and she's forced to clear her throat, glancing up at him nervously as she traces the jutting bone of his clavicle. His eyes are open again, apple green and hazel flecked, impossible to ignore once she realizes he's staring at her."… The first time I saw you, actually, even though you were yelling at me."

"I wasn't yelling." Wally hums out, voice slightly hazy and telling her that he's enjoying what she's doing, getting lost in the feeling of her fingers mapping out the freckles of his chest until they pause, her brows raising as she looks at him. A distant memory seems to sound between them _("Who are you?" He had snarled, arms thrown wide in a boyish sense of abandon)_ and at once he quails slightly, back arching and prompting her to resume her tracings. "Alright, there was some yelling."

Her palm splays flat in the center of his chest, forefinger tracing indentations of muscle and nipple and newly blossoming wisps of ginger hair that are less man and more light, enjoying the way his breath seems to catch and another hum gets stuck in the back of his throat as she does so. Even though she sees the scar from the bullet in Metropolis she's not brave enough to touch it, a part of her still afraid that disturbing it will somehow send precious life running out of him again. "It doesn't matter." She says quietly, finding that she's telling the truth; it doesn't, not really—not when her fingers are feeling the uneven bumps of his abdomen, not when she can see the muscles of his bicep twitch from where they're still folded behind his head. It's hard to believe anything in the world matters in this moment, other than the two of them lying so close together. "The point is that—"

She hears her voice cut off as her little finger catches on the v-shaped line below his belly button, and without thinking she follows the indentation of the muscle until her fingers are brushing cotton; she hears herself suck in the breath when she reaches the stiff point between his legs, realizing that he's already hard for her again.

 _Oh. Fast Metabolism._

And she doesn't know why she pulls back, doesn't know why after touching him, after his being inside her, why she's hesitating the way she is; all she knows is that she nervously twitches her hand away from where he's straining at his boxers. This kind of thing is still a little strange for her, feeling herself being flooded with excited heat that she knows she'll probably always be a little clumsy with acting on; blushing, her thumb finds the other side of his v-shaped lines and traces back up to his hip before she pulls away. "The point is that you're really…" She pauses, embarrassed and not knowing what to say. "… You're really hard not to want, Wally." She tells him, settling back into her pillows and wishing she hadn't starting talking in the first place.

Wally holds her gaze for a long second, the shadows behind his eyes so intense that she feels as if she could drown in them all together. "… Well, what about you?" He asks her, voice low and ragged as he rolls towards her, propping himself up on his elbow. "Have you ever thought about how—"

His own voice breaks, and she's a little relieved that she's not the only one embarrassed by all this talking of feelings, by all the emotions and hormones their being together is stirring up. Absently she extends her hands above her head, pushing her loose hair off her face and into the plush of the pillow, yanking a little harder than she should as if reminding herself to _focus, don't be an idiot_ —

His eyes follow her hands, swallowing quickly and glancing down to where her breasts stretch with the movement of her arms, hidden only by the loose fabric of the blanket. Somehow, in the second or two of silence, he figures out what he wants to say. "Have you ever thought about how much you make me want you? Without even thinking? Like—like the first time I saw you—"

"I don't think that counts for you.." She hears herself say teasingly, trying to break the seriousness of his expression and dispel the furrowing of his brows. "I was wearing a mask, remember?"

To his credit Wally allows his mouth to quirk upwards. "Hate to break it to you Babe, but your uniform doesn't exactly leave a lot to the imagination." He says, hardly teasing before he slips back into the intensity of before and his smile fades into something much older, more serious. "I'm not talking about that, anyway. Do you… Do you remember that night in the kitchen?"

"There have been lots of nights in the kitchen, Wally."

This time he doesn't indulge her teasing at all, mouth leveling out as he tries to recall the memory. "It was right after you joined the Team. It must have been midnight or so, and I woke up really hungry… I don't know what you were doing, reading a book or something, just sitting around the island in the kitchen like you belonged there. It was the first time I saw you without a mask on."

It takes her a second but she remembers: remembers debating with herself about whether or not to hide, whether to let him see her, remembers how angry she had been when he had acted like it didn't mean anything. "Oh." She says stupidly, blinking.

"Yeah." He says almost distantly, one hand reaching out to tuck a stray piece of her hair back into the mass collecting static on the pillow. "I don't know why that stuck with me—I mean, I knew you had to be beautiful. Hard not to be, with eyes and lips like those." He adds, glancing down to her mouth automatically as his hand strays to cup her chin. "But I just remember, that first time I saw you, I mean, really saw you… I kinda knew I was in trouble, whatever I told myself otherwise."

She hears herself snort. "Of course."

"You know what I mean." He scoffs back, hand pushing more hair back along the groove of her scalp. "I just—"

He cuts himself off as she shifts against the bed in a poor effort to try to tempt his hand into fiddling with her hair; almost too slowly the top of the blanket slips off her breasts, and suddenly there's a half second where his ears turn maroon again and his throat bobs excitedly, and it seems to takes a lot of effort to force his eyes back to hers. "… You're pretty hard not to want yourself, Blondie."

She feels her cheeks redden as his eyes lock relentlessly on hers, something deep inside her stomach beginning to twist and tighten in response; almost dazedly she's aware of his palm trailing down her neck, less carefully than she had traced him, fingers dipping below her collar bone and brushing against the curves of her breasts. "Wally?" She hears herself whisper.

He doesn't respond except to glance at her for a half second, fingers following the curve beneath her right breast and lingering along her ribs, tongue reaching out to moisten his lips as he gently peels the blanket off her skin; it's very hard to stay still, her hands still above her head and frozen in the ends of her hair as he drags the blanket down below her thighs. He's still hard for her, length now straining almost painfully against his boxers.

"You're so beautiful, Artemis." He whispers, and before he can do much more than press a thumb to the curve of her hip she's reaching for him, palm clapping at the back of his neck and pulling his lips to hers.

Wally groans into her mouth, hips digging into her thighs as he rolls on top of her; all too quickly she pulls him back by the scruff of his neck, nails digging into his hair. "Do you want to—again?" She pants out, trying not to sound too desperate.

She has enough time to see him nod frantically before his lips are back on hers, the hand twitching towards the slippery point between her legs.

* * *

It takes a while for real quiet to find them; even in the silence she can still hear the echoing sound of both their moans against her ears, can hear the lingering whispers of Wally's lips against her neck asking the tentative question of whether or not it was good. Most of all she hears her answer, the obnoxious snort she had let out while still out of breath, body humming from her third orgasm.

 _"What do you think, Wallman?" She laughed, the sweat on her skin practically making her stick to him._

Finally the quiet comes. And with it, her thoughts.

One of Wally's legs kicks out, the edge of his toenails catching her foot and doing little more than telling her that's he's starting to fall asleep; after the second time he had been too tired to bother redressing, but she's sure that should she want to wake him up all she would have to do was reach for his nakedness beneath the sheets. But she doesn't want to wake him, not really, not when her heart is so anxiously pounding inside her chest despite neither of them having moved in so long.

She can't escape it now, can't avoid it any longer.

 _She's in love with this boy._

And even though she knows she can't outrun this feeling, can't shove it aside like she knows it's safest to do she still catches herself trying, still sees her old tricks in the way she rolls until her back is facing him, figure coiled like a frightened child around her sheets. Still, her mouth is pushing her to say something, anything, to sooth her racing heart, and before she can even consider the fact that he's almost asleep she hears herself speaking.

"Wally?"

There's another jerk, this time his arm flying out to smash too hard against her back; it takes him several seconds to realize that he's still in her bed, the palm slapped between her shoulder blades slacking and pressing soothingly into her spine. "Yeah?" He croaks out, voice clogged with exhaustion.

She hesitates, wondering what to say, and spews out an answer that isn't quite right. "… Don't ruin this, okay?"

The hand on her back pulls back for a moment, and instantly she can sense him waking up, can sense the way the air changes around him and how his silence grows more pointed. "... How could I ruin this?" He whispers more clearly this time, and she can feel the mattress creak as he shifts closer to her, propping himself up on an elbow to better look at her.

She ignores his eyes on her face and feels herself scrunch more surely into a ball, her blankets creasing around her naked body. "… Don't tell me you love me, or something stupid like that." She says warningly before she turns her face to hide in her pillow. It's just as much a reminder to him as it is to her.

There's several beats of stunned silence before she feels the bed shifting again; she's almost expecting him to get up and leave, and therefore flinches when she feels an arm wedging between her and the mattress, dragging her until she's flush against his chest. "… Okay." He says into her hair, head ducking to press a kiss into the back of her neck, along the clean line where the warbled skin of her scar used to sit. "I won't say it."

And there's something so assuring in his settling around her that his lack of confession may as well be one altogether; rather than slow her rapidly beating heart she can hear it nearly double in speed, so loud in her ears that she's sure he can hear it too. "Good." She says quietly, voice oddly high pitched. "… Because I don't love you."

 _She's getting worse at lying._

Wally hums in to her hair, already drifting back to sleep and not paying attention to her anymore, arms still tight around her. "Sure."

* * *

She jerks awake when she hears the sound of her bedroom door being opened the next morning, all at once remembering her lack of clothing; suddenly she's a mess of wild tangled hair and creased sheets, scrambling until her blanket is ripped up above her shoulders in a rumpled mess and leaving everything below her ankles exposed.

"Morning, Beautiful." She hears Wally chuckle, and she feels almost every muscle in her body relax at the sound of his snorting laughter, one of her hands reaching from underneath her blanks to push the hair off her face; when she finally emerges from the thick and tangled blonde curtains she sees him fully dressed and grinning, arms laden with the most ridiculous thing she can imagine: a syrup soaked stack of pancakes.

"… You made breakfast?" She asks almost disbelievingly, her throat cracking with exhaustion as he clicks the door properly shut behind him, struggling to keep a hold on the plate and the carton of orange juice he's got pinched in the crook of his elbow.

Wally's foot hesitates almost unnoticeably as he starts walking towards her, head jerking to the side in what she can only assume is supposed to be a shrug. "Technically, Megs made these." He says easily, grinning at her. "But I was the one who woke up, starving after such a long night of—uh." He pauses again, sitting on the edge of her bed with his ears reddening, balancing the plate on his thighs and putting the juice carton precariously on the edge of her desk. "And I was the one who woke up at six in the morning, looking for food. And I was the one who brought them to you, _in bed_. So technically, I'm the one who made the whole breakfast in bed thing possible—"

"It's six in the morning?" She barks out, not paying attention to anything else he's saying, immediately letting out an exhausted sounding groan and yanking the covers above her head. "You're crazy, I'm going back to bed—"

She gets less than a second of peace before Wally's tugging her head free of her blankets, still grinning at her as if he couldn't be more delighted by her grumpiness. "Don't be stupid, that was hours ago. It's almost eleven now."

" _You let me sleep for nearly twelve hours?"_

"Missing the point, Babe." Wally chuckles, beginning to sound impatient as he gestures to the stack of pancakes with his brows waggling. "Breakfast in bed, remember?"

She hears herself grumbling and promptly stops when she notices that Wally's listening intently to the annoyed words she's muttering under her breath, as if he's memorizing the incomprehensible sounds she's barely letting escape the back of her throat—she can practically hear his brain whirring, filing away the fact that she's short tempered in the mornings to save for future reference. Rather than indulge him any further she sits up, carefully keeping her blanket pinned underneath her arms to covers herself.

"Thanks for breakfast, Baywatch." She tries to say kindly, realizing too late that she sounds sarcastic rather than grateful and forcing herself to smile at him as he starts sawing away at the pile of food with a fork and knife, almost spilling syrup on his jeans. "… Seriously. But you know I can't eat all this, right?"

Wally manages to spear several pieces of pancake on the end of the fork, waving it front of her face and ignoring the look she sends him when he splatters a few drops of syrup on her pillowcase. "You're forgetting who you're dining with, Beautiful. Open up."

It's probably the most disgustingly cute she's ever felt as she rolls her eyes and opens her mouth, allowing him to place an excessive amount of pancakes and syrup onto her tongue. Despite her glaring Wally looks quite happy, borderline thrilled; chewing loudly and forcing herself to swallow painfully she raises a brow at him, watching as he spears double the amount on the end of the fork for himself. "You're acting weird." She tells him, mouth quirking as he starts shoveling food into his mouth, syrup dribbling onto his chin. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Sure did." He says through a mouthful, thumb reaching up to wipe stickiness from his face. "… You let me stay last night. We've never done that before."

It takes her a second to realize what he's talking about—vividly she remembers rolling to find him in the middle of the night, remembers seeking his warmth out when he was hogging the blankets, and she realizes that last night was the first time her and Wally slept together, in more ways than one.

"Oh." She says dumbly, and Wally takes advantage of her open mouth and pushes more pancakes past her lips.

That afternoon is the first almost painfully hot afternoon of the year, and after their sweat soaked skin of the previous night cools neither of them can resist the beach, nor can anyone else in the Cave; by the time her and Wally resurface from her bedroom nearly everyone is outside, either swimming or lounging in the warm beams of sunlight reflecting off the water, conversation easy and laughter sounding too loud after months of tense silence.

To his credit, Wally lasts about five hours without mentioning Prom again; the days are getting longer now, a few hardly there wisps of evening clouds doing little to dampen their view of the sun disappearing into the horizon, coloring their Sunday sky with the promise of school tomorrow. The ocean water feels warm on their feet as they're walking along the shore line, shoes discarded on the beach and hands uncharacteristically clasped when he suddenly stills, forcing her to stop too.

"You never really gave me an answer." He tells her, voice slightly lowered so as to not attract the attention of M'gann and Zatanna, seated only a few yards away and lounging, bikini clad, in what's left of the fading sun. "About Prom?"

She feels her nose wrinkle slightly. "I thought _no_ was an answer." She teases.

The corners of Wally's mouth quirks up, but it does little to change the fact that he's being serious. "That doesn't count. That was before… You know." He pulls her round to face him, his other hand finding hers and weaving their sweat soaked fingers together."Come on. You know you want to—"

"Wally—"

"I'm serious!" He cuts her off, seeing she's about to divert his attention with more teasing. "I want you there, Artemis. Please? If you don't give me a straight answer soon, I swear, I'm going to actually propose to you on this beach in front of everyone—"

"God!" She bursts out, cheeks setting off again when he makes a movement to get down on one knee, her hands leaving his to yank him firmly upwards by the shoulders. " _Fine!_ I'll go to prom with you—"

Before she can even finish saying yes his mouth is on hers, cutting off her annoyed words with a wet kiss before he pulls back, grinning; for some reason she can feel herself smiling back, even if she is embarrassed when she hears Zatanna's jeering from the shore.

* * *

She feels herself submerging, settling into life for the first time; with Wally by her side she feels a sense of stability she hasn't felt since she was a child, when both her parents were walking on their own two feet and only bickering quietly in the kitchen. It occurs to her that she's finally feeling comfortable in her own skin, as if her muscles are unwinding and her bones are softening the longer Wally holds her; the girl from Metropolis remains silent, and where she would once whisper to her in darkened evenings there's now nothing, as if she's as wary of Wally and his warmth as she is eager to protect him.

 _(They've been together another four times now, twice more in her bedroom and once in his. Each time they finish she lies beside him under the covers and wonders why she ever fought this, what force in the universe she thought more powerful or consuming than the hazy way Wally stares at her in the half light, fingers reaching unconsciously for her pulse, to feel the impact of their being together thrumming against her skin..._

 _The first night they spend apart after, in their own homes and in their own beds feels so strange to her, so lonely without him beside her. The next day he kisses her and it hits her harder than it always does: his smell, his taste, the overwhelming way he seems to invade her mouth and her thoughts and her heart. They don't stop to talk before, and he lets out a strangled moan when she clambers on top of him, her hips against his so ragged yet so soft and wanting that suddenly it feels as if it's their first time together all over again; and it's easier now more than ever to let him in—easier to sink her teeth into the swell of his shoulder as he gasps into her hair, hand tightening on her hip and trying to hold her closer for a second, just a few more seconds—)_

She doesn't tell him that she loves him—although she suspects one day soon she will, when the words stop frightening her as much as they do. But she supposes there's something in the way he holds her after, in the way she wakes up on their nights together to find herself huddled in the crook of his arm, the way he kisses her awake before he sneaks out of her bedroom in the morning, that seems tells him what he needs to know.

 _The two of them have never really had a way with words, anyway._

Things are quiet around the Cave—With Tula and Garth gone she's spared the endless circles her and the other girl seemed to spin themselves into trying to recall absent details from Metropolis, from the long forgotten squid. She is secretly relieved when she's forced to pass their research along to the Justice League, and she isn't bitter to leave behind the stuffiness of their darkened conference room and the strange nightmares all this thinking and spinning always gave her.

And perhaps it is out of character, her being this happy; it certainly feels like it is, when her cheeks ache from smiling and her stomach is twanging from laughing so much at the little jokes that pass between her and Wally. Sometimes she'll catch her reflection on window panes or in the mirrors in the bathroom, and for a moment she'll try to find the girl she used to be— try to force herself back into her brooding, back into the melancholy girl with the steely grey eyes, the hurricane of a person who had joined the Team in August with too-sharp arrows and rough edges to her skin. Wherever that other girl is, she isn't staring back at her.

 _For the first time in her life everything is perfect. Except_ —

Wally jumps and lets out several loud snores, arm bursting out violently and catching her pony tail; predictably she jerks awake as his fingers knot into her hair, yanking her head back and forcing her out of the warmth of his chest that she's been sleeping in. Before her eyes are even finished snapping open he's rolling on top of her, sending her mattress quaking as he attempts to flatten her in his sleep, knees knocking painfully against hers and hand yanking the ends of her hair up to his face. She winces in pain as he lets out an exaggerated exhale and makes the strange little humming noise he always lets out when he's content, the tail end of her name bursting out of his mouth before it turns into another snore.

He's disgusting. Or at least that's what she tells herself as she smiles.

It has to be about four in the morning— she's slept with him enough to understand his patterns, his predictably. For Wally this is the witching hour, the point in the night where his muscles are beginning to grow restless, beginning to rebel against the human instinct of sleep. He'll thrash for the next hour and a half or so, wake the both of them out of unconsciousness, and then finally at six he'll be forced to get out of bed, stomach begging for food and legs begging to run.

As if to prove her point one of Wally's thighs spasms and slams hard in between hers, the movement sending a surprised huff of breath from her lungs. It's quiet, but not quiet enough; at once he's awake at the noise, hand slapping out several feet too far before he realizes he's right on top of her. "—mis?" He whispers dryly, still too asleep to say her name properly as he lifts his head from the pillow.

"Hi." She croaks back, nudging him in the shoulder until he gets the message to ease up onto his elbows. "Everything's okay, you're just squashing me. Roll over and go back to sleep."

He does as he's told but she allows him to drag her with him, allows him to pull her into his heat until her head is hidden in the warmth underneath his chin and his thighs are pressing into the backs of hers. "Sorry. I should go back to my room." He whispers, fingers running through her hair and getting caught in the tangles.

Neither of them make to move. "I don't mind." She says honestly, pressing back into his chest. Unthinkingly she drags his arm around her, clutching at his fingers and pressing them against her clavicle. Ever the opportunist Wally disregards her placing and keeps fidgeting until he's got the swell of one of her breasts in his hand.

Wally settles back into sleep while she's forced into restless dozing, woken every few minutes by his thrashing. Finally, after an hour passes and she can't take it anymore, she decidedly ignores his protesting and rises out of the comfort of the blankets.

Still half asleep she wanders through the halls, not quite sure how she's going to kill the next hour or so until Wally's fully awake and out of bed. The Cave still feels oddly warm from all the heat they've been getting, the skin on her legs hardly pricking underneath her sleeping shorts as she approaches the kitchen. Unthinkingly she turns towards the couch, already looking for the remote and wondering if there's anything even slightly interesting on at five in the morning. Like always her head turns to automatically glance out her and Wally's window, hoping for a glimpse of the sun as it make an appearance over the ocean.

She sees the sun alright, blazing red and orange streaks beginning to burst out over Happy Harbor as the day begins, but she also sees something else— her eyes narrow and her stomach begins to twist with anger when she can clearly see blond hair and ebony skin marring the familiar landscape. Furiously she looks away, ripping a blanket she doesn't need off the back of the couch and flinging herself onto the cushions, slamming the power button on the television as hard as she can with her thumb.

She hasn't spoken to Kaldur since the day he returned from Atlantis, hasn't said anything to him beyond the awful things she had yelled at him in the hallway. Since then she's only seen him a few times in passing, been too preoccupied with her anger to follow him with her eyes, to make sure he's alright with the absence of his friends she accidentally forced him into sending away. She slams her thumb repeated against the remote, nervously flipping between channels and feeling guilty. It's not like Kaldur to be awake this early in the morning; he usually goes to bed quite early and sleeps late... Unless something is bothering him.

She manages three full cycles through the mass of channels before she can't stand the guilt filling her stomach; turning off the television she wraps the blanket more surely around her shoulders, jaw tight as she gives into the clenching in her stomach.

The wind is blowing off the water when she makes her way down to the beach, pushing her messy hair back over her shoulder and making her grateful for having the foresight to bring the blanket with her. Even the sand is cold for the first time in days without the sun's heat, oddly damp and sticking to the bare bottoms of her feet.

Kaldur doesn't hear her as she approaches their spot over looking the water, head bowed in thought and knees straining over crossed legs. For a long moment she stands several feet behind him, trying to figure out what she wants to say. Nearly a minute passes as she debates simply turning around and heading back inside, trusting in the sound of the waves crashing against the shore to cover her presence. Finally, she forces herself to be brave and charges forward.

He hardly moves when she sits down beside him, not acknowledging he's even aware of her presence beyond the movement of his jaw, which turns once in her direction before dipping back down to stare at the sand. She takes her time adjusting the blanket on her shoulders, tactfully keeping her eyes adverted until he can arrange his features with what he wants to show her.

When she finally looks at him it strikes her how awful he looks; there's strange tawny circles under his eyes that seems to be almost swollen with a lack of sleep, the usual milky color of his irises reminding her of infection and illness as they dawn a blotchy, sickly red color. The corners of his mouth are cracking and bloody in some places, as if he's been biting layer after layer of skin off his lips.

Her gaze strays to the way his shoulders are slumped and sunken, and before he can look back at her she turns her head towards the ocean, frowning. "... I'm sorry." She blurts out. She doesn't know what she's apologizing for, exactly: for her yelling, her screaming his and Tula's secret in the hallway, for ignoring him all this time. All she knows is that she's sure she's responsible for whatever is happening to him, and as angry as she still is she can't bear the weight of his sadness on her shoulders anymore.

"As am I." He says back, throat sounding dry.

There it is, as simple and plain as the waves rolling up a few feet in front of them. She nods, unthinkingly reaching out to clap a hand on his shoulder, a wave of exhaustion washing over her. She's so tired of being angry with him, tired of fighting against the good intentions she knows he has but doesn't understand. She decides to leave any other words or arguments where she buried them before in the sand.

Kaldur ducks his head again when she touches him, her hand splaying flat across his shoulders. It's only then that she notices he's shaking. "Kal?" His shoulders keep quaking under her fingers. "Kaldur? Are you alright?"

"She left." He says, voice sounding oddly restraint, as if he's physically keeping a flood of emotion from outpouring from him. "Tula left with Garth."

 _Oh._

She doesn't quite know what to say at first, thumb moving automatically to rub reassuring circles into the middle of his back. The gesture is borrowed from Wally and feels too forced when she does it. "... I know that. I mean— You were the one who told her to go, right?"

In answer he shakes his head, eyes screwing tightly closed as the gills on either side of his neck flare with emotion. "I... Told her, yes. But that was after..."

"After?"

Kaldur hesitates, as if deciding on his wording. The curved edges of his teeth escape his mouth again to peel back more too-new skin from his lips. "... Garth overheard our conversation in the hallway."

Her hand freezes on his back before it retracts, clapping around her mouth. "Oh, Kaldur—" She starts to say between her fingers, horrified for a half second before confusions sets in. "But— but he already knew about you and Tula, didn't he? Or at least suspected? That was why he— you know— in Athens, with me—"

She's cut off when he shakes his head again, looking pained. She's silently grateful for the fact that he didn't make her finish the sentence, as if putting into words what happened and hearing it aloud will somehow make her feel worse about it. "You are right in that he suspected. But our conversation gave him the... Confirmation that he needed to take further action."

"Confirmation?"

Kaldur looks as if he can't stand to explain it to her, and she instantly regrets asking. "As is Atlantean custom." He sighs, pausing for a moment and looking as if he's summoning a certain amount of strength to be patient with her ignorance. "As I understand it, on the surface world mere suspicions are enough to raise concern with a partner, but in Atlantis... How do I explain this?" He mutters, biting his lip again. "Atlantean mating and courting customs are different than the surface world's. Any indiscretions, and the shame associated with them, are tolerated as it is understood that to make them stop one would only have to be a more attentive partner. However, if the lovers in question are not discrete, if their actions publicly shame the partner with their obviousness, there are... There are ways to eliminate a rival, and stop them from courting your partner. But they cannot be acted upon until one is certain of their partner's... Cheating? Is that the phrase?"

She feels herself nod, mouth still hidden behind her hand. "So... So me yelling, that was enough to make Garth snap? To give him a reason to...?"

"I believe so."

Her fingers crumble from her chin and find the edge of her blanket, clenching a piece of fabric tightly in her palm. "... What did he do?"

"Not very much." Kaldur admits after a moment, trying to smile and not managing. His skin looks oddly pale in some places, too dark in others. "He waited until I sought him out after we spoke. Waited until Tula was absent and I explained why he would no longer be welcome at the Cave...

"Then he attacked me."

Despite the fact that she's rounded on a few of her Teammates before the idea still slightly shocks her. "I'm so sorry." She hears herself blurt out, hands getting a death grip on her blanket and twisting it anxiously between her fingers. "I shouldn't have said that, Kal, it's all I've been thinking about—"

She's on the verge of ripping the fabric when he reaches out, looking miserable as he forcibly pries her fingers apart, letting go too quickly. "There is nothing to apologize for." He says smoothly, and she can tell he doesn't really mean it. "It was an encounter that was long over due between Garth and I."

There's a moment of silence between them and she imagines the thrumming of magic in the air, all electricity and water and wind. Almost warily her eyes start scanning what she can see of his skin, checking for injuries, and as if he knows what she's thinking he speaks. "There will be no marks. Atlantean duels over partners are typically fought like Neanderthals— pardon me, without magic— to ensure no physical harm is done. Dense skin, as you know. We are a very superficial species, and a bloody victor would be no more desirable than a loser."

She hears herself let out a sharp exhale, not quite a chuckle but more than simply a noise of disbelief. "... So there was a winner and a loser then?" In response Kaldur tilts his head to the left, shoulder rising and falling quickly in the odd Atlantean shrug she's noticed before. A little desperately she nudges him, trying to get him to smile again. "Come on, must have been you, right?"

Kaldur looks out towards the water. "I am stronger than Garth, if that is what you are implying. Although he is a far better sorcerer than I, I am perhaps quicker, better equipped for combat—"

"You're being modest, Kal."

She's relieved for a moment when she sees a ghost of a smile, her stomach automatically sinking when it disappears with a slightly bitter frown. "I was besting him until Tula found us. Until we were forced to explain our fighting."

Her stomach clenches. "Oh."

"... I had thought I was the victor." He says quietly, head ducking down to stare at the sand. "Had Tula not intervened I doubt very little would have stopped me from... But after we explained, after everyone had finished yelling and feeling betrayed, after Garth turned to her and demanded a decision...I had thought between the two of us she had preferred me. But when Garth forced her to choose between us... I was the one left feeling defeated."

She wants to say something comforting, something that will make his pain easier; as usual, she comes up with nothing. How can you comfort someone with a broken heart? How can you dull the pain of rejection? How can you soften the fact that for a second time now Kaldur's been unwanted by the girl he loves? Feeling empty she lets her gaze return to the ocean as he sighs beside her, leaning gently backwards until he's lying in the sand.

"I now believe I know what Tula felt, the day I left for the surface world." She hears him mutter. "... If I had known my leaving would cause this kind of pain, I would have rather died than part from her."

When she gets the courage to glance back at him he's got one of his elbows bent around his eyes, shielding himself from the rising sun and whatever emotion is showing on his face. "... I'm so sorry, Kal." She whispers, not knowing what else to say.

* * *

( _"Ahem."_

She looks up from her book when a hand appears in front of it, perfectly manicured nails flexing insistently atop her spot on the page. Almost dryly she raises her head, palm knocking the intruder away and splaying flat across the words she's just been reading. "Can I help you?"

In response Zatanna flexes her fingers again, other hand on her hip and not indulging the way she stares at her in an annoyed fashion, elbows flexing into the island counter as she shifts her weight uneasily. "You lost the bet." She offers in explanation, smirking and gesturing again with her hand. "Told you Wally was going to ask you to Prom."

At once she feels her expression sour, cheeks reddening as she makes to go back to her reading. "So?"

"So?" Zatanna repeats, rounding the edge of the counter and pulling up a stool beside her. "So you owe me some money."

It's very hard not to roll her eyes, fingers folding down the corner of her page absently. "We never said anything about money—"

"Don't be a sore loser."

Disliking the name calling she scowls, leaning back to dig into her jeans pocket more for the sake of getting on with it than anything else; she knows that no matter how much she disagrees the other girl will remain insistent until she's suckered into losing the argument. "Whatever, take it." She snorts, slapping a wrinkled five dollar bill on the counter and pretending not to be bitter about it when the other girl reaches for it, looking gleeful. "Enjoy. Can I get back to reading now?"

"No." Zatanna replies cheekily, still grinning. "What's wrong with you? Don't you want to talk about what kind of dress you're going to wear? Or how you're going to style your hair?"

Her fingers flex on her page. " _Zatanna_." She says warningly.

As if understanding that she's being annoying with all the teasing the other girl's smile falters, fingers pinching tightly around the money. "Indulge me, Artemis. Some of us didn't get an invite."

This strikes her as odd, her eyes leaving the dollar bill to stare perhaps a little too analytically at the other girl's face. "... Dick didn't ask you?"

"Oh, he asked me alright." Zatanna says sourly, looking upset. As if unaware of it she watches the perfectly filed nails crumple the bill mercilessly into her palm. "That's the problem. If he hadn't said anything I could have made a big deal in a week or so about how it was so last minute, and how I was only asking him because I was desperate— instead he asked me with plenty of time to spare. If I said yes it would be like, a thing, or something."

She frowns. "So... You want to go with Dick?"

"Yeah."

"And he asked you? But you said no?" When all she gets is a glum sounding sigh and a nod out of Zatanna she shakes her head, feeling confused.

There's a few beats of silence where her eyes half wander back to her reading, wondering if they're finished with all the talking; as usual Zatanna won't allow it, changing the subject instead. "... Can I ask you something?"

It's unusual for Zatanna to ask permission for a question— usually the younger girl charges ahead, disregarding all small talk. The change of pace is enough to make her glance up from her book. "... Uh, sure?" She says, feeling wary.

Zatanna hesitates, _actually hesitates_ , and that alone is enough to send several warning bells sounding at the back of her mind; when the other girl actually pauses to bite her lip her hand automatically closes her book, her place on her page be damned. "What's up, Zatanna?" She asks more insistently, beginning to feel worried.

"I was just wondering..." She starts, trailing off in a way that continues to make her nervous. "I mean— what's going on with you and Wally, exactly?"

For a second the worried look she's wearing stays on her face, mind blank for a moment before she snorts; the question is so far from what she's been expecting that she can't help her laughter, or the odd twang of relief that sounds in her stomach. "What do you mean, what's going on?" She chuckles, eyes crinkling with mirth. "You know what's going on, we're going to Prom."

Zatanna seems to loosen at the sound of her laughter, although still looking slightly uncomfortable as the corners of her mouth quirk upwards and then fall. "Well— I mean, I know that. I just meant... you guys seem happy. Like, crazy happy. Suspiciously happy, considering arguing is one of your favorite pass times. It's just— strange, all things considered."

"Why?"

The other girl shrugs, hesitating again. "I mean— your Dad is still out, Artemis." She says seriously, with the air of someone breaking some bad news. "And... That's still a big deal? Isn't it?"

She doesn't quite hear the end of the sentence, a strange ringing having started sounding in her ears at the mention of her father. Yes, yes she knows he's out. She knows he's coming, she knows he won't stop until he gets his revenge for her betrayal, for her lack of obedience. She hasn't forgotten, she's...

 _She's just been a bit distracted._

The smile she's wearing suddenly feels waxy as she forces it to stay in place, feeling oddly like all the air has been let out of her, as if someone has just kicked her as hard as they can in the abdomen. "I know that." She says, hating that it sounds somewhat hollow. She isn't aware of her fingers running along the jagged pages of her book and doesn't wince when the paper slices reddened lines into her thumb."... Hard to forget something like that."

Zatanna's carefully watching her reaction, trying to see through the stony expression now crossing her features. "Maybe it's not my business, or whatever. I just thought... I mean, I know you. I know it bothers you that he's out." She feels herself nodding. Y _es, it bothers her. Yes, it had been the reason why she had shut everyone out in the first place. Yes, it kills her, knowing that he's out and hunting her and she's as helpless as a rabbit trying to outrun an arrow._ "I just— I mean, you're going to have to face Sportsmaster eventually. I was just wondering... It seems like a pretty heavy thing to be weighing over a relationship."

She tastes blood on her tongue and realizes she's been biting as hard as she can into the inside of her cheek. "... It is." She gets out.

 _It is. It is. It is._

Zatanna stares at her for a moment before bursting into speech, talking very quickly and in a soothing tone. "Not that I'm, like, being critical or anything. I'm really happy for you. And for Wally. And obviously you two have it under control and have talked about it, like—"

She feels herself tune out, teeth resuming their biting.)

Even now the words bother her, her tongue running over the jagged line of torn skin in her mouth as she mulls them over. Zatanna was right, she knows it— even if the other girl didn't say it in so many words she knows she's going to have to face the truth at one point or another.

 _Sportsmaster is out. He's coming for her._

 _... And even though it feels as if everything is different now, nothing's really changed..._

It's the not knowing when that's making everything too easy; things have been so... Quiet lately. Both outside her head and in it— there's been no strange buzzing to remind her to be on her guard, no sightings or missions that keep old instinct up, on alert. It's been her and Wally; it's been lazy afternoons spent walking with their feet in the water and evenings so warm the bare skin of her thighs sticks to the couch cushions when he presses against her. It's been too much of what she's avoiding, this attachment, this love that she's now so dependent on that she hardly thinks she can live without it anymore.

 _She's grown too used to being normal._

All this happiness is intoxicating, blurring what she knows to be true. She's only felt this way once before, maybe twice— her mind twitches once towards the false-memory of laughter and her couch and then switches directions altogether, calling forth a pain in her knees and her head in her mother's lap, trying not to cry with relief when Paula had popped back into existence last November— but like an alcoholic returning to their favorite drink she can sense how dangerous it is. How as long as her tongue can taste its lingering presence she won't be satisfied until she consumes more, until her thirst is finally quenched.

She's spent so long being unhappy that she's underestimated how difficult it would be to give it up.

 _Is that what she has to do to face Sportsmaster? Give up happiness?_

But that's not an option, she reminds herself, coming back slightly to the sound of the water and the warmth of the sand beginning to reflect back the heat. It can't be, now more than ever. She can't go back to being the lonely girl with the angry grey eyes. She doesn't know how to be her anymore.

But doesn't she have to be? Isn't that the only way to survive?

 _... Isn't she dependent on the Metropolis girl too?_

But she's... The other girl isn't there anymore. And maybe she won't be, as long as Wally's making her laugh at the way his nose scrunches when he looks into the sun, as long as he keeps threatening to sweep her off her feet when she gets too sullen. It's not like she can simply summon that other girl back, she doesn't know how she even sprang into her mind in the first place—

She scowls, remembering the taste of bile and watching the only boy who she's ever loved coat the street crimson with his blood. That's a lie, she supposes. She knows exactly what has to happen to get her back, or at least has a good idea of it. Wally has to die, or close to it... But it's not an option. So far from an option that she feels sick even thinking about it.

No, Artemis is going to have to fight this battle on her own, without the other girl's instinct for bloodshed and without Wally's annoying habit of self-sacrifice. When and wherever it happens. She'll have to fight her father by refusing to play the game his way, refusing to use anything he taught her but— but she'll still have to beat him, if she's going to stop the never-ending torture his mere memory can summon. She'll maybe have to kill him. And as for Wally—

She glares out at the water. She'll have to keep Wally safe too.

It feels so strangely like old times, back before everything... Changed. Back to that game of chess she's been letting sit too long, her pausing starting out with good intentions— _to collect her thoughts, to take a break, to form a strategy, for just a second, please_ — turning into something thicker, more permanent, unyielding. But the game between her and her father can't be played like that, not really. Not when the man sitting on the other end of the board hasn't once stopped planning moves and counter moves.

She's not ready to go back to playing the game, can't stand the thought of reality when living in her own world with Wally has been so deliciously perfect. But Zatanna's right... Her father isn't going to stop the way she has. Ever.

More out of frustration than anything she throws herself backwards in the sand, not looking at Kaldur as she does so; she suspects he's sleeping, or nearing it, face still hidden in the fold of his elbow and chest rising and falling in even breaths. She feels like a fool, not stopping to think of this sooner. For letting herself fall for Wally without looking at the wreckage of complications she was leaving in her wake.

 _For not the first time she wonders if things would have been better if she had simply turned her back on him in his bedroom, if she had been strong enough to shut down all those emotional impulses and simply leave him behind like she's always hoped she would..._

(There's not a point in worrying about that now, she supposes. The damage is done— and in many ways it might not be as bad as she thinks it is. Wouldn't her father discourage the notion of love? Wouldn't he dismiss it as childish? Stupid even? Does that mean in some twisted way it's what she's supposed to be doing?)

(Thinking like this only confuses her, years of training to be cold and isolated knocking against the too-new emotion running through her, and she promptly stops.)

* * *

She doesn't know exactly when the idea occurs to her; she drifts in and out of a half sleep on the beach, mind still circling around ideas and half formed thoughts. She thinks she dreams of Wally, dreams of music she hasn't heard before and the sound of his hums disappearing into her hair. When she blinks into wakefulness the sky is a proper blue, and as if waiting at the front of her mind like a present the words are out of her mouth before she really knows what they are. "I want out." She croaks, voice hoarse with exhaustion.

The words are so quiet that she's not surprised when Kaldur doesn't react; almost impatiently she rolls onto her side and disregards her blanket, now uncomfortable as the heat of the day begins to build. "Kal?" She repeats more clearly, watching the level nature of his breathing stutter for a second, knowing that this time she's disturbed him out of the unnatural stillness of sleep. "... I want out. Just for a little while, okay?"

There's a pause and she waits for him to emerge from his elbow, eyes still that bloodshot color from before as he squints at her. "Out of what, Artemis?" He asks her, voice polite but wary.

She opens her mouth but finds suddenly she can't stand to look at him and say the words; lying beside him on the beach it feels almost strange, being able to look him in the eye so easily, their height difference no longer noticeable. Hesitating she rolls onto her back, pressing her shoulder blades into the sand. "... Out of missions for a while." She clarifies, voice wavering slightly as if she actually feels ashamed of asking this of him. "And I want Wally out too. I just want the both of us to—" She finds she doesn't have an ending to her sentence. "... Just till the end of summer, okay?"

 _She doesn't know why she sets the deadline there. It just feels like if she can make it through the heat of it, she can make it through anything._

Kaldur's trying to read something in the indecipherable lines of her face. "The both of you? Out of all missions?" He asks slowly, eyes narrowing.

"Yes."

"... And if they involve Sportsmaster?"

Her mouth twists into a bitter snarl before can stop it. "... Just me. Wally has to stay." She says quietly, hesitating before she speaks with a renewed intensity. "You have to promise me, Kaldur."

He pauses, eyes narrowed and reading her face as if making sure she isn't saying anything other than the truth. "I cannot make promises. You know this." He tells her frankly, ignoring the way her eyes close in annoyance. "But I will try my best. Why is your heart changing suddenly?"

The last part is odd, and it takes a few seconds of her frowning before she realizes what he's trying to say, her eyes opening. "Sudden change of heart." She corrects him, going back to looking at the bursts of blue and pink flaring out across the sky.

"As you say." He presses, continuing to stare at her. "You will forgive the question. It is simply out of character for you to shy away from a battle. And Wally will not be pleased—"

"Then don't tell him." She says quickly before hesitating, wondering how much to say— she's not entirely sure she wants Kaldur to know just how much she loves Wally, how she wants to stop all those blood-pumping moments when she's afraid she might lose him. Why she's also afraid, afraid of the battle with her father that she knows is coming but can't quite face, not yet. Instead of saying any of these things she sighs. "... I'm just don't want to think about when all this is going to stop." She blurts out, one hand raising to gesture to the empty air above her face but not elaborating any further. "... I hate that... That half second before a mission, where I can't help but wonder if something is going to happen. If this might be it for one of us... I just want a little time to be happy, okay?" She bites her lip, adding the last part in an undertone. "Just for a little while longer. Is that stupid? Or as selfish as I think it is?"

Kaldur frowns for a moment, looking thoughtful. "No, it is not." He says honestly. "... I understand, perhaps more than you are aware. But you realize, Artemis... I cannot formally suspend you and Wally missions. If I did it would mean your removal from the Team... If you are needed, you will have to be present."

The way he says the last part is open ended, as if he's half expecting her to change her mind and suddenly resign from the Team. "No, I know." She says quickly, frowning. "And that's not what I want, either. This Team is..."

She doesn't finish the sentence but she thinks he understands what she's trying to say, or at least he pretends to as he nods. "Of course. And as for Wally—"

"Just let him think things are slowing down. Please."

When he turns his head to look at her she deliberately keeps her eyes adverted from his, not wanting to see the knowing and perhaps slightly judgmental look on his face. "That is two secrets I am hiding from Wally now." He tells her, turning back and disappearing behind his elbow again. "I can only wonder what you hide from me."

She swallows, mouth tasting oddly bitter as she forces herself to smile. "For you, Kal? I'm an open book." She says between her teeth.

* * *

For the most part she avoids Wally's house, going there on occasion and when she's sure only Mary will be home to make small talk and give her fresh baking to take home. She gets the courage to finally ask about his black eye but Wally refuses to talk at all when she tries to bring it up, and she learns to let it go.

By and large they spend most of their time away from the Cave at her apartment, studying around her kitchen table and listening to her mother's old Vietnamese music. Paula always makes a bigger deal out of these afternoons than she has to, moving wildly about the kitchen and cooking dish after dish for Wally to consume with an increasing about of vigor. She wonders in the back of her mind if her mother missed having someone to cook for, with her only remaining daughter eating so little and existing largely on a diet of tea and whatever she can steal off her boyfriend's plate; these suspicions are confirmed when, while in the middle of mopping up the sauce on his plate with a piece of overly buttered bread, her mother reaches across the table to pinch Wally about the cheek, as if his gluttony is somehow endearing rather than nauseating.

In typical Wally fashion he's asked her too late to Prom—when she goes shopping with M'gann for a dress to wear she finds everything is largely picked over, with nothing available in her size or budget that she actually wants to wear. When she's sitting on her couch, ignoring the television in favor of complaining loudly to Paula _(who approves of Wally, even if she does pretend to be angry that he didn't get her permission before asking her daughter to Prom)_ her mother simply smiles; it's not until later when she turns in for the evening that she discovers a rather simple looking black dress folded neatly across her bedspread.

She thinks she recognizes it from some obscure childhood memory she can't place, remembers her mother tottering around in high heels and slamming the door behind her while wearing it. The dress itself looks quite plain when she puts it on, with a simple v-shaped neckline and a hem that skims the middle of her thigh, although she supposes it could be worse—it could not fit at all. At first she's simply relieved that she has something to wear, even if it isn't exactly like the mess of ribbons and jewels that she knows all the other girls will be wearing. It beats showing up in her jeans.

It's Zatanna and M'gann who really make something of it; when she tries it on for them in the afternoon of Prom night she doesn't even have enough time to finish saying that it might be a bit too simple before they're picking at it. It's a different kind of picking than they did when she first met Wally's parents, or perhaps it's simply because she feels so much differently about this event than the last. Either way, by the time they're finished with her and she's standing in front of them, clad in dangling earrings and delicate bracelets and a necklace that makes it nearly impossible for anyone not to notice her breasts straining against the fabric… She has to admit that she feels pretty.

It's a mark of how awful her life has been up until this point that the sensation feels borderline alien to her.

Despite the fact that she spends the afternoon watching her and M'gann smudge make up on their faces and fidget as they repeatedly try on their dresses Zatanna seems to handle the whole thing with a decent amount of grace; only once or twice does she slip up and make a snippy comment, a little sore about the complications that forced her to reject her invitation. "You could come with us tonight, you know." She hears herself say kindly, leaning forward so the other girl can apply her lipstick. The three of them learned very quickly that despite her good aim with a bow her hands simply aren't adept at the precise lines needed for make-up.

"And have to stand there awkwardly while you and Wally are off making everyone vomit on the dance floor?" Zatanna counters, smiling at her cheekily. "I'd rather not."

She's forced into silence as the other girl smears crimson gloss on her lips, one of her thumbs reaching out to turn her chin towards her cerulean eyes so she can better see what she's doing. With nowhere else to look she's forced to meet M'gann's anxious glance in the mirror. "You're welcome to come to me and Connor's too."

"Double puke."

More silence, her mouth taking advantage of the moment when Zatanna leans back to survey her work to speak without disturbing the lipstick tube. "... Gotham Academy is having their Prom tomorrow night. You could still go with Dick."

"Can't." Zatanna says quickly, applying another coat. "He asked someone else. Barbara Something."

There's an awkward silence in which her mind strays to the unknown redheaded girl who had waved to him across the Gotham Academy courtyard. Finishing with her lips Zatanna turns towards the mirror, swiping the same cherry gloss onto her own mouth and not looking at M'gann when the other girl speaks. "That's too bad." She says, sounding as if she means it. "When is your school's Prom? Maybe we could all go together, like a group thing, or—"

"That neckline doesn't really work with your hair down." Zatanna interrupts, something in the expression on her face telling them both to drop it as she gestures towards her hair, falling in straight blonde sheets down her back."We should put it up."

She can see M'gann hesitate before nodding excitedly in the mirror in front of her, the three of them squished into the tiny bathroom where Wally had once helped her tend to her bleeding hands. "Oh, we should!" The martian squeals, looking up from her own reflection. She's been finished getting ready for what feels like hours, perfect skin and hair unfurling from her body at the slightest thought, dress strained against the added curves she's given herself for the occasion.

"And what? Just wear it in my usual pony tail?" She hears herself snort, leaning around Zatanna to examine her reflection.

"No." The younger girl says haughtily, still looking a little ruffled from talking about Dick before. "It'll be prettier."

"Please, Artemis?" M'gann squeals, moving behind her and already busying her hands with the ends of her platinum strands. "You never let us play with your hair!"

She doesn't think this is entirely fair, and nearly says so as she scowls at her own reflection— she's been letting M'gann braid knots into her hair since almost the second she met her, the resulting mess taking hours with a brush to work out. Still, she can't help but soften at the other two's expression in the mirror; in the silence the two girls seem to swell with excitement, as if this is something like fun for them rather than a favor. Unconsciously she feels herself raising a hand to rub the base of her neck, making sure the neckline on the back of her dress covers what's left of her scar. "… Sure."

Even if it requires a lot of time and several fingers singed with a curling iron she has to admit that whatever they do is beautiful: nearly an hour and a half later her hair is sorted into curls and twisted into a long cascading knot on the top of her head. Perhaps she spends a little too long admiring herself in the mirror, because when she meets Zatanna's gaze over her shoulder the other girl is smiling wryly at her, something a little too knowing glinting in her eye.

"Bet you five dollars you're in love with him."

It's said in an undertone, quiet enough that M'gann, who is preoccupied with her own hair now, won't hear the words whispered over her shoulder and almost directly into her ear. She smiles, shakes her head, but can't bring herself to say anything back.

Even she's not stupid enough to take that bet.

* * *

By the time Zatanna and M'gann send her off to meet Wally by the zeta tubes she feels entirely not like herself in the best way possible, even if her heels do pinch her feet and the tiny bag Zatanna forces her to carry doesn't hold much other than lipstick and her cellphone.

When she sees Wally, ears reddened and clashing horribly with the green tie he's still fumbling with, it's very hard not to run towards him, even if her heels would allow it; she has to settle for admiring the way his grey suit crinkles around the lines of muscle she knows so well, elbow pinching the box of the corsage he's gotten her in the wake of the old one going bad after it was forgotten for hours on her bedside table.

It takes him too long to hear her coming, head jerking up and flashing a second of frustration with his tie before his face splits into a ridiculous looking grin; in the moment she feels so wonderfully whole, so perfectly beautiful that she very nearly loses her head and bursts out that she loves him from across the room.

Instead she ignores him when he greets her, her hands reaching out when she stops in front of him to attend to his tie; it's very obvious she doesn't know what she's doing but it's still very satisfying to watch him blush and look her once over, nearly dropping the corsage in his distraction. "You're look great, Babe." He says sincerely, stuttering slightly through the words when his eyes are pulled automatically with the help of the necklace towards her breasts, ears leaking crimson into his cheeks as he grins, looking as if he can't believe his luck.

 _(And he was right about one thing_ — _the ridiculous smile he's wearing now is worth every bit of discomfort this whole Prom thing is forcing her into.)_

She leaves the tie worse off than it was when she started, her hands running over his chest to smooth the collar of his button down against the shoulders of his blazer. "So do you." She says truthfully, and even though Zatanna told her not to she leans in to plant a kiss against his freckled cheek, leaving behind a cherry colored imprint of her lips.

She pulls back with a snort when Wally's mouth bursts into an adorable stammer, trying to look at him coyly rather than like the big mess of nerves that she actually is. "... Is that for me?" She asks huskily, glancing at the corsage box.

"Oh— Yeah, it is." He gets out, still blushing and looking as if he's only just remembered why they're even standing there, dressed so nicely, in the first place.

Feeling better about this whole thing the second time around she delicately extends her wrist, trying to smile kindly and not make fun of him when he fumbles with the box, fingers a bit clumsy as he secures the corsage around her wrist. "... Another lily?" She hears herself ask, looking at the familiar delicate white and the fresh green springs of garland curling around it.

Wally's brows furrow as he fiddles with the clasp. "Yeah. I figured they're you're favorite." He mutters absently, glancing up at her. "I mean, you wear lily scented perfume, don't you? My mom grows them in the garden sometimes, I thought I recognized it, I mean, if you don't like it I—"

The second he says it a pang runs through her, a dull ache of caring and tenderness, and now more than ever she doesn't give a damn about whether or not they make it to Prom at all. "I love it." She says seriously, reaching up to press another scarlet kiss into his cheek. "It's great, Wally. Thank you."

She's not even pulled back yet when she feels the familiar vibration of her cellphone, thundering away in the tiny bag she's stuffed it into; automatically her hand flies to her pocket to silence it, but before she's even finished dismissing the message and telling him that nobody will be disrupting their night she's caught off by the usual monotone voice over the loud speakers, barely audible over the sudden siren blaring: _Team: Report to mission debriefing room._

Together her and Wally glance up towards the voice and then at each other, brows raising in matching looks. She tries not to notice the twisting in her stomach, and quickly reminds herself of Kaldur's half-promise to keep her and Wally out of the thick of things.

 _He probably thinks they've already left... That's it._

Instead of following the orders of the monotone voice she grabs his hand, tugging him a little insistently. "It's nothing." She tells him firmly, nearly shouting over the sound of the alarm and the vibrations of her phone."... Why don't we skip it? Just pretend we didn't hear it?"

Wally grins at her, fighting against her tugging. "Is this Artemis Crock I'm talking to? The same one who was dreading going to Prom just week ago?" He chuckles as the alarm dies, leaving a quiet ringing in her ears. "Come on, what if it's something important?"

She scowls as her phone switches to voicemail. "It won't be."

Wally keeps grinning at her, looking half-bemused by her peevishness. "But what if it is?" He counters, teasing. "Come on, it will take two seconds. After that, I promise, we'll leave."

She can't see a way to argue around it and instead rolls her eyes as he doubles his grip on her hand, forcing her away from the zeta tubes. "Fine." She sighs, and more out of curiosity than anything she fumbles to check her phone. "Missed call from Kaldur." She mutters to herself, eyes narrowing at the pixels on the screen.

 _... No._

"Probably just wanted to get a photo of the two of us before we headed out." Wally chuckles easily, leading her down the hallway. "I saw him bothering Connor and Megs when they went out, I thought Supey was going to clock him—"

She hears herself force out a laugh, stomach suddenly clenching painfully tight.

* * *

 **AN: And another chapter! Thanks for much for all the flustered/emotional reviews I received for the last chapter. The responses make the occasional pain of writing this worth it.**

 **On another note: Does anyone have any updates on YJ Season 3? The last I heard we were all still binge watching. Not that I'm complaining, but have we heard any new "confirmations" other than Gred/KF/Aqualad?**

 **Please read and review!**


	21. Meet My Demons

**AN: So sorry about the late update. Things have been more than a bit crazy on my end the last week and it doesn't help that this is the longest chapter in my whole series** — **over 20,00 words!**

 **Enjoy the newest chapter!**

* * *

"What's the deal, Kal?" Wally asks for the both of them when they find their way into the debriefing room; she feels incredibly overdressed, especially in such small company—only Kaldur, Dick, and Zatanna have answered the alert, everyone else already gone and enjoying their Prom night.

For some reason Kaldur looks surprised to see the two of them, hand hovering above the keyboard and brows raised. "Apologies." He says quickly. "I had believed the two of you had already left for your promenade."

"Prom, Kaldur." She corrects him, one elbow jutting out to Wally's side when he snorts. "What's going on?"

 _(Her stomach churns, thinking of the missed call. But no, it can't be_ — _not tonight, out of all the possible nights_ — _)_

Kaldur only adds to her suspicions when he slips into an unsettling quiet, rounded teeth jutting out to bite his lip; for a long moment he stares at her, unreadable, silence filling the room again. "I am sorry. I had thought you had already left; if you wish to go, you may."

There's a few curious looks at the two of them, and all at once she understands the wordless message: _leave, while you still can._ "Okay." She tries to say easily, finding it difficult to shrug with her shoulders so tense. "Come on, Wally."

When she takes his hand and pulls a little too insistently Wally's brows raise, sending her a confused look. "What's your problem?" He chuckles, refusing to move. Across the room Zatanna's eyes flicker between hers, reading something in the panicked crinkles of her fake smile that she's too slow to hide. "We're already here, might as well hear what's going on. Kaldur?"

More lip biting and another strange silence. "I had simply wished to… Counsel everyone. As to whether or not we should take action." Kaldur says with the air of approaching the worst, glancing up at her as his fingers whir against the keyboard.

Again he pauses, eyes finding hers in a hair-raising clash of grey and barely blue. Without him saying anything she remembers their deal, remembers everything he wouldn't promise in the sanctity of their lonely part of the beach. Traitoriously her eyes twitch to Wally beside her, and when she looks back Kaldur's no longer looking at her at all.

"... What's going on?" She hears herself ask, even though she already knows the answer.

"... It is Sportsmaster."

Even though it's what she's been expecting she still feels the entirely of her body tense, each muscle popping angrily and rising like a startled wildcat; there's a familiar and unwelcome coldness running through her veins, artic and impenetrable and numbing the happy, warmer sensation that's been burning so brightly in her stomach— she feels as if parts of her are being frost-bitten with shock, heart ceasing to pump and lungs halting in their breathing, brain stuttering all it's functions and focusing only on one thought—

 _Sportsmaster, Sportsmaster, Sportsmaster._

It all happens so quickly and then promptly stops, and as suddenly as the icy dread appeared a new burning anger sounds through her, all the frozen emotion stirring to her surface in the same way her muscles are popping against her skin, threatening to burst off her bones. She hardly feels Wally's fingers in her hands, doesn't notice the way they slack with shock and promply tighten.

"He is in Athens." Kaldur's telling her, eyes narrowing at her stoney expression and trying to find something, anything, readable there. "... Justice League intel has uncovered an expected attack at a local museum. Authorities in Athens have been alerted, I simply wondered—"

"If I wanted to know." She says stiffly, finishing the sentence for him. "Right."

There's another silence, this time so loud and painful to her ears that she noticeably flinches, head dropping to stare at her high heeled clad feet and fighting back bile in her throat. _Prom._ She doesn't feel as if she exists in the same universe as it anymore, doesn't feel as if anything so happy and carefree could have ever managed to be conceived in a world with her horribleness in it. She feels like an idiot, standing there dressed as nicely as she is, expecting that she'll be allowed to have one evening without the burden of her past grinding her into the pavement. Just like always she's gotten her hopes up, believed in the best of things, only to have her father come back with his javelin and the hatred in his eyes and remind her she isn't worthy of anything normal, isn't deserving of anything except the pain he inflicts—

 _Worthless._

She doesn't realize she's gripping Wally's hand like a lifeline until he turns to her, fingers clenching around hers and returning the pressure. "What are you doing?" He asks seriously.

She tries to breathe and feels a shudder run through her, hardly aware of the expectant gazes of the rest of their teammates. When she manages to look at his face her eyes can only focus on her lipstick print, still a bold crimson on his cheeks. "I— What?"

"What are you doing?" He repeats, over emphasizing the syllables in a way that she hates, tugging her hand until she's forced to face him. "Because whatever you're doing, I'm doing."

The seriousness on his face unreadable, and she's not sure if there's anything she can say back that won't make him angry. "No." She shakes her head. "It's fine... Listen, let's..."

She can't bring herself to say it. _Let's just go to prom. Let's just pretend we're normal._ Saying it out loud is unbearable, would feel like more of a lie than anything else she's ever said to him. She swallows, thinking hard. _Wally has to stay safe._ "Look, I just need to... You go to prom, okay? I'll meet you there, once I know everything's under control."

— _she_ _can't function unless she knows her father isn't going to burst in and ruin everything_ —

"Meet me there?" Wally laughs in her face, eyes narrowing when her cheeks blush. "Yeah, right. Stop pretending I'm stupid, Artemis."

"Wally—"

"—I'm not letting you deal with him on your own—"

Before she can counter his argument Zatanna cuts across her, smirking as if she's reminding the two of them that everyone else is still there. "She won't be alone." She says sternly, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "If she goes we'll all go too."

Despite the show of loyalty this only frustrates her more, her nose wrinkling. "Zatanna— you don't have to, okay? No one has to. He's my Dad—"

"Sportsmaster is unfinished business for all of us." Dick interrupts, arms crossing and sunglasses glinting. "M'gann and Connor would say the same if they were here."

She opens her mouth to argue but before she can do anything other than make an annoyed noise in the back of her throat Kaldur is cutting across her, fingers back to jabbing against the keys. "Then it is decided. We will all go to Athens—"

"Nothing's decided!" She bursts out angrily, rounding on all of them. She can think of a thousand reasons why she doesn't want her friends along but none are blaring as loudly inside her head as the ones arguing for Wally's protection, and in an act of desperation she turns to Kaldur. "You said it yourself, Kal. Local authorities have been alerted, they're taking care of it. I can go on my own and—"

"And get yourself killed?" Wally cuts across her, looking angry. "... Artemis, we all know how you get about... Remember New Orleans?"

She nearly slaps him for bringing that up now, her hand twitching out of Wally's involuntarily as her cheeks turn a blotchy maroon. "Then I'll take a small squad—"

"There's five of us here." Dick points out unhelpfully. "I'd say any smaller against Sportsmaster is a risky move. He never goes anywhere without reinforcements."

She's practically seething now, cheeks blazing and hands clenched into painful fists at her side. There's a second or two of silence when she realizes she's losing the argument, and angrily she turns her glare to Kaldur. "Well?" She snarls accusingly, hands on her hips.

Once again her gaze meets his and once again they both know what the other is thinking— she knows as well as he does that everyone else has a point. Going in there with any less than a five-person squad is risky, as much as she hates to admit it. Kaldur sighs, eyes narrowing until he's glaring back. "I cannot, Artemis." He says lowly, as if trying to prevent everyone else from hearing. "Wally must join us if we are intending on going."

She's caught between wanting to punch him in the jaw and bursting into tears, and more to stop the angry quivering of her chin she bites into the inside of her cheek, turning away from everyone so violently that she wobbles in her heels. Somewhere above the ringing in her ears she hears Wally's voice, low and angry. "What?" He snarls, and even with her back to him she can tell he's glaring between the two of them. "Of course I'm going. Why would that even be a question?" An awkward pause. "Artemis—"

She cuts him off, not wanting to fight in front of everyone. "Wally, you've been looking forward to prom for weeks—"

"I don't care about prom." He says severely, and she knows as well as he does that he's lying through his teeth. "You said it yourself, prom is stupid, right?"

She blinks at the way he's snarling at her, not trusting herself to say anything back. There isn't a right answer anyway.

* * *

It's deathy quiet on the Bioship _—_ there's no noise, none of their usual pre-mission banter. Nothing to distract her from her own pulse pounding hard against the absent scar on the back of her neck.

Sensing someone's gaze on her she glances up, turning in her seat and eyes instantly locking with Dick's across the cabin. After a moment of staring at each other he looks away, the blue irises under his mask no longer focused on her.

It happens several more times, everyone taking their turn to stare her down, looking for signs of fear, of anticipation, of the random bursts of blood thirst she used to be plagued by. Each time the concern in their gazes unnerves her; maybe she isn't doing the right thing, going after Lawrence. Maybe she should have left it to the others, left it to people who don't have blood on their hands because of him, who don't have to hold him accountable for their violent past or the unusual blonde hair sprouting from their scalps.

 _(Maybe she should have yelled at Wally about it. Gotten on her knees and begged him not follow. Maybe she should have tried to lift him over her shoulder, tried to physically drag him to prom, drag him to safety, lock him in a closet or hide him under the covers, force him to stay somewhere far away, somewhere where she won't be checking over her shoulder even when there's no threat in sight because if Wally's not breathing she isn't either, he's everything, he's_ _—)_

 _(... Maybe it would have been better if she had never let her guard down. Maybe everything would have been okay if she hadn't allowed herself to linger on the crisp apple color of his eyes that first time...)_

 _(Maybe everything would be better if she could just stop loving him.)_

 _(It would be better, but she can't.)_

She's silently working herself into a panic, realizing that for the umpteenth time she's glanced up to check the reflection in the window in front of her, checked for the familiar blazing red and yellow to be present behind her _—_ she must look as if she's developed a nervous tick. Feeling embarrassed at her nervousness her shoulders hunch, elbows locking tightly as she slouches in her seat. She can't stop thinking of the Watchtower, can't stop imagining the cramped scent of walnuts and sweat and fear brushing over her skin. A muscle in her neck twinges, anxiety beginning to claw up her shoulders. _Tell him now. Tell him now while you get the chance._

 _Maybe it's time she stopped this strange chess match she's been enduring for so many months— whether against Wally or her father or anyone else she's never had a knack for the game, never really understood the logic behind it or the strategy. She simply can't think like that, can't deal in moves or counter-moves. She's Artemis. She's the girl who survived on the streets of Gotham, who wedged her arrows into flesh and did what she needed to thrive in her abandonment. She deals in the present, in the next turn only— tomorrow was never a luxury she would afford, anyway_ _—_

She's going to say what needs to be said, even if it scares her half to death. Even if she's only saying it because it's the last trick she has up her sleeve that will guarantee his staying safe.

 _(And maybe she's saying it because she needs him to know. Properly, not when they're both half asleep and in denial. She just wants to say the words, just the once.)_

She notices the anxious tapping of her foot against the leg of her chair and quickly stops the movement, instead unbuckling her seat belt and rising from her position at the right flank. Sending a pointed look to Wally, who's been sitting unusually still in the seat behind her and glaring at the back of her head, she stalks obviously towards the tiny cabin between the here and the engine room, hoping he'll get the message to follow.

* * *

The smallness of the room seems to fill almost instantly with heaviness, the same heaviness weighing on her lungs and pressing against her airways. She's not sure there's a name for this emotion, for the intensity of the dread and sadness and fear beating her from the inside out. Unthinkingly she crosses her arms, hands clutching at her elbows as if making to hold herself together.

 _(Don't cry. Don't be a baby.)_

 _(Keep it together.)_

She catches her reflection in the window: mascara coated lashes peaking out ridiculously from the eyeholes of her mask, the cherry color of her lips smudged. For the first time she doesn't recognize the girl looking back, can't find the raw happiness now hidden in the numbness of her stomach that had ever prompted her to believe that she could be normal, unburdened. Even the curls of her pony tail look stupidly optimistic, sitting at a jaunty angle on the crown of her head and creasing her mask.

 _Another reminder of the perfect evening she lost to a dead-beat father she'll never outrun. Ever._

More out of anger than anything she rips the elastic out of the curls, meaning to simply retie her hair more practically. She's rewarded with a violent snap at the wrist, and her elastic breaks.

It shouldn't be this hard not to cry, but it is.

* * *

Wally allows nearly a full minute to pass before he follows her; having given up on her hair she's had more than enough time to fill a plastic cup with water and slug it back nervously, lingering by the back window and watching as the ocean unfurls beneath them: they're going to be there soon. By the time she finally hears the door to the back cabin open and close she's crumpled the cup in her hand, nerves getting the better of her.

 _(Her pulse sounds in her ears twice before she remembers she's supposed to be telling him things.)_

"Hi." She mutters, looking at his reflection for a moment in the glass of the window before turning towards him; he's still got the stain of her lipstick on his cheek, the crimson mark smudging out underneath the triangle shapes of his mask.

"Hey." Wally breathes out.

She can't stop herself, hand tightening around the crumpled cup in her fist. "... You mad at me?"

For some reason Wally takes his time with answering, arms crossing and the muscles of his shoulders stretching underneath the Kevlar. "... A bit." He says after a moment, sounding painfully honest. "... But that's not why we're both back here, is it?"

"Isn't it?"

"You really want to spend this time fighting?"

He's got a point. "... No."

It's quiet again, and in the silence she can sense him looking at her _—_ really looking at her. It's very hard to stay still as he stares, and for not the first time she feels as if he's seeing through her, looking underneath the seams of her uniform, looking at something she doesn't want him to see. She realizes jarringly that he's memorizing this moment, storing this away in her memory, and she can't decide if she wants him to or not.

Even though she can't look at him his eyes don't leave her face. "… I think I like you better like this." He admits suddenly, voice lighter but still with an odd edge to it. "The dress was nice, I mean. But you look... Well, you look more like Artemis like this." A pause. "Except the hair."

It takes her a second or two to remember anything about her appearance _— Prom seems like another lifetime altogether, like much longer ago than simply an hour_ _—_ before she self-consciously glances back at her reflection, curls blossoming out stupidly over her shoulders and pooling below her waist. "… Elastic broke." She says glumly, turning her back on the window and tossing the crumpled cup into the trash.

"Right." She hears him say, and when she glances back at him he's holding something out to her. "Good thing I brought this. It's yours, from forever ago. I was messing with it before we met up tonight, slipped it into my suit pocket by mistake."

Her eyes narrow, and when she realizes he's holding out her old elastic her throat tightens.

 _Focus._

"Oh." She says dumbly, sounding oddly choked when she takes it from him. For some reason the second he passes it to her he takes a few steps back, as if he's wary of being too close to her. It's hard not to be hurt by it. "... Why were you messing with it?"

He doesn't reply at first, watching with a tight jaw as she presses her curls behind her ears, securing them with four loops of the elastic. "Just thinking." He says vaguely.

She wants to ask what about, and then she remembers she's not supposed to be asking questions. Stupidly she opens her mouth too quickly, lips gaping open like a trout as she searches for a place to start. She doesn't find one.

Wally seems to read something in the way she quickly seals her lips shut. "… You okay?"

"Yeah." She says unconvincingly, nodding so hard that her teeth clatter together.

She doesn't fool either of them. "No, you're not." He sighs, eyes narrowed on her face as she continues to not look at him.

She makes it several seconds before there are tears burning at the back of her throat, eyes screwing up. "No, I'm not." She agrees.

 _(And there are some things she'll never know how to start telling him: that she loves him, the kind of way she used to read about in books but not really believe in. That's she's sorry for thinking he needs protection, for not trusting him to take care of himself. That he's her best friend, the only person she's been stupid enough to break all her rules for, and she's terrified of losing him, terrified that all the happiness they've made together is about to be ruined by something bigger and more powerful than she is. That she wishes she could freeze time and just keep reliving the last few weeks, with their laughter and their summer breezes and the tiny noise he makes in the back of his throat when she pulls him between her legs_ _— that she wants_ _him pick her up the way he did in Bialya and run her somewhere too far for all her awfulness to catch up—)_

But she doesn't say that. Instead she makes a choking noise and tries not to combust from the inside out.

Wally seems to understand without her saying, as he always does when she gets like this; her face is crumpling and she's hardly turning towards him before a blast of air smacks her across the face, his arms encircling around her. Suddenly she's trying but not managing to hide the almost desperate way her arms fling themselves over his shoulders, the way her feet almost leave the ground in her overwhelming need to touch him, and _he knows._

 _She doesn't have to tell him anything. He knows he knows he knows._

"Hey." He hums out, gently smoothing the curls of her pony tail into the center of her back. "It's going to be fine, Artemis." He murmurs. "It's just like any other mission, okay?"

 _Except it's not._ She thinks, blinking hard and turning her face until she's pressing her cheek to his, the dull pounding of his pulse twanging between both their temples. _This time her father is going to be there, and this time he's not going to let her get away with her betrayal, this time he's going to make her bleed, carve out her heart while it's still beating—_

"I know." She lies, setting her face and pulling back enough to look him properly in the eye, her hands moving of their own accord to trace up the column of his spine and splay across his back, her mind tricking her fingers into thinking she feels the lingering scars of bullet holes that have already healed without a trace.

Wally takes a moment to read her expression, brows furrowed. "… Something else is wrong." He says. It's not a question.

For some reason she nods, giving herself away but suddenly unable to look him in the eye; biting her lip she drops her gaze until she's staring at the half visible lightning bolt on his chest, obscured by the swelling curves of her breasts as she presses herself against him.

"Tell me, Beautiful." Wally quietly implores her, breath warming her face even through her mask.

She's not exactly sure what she wants to say, and finds it even harder to focus when she gets the courage to glance up at him; this feels strikingly like the moment they shared in the closet together on New Years that she hasn't been able to stop thinking about, feels like what she should have done before when she was sure they were about the die. Something inside her shifts, something familiar but also sinister—

And maybe she's still a little afraid of the other girl who once lived inside her, afraid of what she might have been capable of; as if she's being haunted by her still she hesitates, wondering if this is the right thing to do. Wondering if maybe it's too late, maybe she's too broken or too messy for it to be alright. But it doesn't feel wrong, the way she guides her hands over the swelling of his shoulders, thumbs pausing on his collar bone before she traces the column of his neck, fingers finding his jaw and pulling it down to meet hers.

It isn't a mistake to kiss him; Wally seems to be expecting the ferociousness with which she places her mouth on his, lips full and taught and pressing hard but unmovingly against his. She can feel some part inside of her getting a grip on her battle plan, lining up pieces in her weary game of chess and deciding which spaces need to be filled or left vacant. She can do this, this is just another part of the plan, the way she inhales Wally's breath out of his lungs and drags it over her tongue, tasting the walnut smell for what might be the last time.

 _It won't be the last time, don't say that. Don't even think it._

She's doesn't need to tell him that she loves him. Things like that have always been better said with silence between them, anyway—and suddenly as if she's already dying she can see a thousand memories with Wally, can see the squeaking rubber of his sneakers touching the soles of her boots as he shifts closer to her, kissing her goodnight at the zeta tubes; can see the view out of their window, his hand outstretching and shoulder brushing against hers as he points out the constellations and she pretends to listen; she feels the sand on the beach as they watch the sunset for the first time together, feels the sheets of her bed rubbing against her back as he leans into her, a hum bursting out of his throat as he presses a kiss to her mouth. She can smell tea in her cup and can feel his fingers on her wrist and can feel her own heart now counting out beats, can feel it drumming along to the only important thought that's ever entered her mind: _Wall-y, Wall-y, Wall-y…_

She pulls back, enough for her nose to graze his and for her eyelashes to flutter him into focus. She feels all of him, hot under her fingers, her breath warming his lips when she whispers. "I need you to promise me something."

 _Focus._

Her voice breaks on the word "promise" but she remains unflinching; for the first time in a long time she feels that other part of her stirring, not the Metropolis girl necessarily but the wild part inside of her, the one who relies on instinct and is strong enough to fight this battle the way it needs to be fought. That part of her is holding pieces of her together and making sure she doesn't fall apart at the most crucial part of the plan—because there isn't a point in this if she doesn't do her best to make sure that Wally is safe, that he lives, just in case—

"Anything." Wally breathes, lips brushing against hers.

It's the answer she's been hoping for; strategically she pulls back, looking him in the eye. "… You know how you're always making me promise not to be an idiot?" She asks vaguely. She doesn't blame him for the confused look that crosses his features and continues quickly. "I need you to promise me you won't be an idiot too. I need you—I need you to promise me that you'll be safe."

He lets out a confused exhale that ruffles the hair around her face, shaking his head slightly. It seems to take him a few seconds to realize she's being serious. "I—I don't get it." He says, pulling back so she's no longer pressed so tightly against him, as if he needs her at a distance to think. "I mean—of course, I'll be safe, but…" There's a short and angry pause. "Wait. You're not—"

"No." She cuts him off quickly, not knowing if his suspicions are correct but not wanting to hear them in case they are—she doesn't want to lie to him. Shaking her head she moves closer again, until her breasts are brushing against his chest and her hands are following the panels of his suit up the back of his neck, stopping when she reaches his hair. "No. Of course not."

"Good." Wally gets out, exhaling when she runs her fingers through his locks, looking as if he's trying very hard not to relax into her hand as it muses over his scalp. "Because that would be about the dumbest thing you could do, Artemis. Even for you."

He says the last part good-naturedly and out of habit she grits her teeth at the dig, pulling perhaps a little too sharply at his hair as she forces him to look at her and not close his eyes at her ministrations. "Very funny." She says dryly, forcing her mouth into a small smile before falling back into seriousness. "… I need you to, though." She continues, hand falling from his hair. "I need you to promise me that… That you'll listen to me out there. The two of us... We're a team. But you have to let me take the lead on this one, okay? Make the decisions? Because this is... I know my Dad, I know… This might not be like the other times we fought him. It might be... I don't know."

Something sharp, too focused, shifts behind his irises. "… What's that supposed to mean?"

She tries and fails to swallow. "It means that if I tell you to run, or turn back, you listen." She says severely, fingers tight on his shoulders as she stares up at him unblinkingly. "I know him, Wally. And I'm not letting him do anything that—"

"So what am I supposed to do?" Wally cuts her off, ears turning a startling red. At once his arms are like a cage around her, fingers clenching so tightly to her waist that she winces. "Let you take a bullet for me? Again? I'm not leaving you behind, Artemis. I don't care—"

"I care." She says grittily, and for once something in her tone forces him to shut up, her eyes glaring at him with such an intensity that he seems to understand to be quiet, redness seeping down to his cheeks as he scowls back. "I need you to promise that you'll listen to me on this, Wally. I need to hear it."

"Artemis—"

"Please." She whispers, not blinking.

 _(And for a moment they aren't in the back-cabin of the Bioship; they're back in her bedroom and they're sweating and she's got her fingers curled in his hair. They're a mess of skin and gasps and nails running down backs and when he hesitates she begs him for it, begs him to get closer—)_

It's Wally who looks away first, eyes glaring down at his feet for a moment before he jerks his chin back up, exhaling loudly through his nose. "Fine." He grits out, jaw tight. "… I promise I'll trust you out there."

The second he says it she feels a part of her unwind, something deep and so internal that it hardly phases the intensity of the tightness of her muscles; still, she hears herself exhale, feels the tiny trace of relief cross her face as her hands run up his neck, thumb brushing against the edge of his jaw. "Thank you." She breathes out, leaning in.

Wally tilts his head back when she tries to kiss him, hardly looking as relaxed as she does. "I need you to promise me something too." He says seriously.

Like an idiot she feels the ease of her expression break, eyes narrowing as her finger traces up his cheek. "… What?"

Wally hesitates, only for a second but long enough for her whole body to go tense again. "… Promise me you'll save me a dance, when we're done with all this." He says easily, one corner of his mouth quirking upwards as he tries to break the tension.

She hears herself let out a shaky chuckle; without thinking her forefinger brushes over her lipstick stain on his cheek. "I promise."

* * *

"On a scale of one to ten, how mad would you be if this was a false alarm? Like, if you missed Prom because you were too busy camping out for your father who doesn't even have the decency to show up so you can get the satisfaction of kicking his ass—"

"Zatanna." She hisses, warning the other girl to be quiet. By now it's grown so dark outside that she can hardly see the other girl stationed beside her.

There's an annoyed huff, and even without listening for it she can hear the forced normalcy in her voice, as if Zatanna's deliberately trying to keep things light. "Just making conversation. We've been here for an hour with no action, I'm getting bored." There's some rustling and a muffled snapping noise, the bush they're currently camped behind shaking slightly as if one of it's more willowy branches has just been ripped off. "... I mean, I would be annoyed. At least a seven out of ten."

"Zatanna." She sighs more insistently, not able to stand talking to someone while her mind is busy buzzing with anxiousness and unsaid words.

 _("It is time." Kaldur had called back to them. "We will be landing shortly."_

 _And something inside her had almost refused, had almost called back to him that she couldn't face it; couldn't face leaving the comfort of Wally's arms and the manageable world she had constructed in the back room..._ _But she hadn't. Instead she had gone against every instinct pounding so insistently in her body, instead she had pulled back, instead she had wiped too quickly at her eyes, suddenly aware of the wetness dribbling down her mask._

 _Instead of telling him she loved him she had avoided his gaze. "We've got to..." She had trailed off, blinking._

 _"... Right."_

 _Instead of following her he had turned to watch her progress to the door, jaw set and eyes blazing. And for a second she had seen it, raw but so much more real than any of the other times before_ — _his throat was bobbing, lips opening, mouth freezing around the words._

 _"Hey." She had cut him off. "I know, okay? I know."_

 _And for the first time, she had known, really known...)_

Even thinking about it now her throat feels tight, eyes burning in a way that makes her glad for the cover of darkness. She doesn't know why she stopped him from saying it— maybe it would have been nice to hear. And maybe it would have been nice to say it back, even just the once. But she supposes it's too late to think about what-ifs and second chances. If she's being honest she gave those up hours ago.

Still, she feels as if she's left a part of herself there, back in that back room with Wally and everything neither of them could say. She doesn't know why there's such a sense of finality to it, as if she'll never be able to go back to that moment, as if everything is about to change. She has to remind herself that nothing's even happened yet— and even if something does, it doesn't matter. It took her this long to get to Wally, months of breaking down walls and arguing their way into each other's hearts. He's her life now, has been for far longer than when his blood had stained her fingers in Metropolis. When did it happen, anyway? The day he helped tend to her cracked and bleeding hands? The night he sought comfort in her after the Exercise? Or were they somehow marked for each other the second they met, the second his freckled skin had splattered on the floor in front of her?

It doesn't matter. She's never going to let him slip through her fingers again.

 _(And as she thinks it she feels something stir inside her, something dangerous and hardened and maliciously determined_ — _)_

For some reason the other girl goes uncharacteristically silent beside her; for several long moments there's no noise except for the crackling of radios and the snapping sound of the twig Zatanna's acquired being broken into smaller pieces. "... I have to ask you something."

She lets out an annoyed exhale through her nose, struggling to find a way around it. Local authorities had already swept the perimeter of civilians and museum employees by the time they arrived, and there truly isn't anything for them to do except sit and wait to see if threats of Sportsmaster's presence are going to actually be fulfilled. She scowls in the darkness. "Then ask me something."

"...What exactly is the endgame here?" Zatanna blurts out in an almost whisper. "Say everything goes great. Say we do catch your father. Then what?"

She hesitates, listening hard to the wayward crackling of the radio in her ear; instead of answering right away she swallows thickly, ignoring the way Zatanna is remaining expectantly quiet as she mulls her reply over. "… Then he goes to prison." She says simply, ignoring when she senses the other girl's gaze. "And I get my life back."

Zatanna makes an annoyed clicking noise in the back of her throat. "And you and Wally live _happily-ever-after_?" She asks sarcastically.

For some reason she turns her head to glare defiantly into the darkness, thankful the other girl can't see her blush. "I don't know... Maybe." Even though it's impossible to tell she thinks Zatanna stares at her for a long time in the silence between them, as if the blackened Athens night is telling more about her than words ever could.

She jumps when she hears the familiar dog-like laugh, the barking edge to it startling her so badly that her hand automatically flies to her belt, slipping her bow free and snapping it into position so quickly that it bursts open into the bushes, shaking the leaves violently. "That's such bullshit, Artemis." The other girl drawls out between chuckles.

There's a nervous twisting in her stomach and she even though she knows it won't be seen anyway she tries not to let any hurt cross her features. "... No it's not."

Zatanna snorts. "Right, okay." She drawls after a moment, and when she continues she sounds much gentler in her observations. "What about after that? What happens if he breaks out again?"

"Then we go out and we haul him back to prison again."

"So what, you just keep hunting him? And dragging us along for the chase?"

She feels a wrinkle popping up over her nose. "Kaldur coordinated this mission, not me—"

"You're missing the point." Zatanna cuts her off, and she can imagine a scowl on the other girl's face. "I'm just wondering, if all you're doing is chasing him around—when do you find the time to live your life? When exactly is that happily-ever-after supposed to happen? You can't have a whole life with someone in those few weeks or months your dad is out of the picture. And what about Cheshire?"

She drops her eyes from where she's been scowling at the vague outline of the museum, fists clenching at her sides as she glares into the distance. She's a little unsettled to discover that she doesn't have an answer.

As if understanding her silence Zatanna sighs. "Other people don't get it." She says in an undertone. "Believe me. They don't understand... You and me, we're kind of the same, you know. Both our dads getting tangled up in..." The other girl trails off for a long moment. "I'm not being critical, or anything. I know it might sound like it. And maybe I'm just trying to find some answers for myself. Try to figure out what I'm supposed to do when the hunt finally ends, if it ever does."

There's more quiet. "... You thinking of going after Fate?" She asks quietly, head turning towards the sound of Zatanna's breathing.

"Going? Please, I'm already gone." The other girl laughs bitterly.

She waits until the barking chuckles have died out before she responds, giving herself a few extra seconds to think about what she's saying. "... So that's why you won't give into Dick?"

There's the sound of fabric wrinkling, and she supposes the other girl is shrugging. "I guess. It's not that I don't... He's a great guy. But I don't think he understands that— Maybe it's just that Bats screwed him up. Or maybe he did it himself... I don't think he understands that I can't stop. Not until..." More silence. "No point in dragging another person into my mess, especially someone who doesn't realize it isn't temporary. Although, I think it's different for you and Wally." The other girl says with a bitter edge of honesty. "Wally seems like the kind of person who can hold on through all that. If you have to leave to figure things out. Or ditch him for a bit to get your priorities straight. I don't think Dick is the same."

"Yeah." She says before she considers it, frowning. "I mean, I've never really thought about it."

 _(And yes, she's never really thought of it. But then again, a nastier part of her reminds her, remember how well he reacted when she'd had to go MIA? Remember all the phone calls, the text messages? The never ending clinging..._

 _... And is that exactly safe for him? To be so attached to her, to love her? When the person she's hunting and who's hunting her would kill him as easily as he would swat a fly_ — _)_

"Well, I mean, you guys have talked about it." Zatanna throws out casually. "Like... He knows what he's getting into, right?"

 _(... Not really. But granted, neither does she...)_

Instead of answering she gnaws ferociously on her tongue, stomach twisting in knots. Pressing a finger to her ear just to give herself something to do she listens for a moment to the renewed static of their radios. "Anything yet?" She mutters in an undertone.

"No." Kaldur answers her after a moment, sounding tired. "We are waiting to—"

A painful rage of squeaking cuts him off, the same kind of violent scrambling that reminds her eerily of their failing radios in Metropolis; distantly, above the hum of static, she hears the low drumming of a helicopter.

* * *

Not even a second after she registers the sound do the explosions start— even though they're plenty far from the museum she can feel the impact, instinctively closing her eyes as the massive panels of glass making up the dozens of windows burst and spray shards out in all directions. Instantly there's screaming, smoke furrowing out of the ground level as if a fire has been started, her hair whipped back off her face as the helicopter looms overhead—

"Artemis!" Zatanna yells out, hand latching tightly around her forearm; it occurs to her that she's gone still, frozen with her eyes shut, as if trying to block out what's happening.

She shakes her head, trying to pull herself together _(trying not to taste the salty air of Metropolis because this isn't like last time, they're better prepared, no one is going to die,)_ her eyes watering as she raises her head, ponytail sticking to the sweat on her back. "Someone's trying to move onto the roof of the museum." She screams, the hand holding her bow jutting out to point: as she says it the helicopter gives a wobble, still miles from the roof top, but obviously intent on landing. "Aqualad—" She starts, finger jamming into her ear and immediately being rewarded with a squeak.

"Coms are down." Zatanna confirms, wincing. "This is just like Metropolis, all our radios went down before—" She's thankful for when the other girl cuts herself off, and together they look at each other with panic in their eyes.

Between the two of them she's the first to recover, head turning automatically to stare at what's unfurling in front of them. Now that she's looking she's decided that it can't be a fire on the bottom floor of the building— it's the wrong kind of smoke, not nearly dark enough to be from flames. Even as she squints she thinks she sees figures moving in and out of it, but of course that could always just be a trick of the half light...

"Civilian officers are still in range." She hears herself shout, stomach churning with nerves and voice coming out much sturdier than she feels. "If I know my father he'll try to lure them inside, use them as bait."

Mechanically she draws an arrow from her quiver, eyes narrowing and thinking hard. "How does he even know we're here?" Zatanna counters.

They're wasting time now, and scrambling to fit her arrow in the notch of her finger she jerks her head, hoping the other girl can see her signal to move. "No idea. But he has to be responsible for the radios going out— Sportsmaster works for The Light, and they were responsible for Metropolis, or at least Luthor was."

They start working down the hill they've been perching on— the museum is sitting almost in a valley, the rocky Grecian terrain nearly impossible to maneuver in the dark. Twice she stumbles and nearly loses a few arrows, and behind her she hears Zatanna mumble some backwards jibberish she doesn't have the time to decipher. "Better question." She calls, and when she turns to glance over her shoulder she realizes the other girl has given up on trying to jog her way down and is instead floating beside her. "Why would he want to bait us inside?"

Her stomach tightens and she doesn't answer.

* * *

By the time they make it down to the ground level entrance to the museum there's nobody left to rescue; glass crunches under her feet as she jogs to a halt, that strange fog still unfurling into the air in great looming tendrils that seem to consume everything in a clouded grey, nearly impossible to see through. "Where is everyone?" Zatanna calls, landing beside her when she stops moving, unsure about going any further. "Aqualad was supposed to be down here, supposed to be working with the police."

Her stomach clenches. "And Kid and Robin were supposed to be doing perimeter." She can't keep the waver of fear from her voice, the hand keeping her arrow defensively in place on her bow string tensing.

"You don't think the glass got them, did it?"

As much as instinct is telling her to avoid the smoke— there's something unsettling about its color, the strange floral scent it's giving off that's making her salivate— she takes a few hesitant steps forward, carefully skirting around the few feet of toxic looking grey cloud hovering around all their entrance points. "Kid is fast enough to out run it, if I had to place a bet his first move would be to grab Rob and take off."

She can hear the crunch of Zatanna's heels in the dirt, both of them too nervous to stay still. "What about Kaldur then? Could Kid grab him too?"

It's still too dark to really see anything, but even in the partial light the fog seems to be putting off an eerie, milky glow. "No, and he couldn't grab a whole squad of officers either."

"So what then? If the glass got them then where are the bodies?"

"I—" She's just opened her mouth to answer when her boot catches on something, heel spasming inside her shoe as she lets out a surprised sound in the back of her throat.

 _"Artemis?"_ Zatanna calls out, voice sounding sharp and fearful in the dark. "Artemis, are you alright?"

It takes her a few seconds of squinting at the ground to find what she's looking for. "... Found one." She hears herself say, sounding oddly blank.

By the time Zatanna's caught up to her she's kneeling in the dirt, squinting in the pearly light of the fog. She doesn't know how she missed it before— now that she's right beside him she can smell the metallic scent of blood, the bitter scent of emptied bowels all dead bodies release mere seconds after death. Her stomach churns and she feels as if she might be sick. "Oh my god." She hears in the darkness. "Is that—"

"Nobody." She says, feeling empty as she stares at the face that wouldn't be recognizable, even without the shards of glass shredding the skin, the blood pouring from the eye sockets that were still looking on in fear when he died. For some reason her hand strays out, turning the unknown man's chin in her direction. "I mean, not anymore. He's wearing a uniform, looks like an officer. Police chief, maybe."

"What's that sticking out of his chest?" Zatanna whispers, sounding horrified. She wonders if this is the first time she's seen a dead body.

It's very hard to look away from the shredded remains of the face, but something about the fear in the other girl's voice grounds her; swallowing down the bile in her throat she drops her gaze, squinting in the dark.

... It's a javelin. Or at least she supposes it has to be— so much of the tip is buried inside the unknown man's chest she can really only see the back end of the tip. But it's the handle that gives it away, the ornate straightness, the length of it easily over half her height.

 _(And instantly her heart is racing, and she's no longer in Athens, no longer even in Metropolis_ — _she's a child and her father is carving her out, her father is running the edge of the blade along her cheek, leaving tiny stripes of pain along her skin and reminding her that she's at his mercy, she'll always be at his mercy_ —)

Something inside her stills the awful stomach-wrenching sensation that's threatening to send her into a panic and instead forces her to narrows her eyes, head turning to examine the end of the blood soaked tip sticking out of the officer's chest, to follow the straightness of the handle she can hardly see in the dark. She's getting ahead of herself— _this isn't her father's javelin_. Her father's is a long rod, narrowed down to a deadly point— whatever she's looking at now is much cruder, less sophisticated and balanced, probably mass produced and nothing like Lawrence's unique instrument...

Her stomach churns again as she feels the blood soaked end sticking out of the man's chest, counting several prongs and a definitive latch before the handle , this isn't Sportsmaster's javelin, he would never use something with multiple prongs, incapable of piercing an opponents body all the way through. She turns her head to follow the dead man's line of sight, wondering what he would have been looking at when he was killed. She blinks stupid at the museum's front door.

 _(Vividly in her head she can imagine it_ — _Someone, not her father, hiding in the museum... Waiting for a signal, waiting until... Until what? Until the helicopter was in range? And then... And then bursting out of the museum front door, killing someone on sight, creating a distraction_ —

 _... If Kaldur had seen someone killed in front of him he would have reacted, she's sure of it. He would have charged forward without hesitation, and she's more than willing to bet that the others, officers, police men... They would have come charging too..._

 _And then of course the glass would have burst out, and fog would have unfurled...)_

She looks down again at the dead man's chest, fingers leaving the wound and instead roaming over his uniform, the padding on his arms. Even as she's looking at it she can only see a few superficial marks, the only evidence of glass even hitting him being the exposed skin of his face... And Kaldur, Kaldur has that thick Atlantean skin...

"Aqualad's inside." She blurts out, not wanting to look at the dead body anymore, not wanting to be close to it. "Look at this guy's uniform, he's got some sort of armor underneath it— I bet all the other officers were fine if they had the sense to cover their faces. This guy had just been hit, he'd probably still been shocked by the impact when the glass went off, or didn't see a point in defending himself— he must have known the javelin was too deep, must have known he was about to die."

Even if she's not following her train of thought Zatanna rises with her, face set. "How do you know it's a javelin?"

She's not entirely sure where the answer comes from but the second she says it she knows it's right. "Jade and her goons used these the last time we were here— Sportsmaster must be working with the Shadows too."

If Zatanna's having her doubts she apparently doesn't have any better ideas; when she resets her arrow against her finger the other girl nods, looking determined. "If Kaldur's in the fog too then that must be where Robin and Kid are— actually, I'd bet money on that being Rob's first move, getting the Team back together to regroup."

"Then let's not waste any more time." She agrees. Without looking back at the dead man on the ground, they both march on.

* * *

She's been around campfires, seen a fair share of smoke when she hasn't been properly paying attention to what she's been cooking— she even remembers one summer when an apartment a few blocks over had been burnt to rubble in an act of arson. Real smoke is lighter than air, leaves the scent of destruction in her lungs, sticks with an invisible grittiness to her tongue when she inhales it.

She had been right about the smoke unfurling now being sinister; as her and Zatanna climb the few steps to the place where the front doors of the museum used to be she knows almost immediately that something is off. The second they become enshrouded in it she can feel it sitting heavily in her lungs, pressing against her skin with a strange humidity and warmth, a slick and oily moisture that sends beads of anxious sweat bursting out along the seams of her uniform.

 _This is wrong._

They hardly last five minutes before they're both panting, lost and unseeing in the maze that is the museum; the longer she breathes the smog in the more she feels like she's drunk— the fog is doing something to her senses, slowing her down. "This isn't right." Zatanna says beside her, her voice sounding warbled and exhausted. "Artemis—"

There's a shuffling noise to her left and it takes her too long to react to it, head turning clumsily and eyes seeming to stay closed too long as she blinks. When she opens her eyes she's alone.

She's dizzy, she's— she feels as if she's going to vomit as she turns clumsily on the spot, looking round for Zatanna. The fog may be dulling her senses but it isn't dulling the adrenaline rushing through her, her muscles throbbing with panic but unable to move the way she wants to, her heart beat banging against her ears and making it impossible to focus as her hand fumbles for her belt, searching for the mouthpiece she knows isn't there, searching for something to cleanse the air around her—

 _Focus, focus_ —

She loses control of her fingers just as someone knocks too hard into her left side— she can't even move to catch herself as she goes crumbling, body slamming hard against the ground. She blinks again, mind struggling to comprehend the impact as her limbs flop, uncontrollable and knocking against the bottom corner of an art display.

She manages to see a uniform, a glinting of blue and black against gold. _The police._ "I'm on your side." She tries to blurt out, mouth only opening and giving her a taste of sourness of the fog before her lips sputter into a slobbery silence.

Her eyes narrow, or at least she thinks they do as the police man hovers over her; he's not affected by the fog, for some reason, his movements still precise as he kicks brutally at her hands, forcing her bow and arrow from her fingers and sending them sliding away into the nothingness of the smoke. That can't be right. Why would a police man try to disarm her? She can't even fight back as his boot collides with her shoulder, kicking her onto her back; she blinks again, registering the painful sensation of her quiver digging between her shoulder blades before her eyes open, struggling to find a face.

He's got a mask on, that's why he's moving so easily— there's a complicated mess of tubing and plastic covering his nose and mouth, it must be filtering his air for him. She tries to breathe in again, tries to focus, except each time she drags in a breath more and more of the strange fog seems to linger there, threatening to drown her. The police man fumbles for his belt— _and this all seems to be happening very slowly, or maybe her eyes are just not working right anymore_ — and extract a pistol, cocking it and aiming for her forehead.

 _Something inside her screams, a thousand sirens telling her she's about to die. Instead she blinks again._

Then she hears a tiny trill of noise and something explodes.

She knows it isn't big— she can tell by the burst of blackened smog that erupts in front of it that it was a small, short range explosive that's meant more to confuse an opponent than anything. There's a strange cackling noise that she knows should be familiar but for some reason isn't, and she can hear the sound of fists colliding with skin, can hear the sound of plastic breaking and weapons clicking. She doesn't care what's happening anymore, weight rocking her back onto her side. She feels like falling asleep.

She's barely conscious when gloved fingers roll her, much more gently, onto her back; someone's slapping her cheek, trying to get her to open her eyes. _It's her mother, reminding her that today is another school day and she's going to be late if she doesn't get out of bed soon. "Wake up." Her mother will say, hitting her playfully._

 _Never, she thinks back. She's never getting out of bed_ —

The unknown hands give up on her and instead start lifting her head, which by now feels too heavy for even her own neck to support. She wrinkles her nose at her mother, who is smoothing her hair over her ears and still trying to get her to wake.

 _"You're going to be late on your first day of school!" Paula yells, slamming her door open and glaring at her from the hallway._

 _She's already in her school uniform but she still burrows under her covers. Someone is laughing at her_ — _she can hear the voices of the boys in the hallway and feels hands ruffling her skirt. She wants to stay in bed forever but the mattress seems to slip out from underneath her, her knees aching when she lands clumsily in front of her locker._

 _Robin's eyes are blinking at her. "Around here I go by Dick." The strange boy tells her. Over his shoulder she can see his friends laughing at her._

 _"It's true." Wally calls out from across the hallway, for some reason wearing his grey prom suit. One of his hands is messing with his tie as he approaches them, looking pleased when her and Dick shout out in welcome. "My last name is West." He tells her instead of saying hello._

 _She reaches out to touch him and finds her hand slips through his shoulder, fist colliding affectionately with the locker behind him. "I know that." She tells him._

Something clamps over her mouth and nose and almost the second she inhales the world comes back into a frightfully sharpened reality— it feels as if she's just jumped into a vat of icy water, all her muscles spasming and jumping and bursting back into life as she drags untainted oxygen into her lungs. Almost at once she's coughing, spit hitting the mask that's been clipped to her face, the sounds of battle— _screaming, blood splattering, feet thundering against the ceiling_ — slapping her senses violently. She gasps out, panicking, no longer warm and comfortable but terrified and alone and— _Zatanna, she needs to find Zatanna_ —

"Artemis." Someone calls out her name, and it takes several bouts of blinking before her eyes start seeing properly, the familiar domino mask and onyx hair crouching beside her. "Artemis, you need to relax. Just breathe clean air for a bit." Dick tells her, hands still fitting the mask around her face.

"What's happening?" She nearly screams, realizing she's shaking as he fits the straps behind her ears; her eyes are spinning around violently, unable to see through the fog still but spotting the uniformed officer a few feet away, now maskless and lying helplessly a few feet away. "Where's everyone else?"

When Dick speaks again and she realizes his voice is muffled— he's wearing another stolen mask. "Wally's getting Zatanna and Kaldur's upstairs, we're going to rendezvous as soon as you can stand."

"I'm fine—" She starts to say angrily, brushing off his hands as they still fumble with her mask; almost the second she gets to her feet she feels light headed, nearly falling over until he catches her, slinging one of her arms around his shoulder.

"I told you, just start breathing, okay?" He says insistently, and she decides it's best not to disobey him. "The fog contains opium, you're going to be disoriented until your lungs start processing clean air. Where's your bow?"

She tries to focus on breathing through her mouth, struggling to remember what she thought she saw through the haze, it's almost impossible to orient herself in any direction, the smog obscuring everything that isn't a foot in front of her. "Over there." She nods clumsily, feeling again as if she's about to vomit.

Dick tries his best to help her walk, and she supposes there's some improvement the longer she breathes in clean air; soon it's no longer a matter of dragging her but simply keeping a grip on her arm to avoid losing each other in the density of the smoke. "What's happening?" She asks again.

In answer Dick bends to retrieve her bow, apparently not trusting her to do it herself. "Still figuring that out. I was on the north end of the building when all the explosions happened. Only just managed to get out of the way too." As he hands her bow back to her she can see scratches covering his arm, a few still bleeding. "Wally was on the east end, he didn't see either but by the time we met up and went looking for you and Zatanna you were both gone. We figured you guys had gone inside."

"We did." She confirms, and together they start moving through the smoke again.

Dick pulls up the screen on his gauntlet, apparently trying to find their position on a map; she's still oddly jumpy, notching an arrow against her finger and starting at old displays of artwork and statues as they bubble up through the smog. "Watch my back." He instructs her before continuing. "Almost the second we got in here Wally started acting funny— kept forgetting where we were, half the time he seemed to think he was at the Cave or talking to his Aunt. It's his fast metabolism, it just sped up the effects... We weren't even in here a minute before a bunch of goons jumped us—"

"They're Shadows." She interrupts, tensing and taking aim into the smoke for a moment before she realizes she's about to attack a door frame. "Zatanna and I found a body outside, he was killed with the same kind of javelins Cheshire and her squad were using the last time we were here."

"What?" Dick says distractedly, glancing away from the screen. "Somebody was killed?"

"Yeah, right outside the main entrance." She pauses, instinct kicking in. "I don't think she's here though, Rob. She'd be out here messing with me." She not entirely sure why she says it, and continues speaking before he has time to suspect her of defending her sister. "What happened next?"

Dick takes a sharp left— if she's reading the map right he's directing them towards a staircase. "Well, Wally was too much of a mess to fight but I managed to get a mask off one of the Shadows. Pretty straight forward from there— once Wally was working again we met Kaldur, he was stumbling around too. But he had figured out that upstairs is safe, it's only down here that's being effected by the fog, he had come back down to see if he could find us."

"What about Sportsmaster?"

"Your guess is as a good as mine." He says bitterly. "No sign of him yet. Come on, we need to—"

The clean air must be helping, because suddenly she feels a tenfold more alert; there's voices near them, still muffled by the intensity of the fog. Something moves in front of them and without thinking she lunges forward, forcing Robin behind her as she aims an arrow into the smog. "Move!" She snarls.

"Whoa!" A familiar voice starts, and even though it's too late to stop her release she purposely jostles it, her arrow flying several feet from her target and disappearing beyond where all of them can see. There's a twang of metal burying itself into wood, as if she's just found her mark in the frame of a very expensive painting, and Wally materializes in front of her.

"You're terrifying, you know that?" He tries to say cheekily, but there's still an edge of exhaustion to his voice; the longer she stares at him the worse he looks, eyes popping almost bug-like above his mask, skin so pale it might as well be translucent.

She supposes she must look the same.

Zatanna materializes too, and before any of them can say anything else in greeting the moment is cut off by the squealing of their radios in their ears, static so sharp and violent that all of them instantly cry out in pain.

* * *

"What the hell was that?" Zatanna screams through her mask, the tail end of her question being cut off by a loud crashing noise; apparently the helicopter has landed, clumsily, on the roof top.

There's more static in her ear, and this time she hears another voice cutting through in between the squeaks. "Team—" She hears Kaldur say before the system goes silent again.

"Come on!" Dick yells at them all, jerking his head to their left— she's right, he's been taking them to the main staircase, and without hesitating they all follow.

The second floor is in a mind numbing chaos by the time they emerge, each of them ripping their masks from their faces and discarding them half-hazardly as they reach for weapons or gear up to use their powers; there's dozens of police officers here, all clad in the same uniform and making it impossible to tell who to aim her arrows at, impossible to know who to help and who to hinder as they fire bullets at each other—

There's a blast of air as Wally starts moving, the back draft sending her sweat-slicked skin prickling— he's not bothering to distinguish between good and bad, undercover or on their side; he's simply running and disarming at random. She frowns, switching her aim between multiple targets. "How are we supposed to know who to fight?" She calls out, hoping for an answer.

All her screaming as attracted the attention of an officer to her left— before she can even make up her mind as to whether or not to shoot he's ducked behind a nearby sculpture, emerging on the opposite side and flicking his wrist. There's the sound of something snapping into place and—

She dives out of the way just as the javelin is thrown at her, it's impact into a cabinet sending glass shattering everywhere as she's forced to roll across the floor, skinning the side of her ribs on the hardwood. "Guess that's how you know." She hears Zatanna yell out, not stopping to make sure she's alright.

She can hardly think; between firing arrows and slamming the brunt end of her bow into noses and the occasional crackling of her radio she can feel raw instinct kicking in, can feel a low buzzing vibrating against her skull as she fights to stay alive. It's all memory, _pure muscle memory_ , her anxiousness a back drop to the loud pounding of her heartbeat in her ears reminding her to be careful, watch Wally, where's Wally—

Her head turns to automatically follow the streak of scarlet and yellow across the room and almost immediately she loses focus, trying to track him. "Artemis!" Kaldur screams out.

A spray of water hits her across the face and she flinches, muscles moving of their own accord to snap her bow into position; she has enough time to see the wall of water in front of her, see the javelin suspended in the rocking of waves, less than a foot from her temple before it splatters to the floor, and without thinking she fires, her arrow catching her quarry in the shoulder and knocking him down.

"Thanks." She gasps— even though there's no fog up here she still feels as if she's unbalanced, unfocused as Kaldur appears beside her.

"Have you—" He starts to ask, but before he can finish their radios are wailing again; without warning there's an explosion several feet in front of them and they're both forced to dived out of the way.

Someone else screams out her name as she collapses against the floor, chalk white debris and acidic smelling smoke erupting into the room as she throws herself underneath a sturdy looking table; beside her Kaldur thuds to the floor, cracking his skull hard against the hardwood before his body flattens, not moving. There's shouting all around them, fresh air bursting into the room— it's as if one of the walls has just been blown open, no rhyme or reason existing anymore as displays begin to crumble, glass cabinets bursting; she's done something funny to herself in the fall, knocked her head against a leg of the table she's hiding under in a way that sends all her muscles stunned one moment and then slack the next—

"There it is!" She hears someone shout above all the noise, and in the madness unfurling around her she can hear footsteps thundering towards her, things being shoved out of the way— she feels as if she's back in the fog again, losing herself, her limbs refusing to cooperate as she lies, stunned, as whoever is breaking into the museum stops only feet from her.

"It's right there." Someone says, and there's a clattering as the casing of whatever's on the table is thrown open. "Right there, come on, he wants this to be quick."

"Are you sure?"

More clattering. "Look at the screen. It's giving off EMF readings, has to be it."

Something clicks in the back of her mind, enough for her to raise her head off the floor. _EMF Readings._ Electro Magnetic Field Readings. Same as the squid. Same as what the device stolen in Metropolis was supposed to be able to track...

It all happens so quickly that by the time she muddles through the fact that she shouldn't let whoever just took whatever it was from the museum leave they're already gone; like an idiot she scrambles into her hands and knees, struggling to climb through the debris now littering the floor to pursue them.

It's still chaos when she emerges— the battle is still raging on despite the fact that half the museum is starting to fall apart, nobody in pursuit of the Shadows who have just disappeared leading her to believe that she's the only witness to the theft, although she can hardly be of much help now, she has no clue what they took or why...

 _Think._ She tells herself, looking around wildly. _Think._

But that's proving harder than it should be as well— there's a dull pounding at the back of her head, a warmth trickling down the between her shoulder blades telling her that she's wounded, although she doesn't think seriously... Feeling desperate she starts sprinting towards the blown open side of the building, feet thundering against the unstable ground and heart racing, still not sure what she's doing— the night air is cold when she pauses to look out over the city of Athens, head aching as she swivels it in different directions— and then she sees it, a door at the end of a hallway marked in neon red, and even though she doesn't understand what the words say she suspects that it's an exit point, a roof top maybe—

She's weak; when the familiar gust of air slaps her painfully across her skin she stumbles, feet wobbling underneath her until a too-fast hand grabs her about the elbow, yanking her steady. "Artemis!" Wally screams in her face, hand going round to cup the back of her head. "Artemis, what the hell happened—"

"It's fine." She tells him, even though she's not entirely sure it is. "Wally, Shadows were back with that EMF reader they stole in Metropolis, they took something—" He's not listening, not properly at least; when he pulls his hand away questioningly from the back of her head his palm is soaked with blood, dark crimson and staining against the material of his glove. "Wally!" She screams more insistently. "Wally, listen to me, okay, go back and get everyone to follow me out that door—"

"Out which door?"

"That one—" As she points she can see his muscles setting, getting ready to ignore her plan in favor of his own, unthinkingly her arm shoots out, holding him in place.

"Babe—"

She doesn't even let him speak in protest; ignoring the look on his face she grabs him hard by the shoulders, fingers digging into the kelvar of his uniform as if afraid he's going to run out of sight. "You can't, Wally!" She screams at him, nearly shaking him. "You promised to listen to me, remember? I don't know what's going on out there, I can't let you— don't—" She's not being clear, or maybe Wally just doesn't understand—she doesn't know how she knows, but she can sense something bigger is about to happen, that if her father is hiding anywhere it's outside that door, in the unknown battle on its other side—

But he's still not listening, not really, eyes glaring at his crimson palm before he yanks his goggles down over his eyes. "You're hurt, Artemis." He tells her simply, as if she were a child. "I'm not letting you."

"Not letting me— No!" She screams out as he bursts away from her, voice aching and throat feeling as if it's splitting into blood soaked tendrils with the strength that she yells after him. "Wally! _You promised!"_

But he's gone, already far beyond where he can hear her screaming. Far enough that nothing, not even the weight of his broken promise, can catch up.

* * *

Even though her body is aching and her head is pounding she tears after him, continuing her rampage of hysterics as she follows the lingering disrupted air down the hallway— _t_ _his can't be happening, this can't be happening_. She can't lose Wally, she'll die before she lets him out of her sight again—

She throws open the doorway to find a narrow set of stairs, ramming the toes of her boots painfully she begins to climb; it's steep with too-many sharp turns, aching in her over tired muscles— it must lead to the roof top, must lead towards the helicopter, must lead to whatever she's both been hoping for and dreading for weeks now... She's quickly approaching another door, this time marked in a bright blue paint, and notching an arrow against her finger she charges through it.

The door isn't even fully open before another burst of speed is whipping across her face, so over powering that for a moment she has to close her eyes against the pressure of the back draft, the hairs on her arm standing on end with both static and fear; in the second her eyes are shut she can hear the sound of knuckles colliding with bone and the sound of crumpling muscles against the pebbled ground of the roof…

 _And perhaps what's most recognizable of all is the heart-wrenching, almost animal cry that she knows is Wally's; for one wild moment she's back to where it all started, back to when she knew little more about him than his mantle and had saved him out of mercy, out of doing what was right—_

She opens her eyes and a part of her freezes, terror mounting and blurring her vision until the only thing in the world that she knows for a moment is that noise, that noise that reminds her of beginnings and endings and death and dying, the noise that belongs to the boy she loves and the boy she would die for, would kill for, is going to kill for— and she can sense the panic attack threatening to consume her, can feel vomit rising in her throat but she can't, she can't—

 _Focus._

 _Focus for Wally._

 _(As if in a blur she can feel their lives together flashing at the back of her eye lids like they did in the safety of the Bioship, a thousand memories of the only happiness she's ever known: the Gotham Academy bleachers, the surprise in his eyes as he had seen her face for the first time; blood pouring down her forehead and gentle hands peeling back her mask. Apple eyes staring at her over their homework, lingering on the lines of her uniform and sending an unknown heat between her legs_ — _their window, a sai at her feet and the blue and green blend that was their earth staring at them as they stood inside the Watchtower… Lips on her neck, her breasts, fingers touching hip bones, the perspiration beginning to cling to the dip of his collar bone—)_

She watches Wally's body collide into the ground, limp muscles jerking on impact and a gasp of air firing out of his lungs as he lands flat on his back, unmoving; she has enough time to see the point of a javelin raise itself into the air and hear unknown words being screamed out in distress from someone else who doesn't even exist to her in this moment—

As if she's only inches above him she watches his lips open, feels the imaginary breath Wally lets out before slipping into unconsciousness.

 _She feels as if she's been set on fire._

Something inside her snaps— all her nerves are blazing, nose wrinkling, a thousand merciless pricks of pain firing through her, and she's not aware of the blood thirsty snarl that she lets out, not aware of anything except of the fact that it feels as if every part of her is being set aflame with rage. She's unthinking, hyper focused, her breath only fanning the flames as the Metropolis girl awakens, rising from the ashes that Artemis used to be.

Lawrence freezes at the noise, still focused on his quarry at his feet. His head hasn't even turned towards her before she sends an arrow forward to pierce his heart.

She hadn't expected it to hit and it doesn't, Sportsmaster sensing it in the air the way he had once taught her; she watches the familiar oaky muscles shift and change position mid-motion, no longer intent on slicing Wally open and instead whipping wildly to slash her arrow off course. She hears the ear splitting twang of metal on metal and watches her arrow plunge, tip first, into the pebbled ground several feet from Wally's head.

There's a moment where her father stares, muscles still taught and stance still defensive, at the quivering green feathering on the end of her arrow; she can't read him behind the mask like she can with Jade, can't decipher any meaning of the dull blue eyes staring out of the grey plastic. There's a long moment in which all she can hear is an unknown female crying that seems to be echoing all around the roof top without a source before her father comes back to himself, straightening slightly and looking round to find her, still cornered on the entrance to the roof. "… Baby Girl."

 _She's not his Baby Girl anymore..._

His voice is so sneering, so hateful— despite the fact that she isn't Artemis anymore she still feels a shiver run through her as if she's a child, cowering in fright in her bedroom; for some reason she can't bring herself to say anything in greeting, as if he'll recognize something in her voice she isn't willing to admit to herself.

 _(That she's crazy? That she's lost it? That she's so weak she's finally succumbed to using the weapon he placed inside her as a last resort? Will he be able to hear it, in the way she can in her ragged breathing that's bothering a few stray pieces of hair over her mask_ — _will he be able to tell_ _that she's finally become the mindless animal he's always wanted her to be_ —)

There's a clink of metal beside her and reflexively she straightens defensively, extracting another arrow from her quiver and snarling. "Don't bother." Lawrence says coyly, and she watches as the Shadows she's aiming at lower their javelins. "Priorities, remember? Let me enjoy my little family reunion."

There's another spasm of fear bursting but she refuses to indulge it as the Shadows go rushing towards the helicopter, loading unknown bags that could contain the EMF reader or the stolen object; uneasily she shifts her weight, aiming at her father and trying not to blink when the helicopter blades split into a stuttering spinning motion.

For some reason Lawrence laughs when she pulls her string tighter, advancing towards her and leaving Wally to recover on the ground. "What's the matter?" He chuckles at her, head tilting back to survey her better through the holes in his mask. "Can't spare a word or two for your old man?" He barks. "Or maybe you'd just rather talk to the Doctor?"

He makes a gesture with the end of his javelin and stupidly she flinches as if he's just thrown it directly at her— _she should know better, her father likes to play with his food before he eats it, he's just like Jade—_ and following his gaze she feels her mouth go dry; vividly she recognizes the blonde hair, the startlingly milky skin like Cassie's. Doctor Sandsmark, bruised and beaten and bleeding in several places— cowering and fearful where the Shadows have thrown her to the ground like garbage, no doubt as unsure about her own intentions as her daughter had been, months ago…

Wally stirs, several yards away from Sportsmaster but still in danger; if she's going to attack she's going to have to get away from both him and Sandsmark, they're too vulnerable— _and suddenly she's back to chess pieces and sitting in front of their window and distracting Wally with gentle fingers on the inside of his wrist…_

 _Focus._

"Why did you bring her here?" She spits, not sounding like herself. "Why go to the trouble of getting Cheshire to take her in the first place?"

Sportsmaster's feet stop, halfway between her and Wally, javelin lowering to his side but still pointed at her, suspicious. "You sound scared, Baby Girl." He taunts. "The Doctor was just helping some friends with a little science project they've been working on."

"What kind of project?" She snarls, muscles tightening when he starts moving again, hoping to distract him.

Her father only laughs, shaking his head at her. "Not so fast, Artemis." And she's been wrong— she's always thought Jade took her voice from Huntress, but now, with all this taunting, she's hearing strange notes that sound eerily familiar too... Her shoulders ache as her father paces a few steps to the side, advancing closer to the Doctor. "Don't you think you owe Daddy Dearest a proper hello first?"

 _She can't save both of them, she has to act fast_ —

Her lips pull back, exposing her teeth as a disgusted noise rips out of her throat. "Hi, Dad."

The sound makes Lawrence laugh again; she can see the corners of his eyes crinkling underneath his mask, javelin lowering with mirth. "Now that's more—"

She moves as quickly as she can; her arrow flies and her father's forced to move, not noticing as she extracts an explosive tipped arrow from the marked section in her quiver— her radio is squealing again in her ear, the rest of the Team regrouping, trying to figure out what happened and shouting her and Wally's names so loudly she can hardly think; they'll be here soon but she'll need to buy some time, she's not sure if she's capable of keeping her father busy on her own, she needs Wally to—

There's a dull clattering noise as her arrow misses and disappears into the pebbles coating the pavement rooftop, the dodging movement sending Sportsmaster a few steps back; he's not quite as prepared for her second one nor the explosive tip—as she charges towards him she can hear his sharp inhale of surprise as he's engulfed in smoke and heat and the firing of rocks all around them. She can feel the tiny impact of stones hitting her hard across the bare points of skin her uniform exposes, no doubt leaving dozens of dime sized bruises and cuts but she doesn't allow herself to get distracted, doesn't allow herself to take her eyes off the last place she saw him…

She hears him whirring through the smog and watches the clean path his javelin cuts through it towards her; it's hard to move on the roof's warbled surface, her heels digging in and leaving her almost unbalanced on her feet as Lawrence makes a slicing motion and cuts a thick line in the air towards her—she manages to dodge once, twice before he catches her, arms twisting and using to momentum of his swinging to spin his javelin in his hands, catching her hard in the shoulder with the blunt end and throwing her off balance.

She cries out and immediately means to turn the force he knocks her with into a flip but the terrain won't allow it; instead her graceful movement becomes clumsy, sending her rolling once over the rocks and skidding painfully on the uneven ground. "Tsk." Her father snarls at her, finally becoming fully visible as the smog clears. "Not very impressive, Baby Girl. Did you forget all my training already?"

For some reason the wrinkle over her nose pops up, her lips pulling up over her teeth to snarl at him. "Shut up!"

He lunges at her again and this time she's quick enough to dodge it properly, moving maliciously as if she has something to prove; ducking wildly around his swing she burls her weight downward, rolling against the ground on her shoulder and kicking her leg up as hard as she can. It's a risky shot, something she wouldn't have attempted if he had been fully straightened, but for the first time in her life the universe plays to her advantage; she hears the loud crunching of her heel kicking his jaw back, and the clattering noise of teeth smashing together. Lawrence has enough time to snarl in shock and half crumple before she's back on her feet, swiping her bow around and slapping him hard across the face with it.

Even though she's hit her father before a burst of wild satisfaction sounds in her stomach as he goes stumbling to the ground, almost out cold— the realization that she wants to hurt him, wants to really make him suffer, suddenly feels more real and more tangible as he skids across the uneven ground, muscles limp and unthreatening. _Do it,_ something whispers to her, clawing at the back of her mind. _Make him bleed._

At the same time she can hear Wally stirring several yards away, head flopping up and shaking as he looks round, not really seeing her. "… Babe?"

 _And for a moment she nearly ignores him, hand twitching towards her quiver_ — _Sportsmaster is unbalanced, off guard, she's good enough to send an arrow through the eye hole of his mask, good enough to lodge the pointed tip through his skull, pierce his brain_ — _and it would be perfect, carving out a piece of him just like he did with her, it would feel so good to kill him..._

There's shouting coming from the staircase, voices whispering from the helicopter, the Doctor's weeping. She can feel herself withdrawing into her broken insides, can feel herself surrendering as the Metropolis girl takes control, getting ready to do what she's been thirsting for all this time—

"Babe?" Wally calls again, sounding more questioningly in the darkness. "... Artemis?"

 _Wally_.

She blinks, realizing that she's staring at her father on the ground, hand clutching the end of the arrow that should end his life. "... Wally?" She hears herself whisper back, pony tail getting caught by the wind and catching on her lipstick.

 _Focus._

It takes more effort than it should to turn back to him, hair whipping off her forehead as the helicopter blades start spinning more wildly, signaling take off soon. "Kid!" She says, as if it's a prayer, bow lowering. "Kid!" She repeats, turning to sprint towards him, collapsing her bow and clipping it to her belt for good measure.

 _And she knows there should be other priorities, or at least that's what the malicious voice inside her head is hissing at her_ — _she should be rescuing Doctor Sandsmark, she should be finishing off her father. She should be attacking the Shadows that are still furiously moving inside the helicopter, about to escape. The buzzing in her head tells her of a thousand things she should be doing, but only one of them makes sense; she can't focus on anything, not when Wally is so close and needs her_ —

 _Wally's her life now. And she needs to protect him._

And she can't help herself from touching him when she crouches beside him; like he always used to do to her in mid-battle she's suddenly running her hands all over him, carefully inspecting the scratches on his cheeks and the bump on the back of his head, the skid marks and tiny tears along the seams of his uniform. And after all this time she thinks she finally understands, understands what he's known for a while now, maybe since before the New Year...

She can't be what the Metropolis girl wants her to be. She can, if she really wants to, but she won't. She won't be that wild girl with the broken eyes, the cutting voice and the blood under her finger nails. She's never going to be her again. Not when Wally is looking at her with those apple eyes, believing in the best of her. She can't embrace the worst.

 _(Not yet.)_

Wally seems slightly dazed, as if Sportsmaster's blow has done something to his head, or maybe that's just her touch. "Where's the Doctor?" He asks frantically, seizing her hands to get her to stop touching him, clasping his palms tights with hers. "Artemis, focus!"

 _Focus._

"Right." She says shakily, for some reason suddenly feeling light headed. She can feel adrenaline seeping out of her, defeat setting in. _It's over. It's over and she didn't have the nerve to murder her father; Zatanna's right, he's just going to go back to another prison and she's going to spend her whole life chasing him, too afraid to live her life but too cowardly to end his..._ She tries to help Wally to his feet, suddenly feeling as if all the strength has left her body. _Weak._ "She's—"

There's a loud shriek that seems to be coming from inside her body rather than outside of it; without speaking her and Wally whip towards the sound, hands still interwoven tightly and unbreaking in the warmth of the Athens air.

Somehow she knows what she's about to see before she even really sees it—it's predictable of her father to go after the weakest link when he gets the sense that he's lost, so typical of him to seek a fight with the defenseless when his quarry is proving too challenging. Still, it doesn't stop her from locking eyes with the Doctor, looking unsettlingly small and terrified as she's lifted off her feet by Sportsmaster, shaking in the fold of his bicep and craning her neck backwards to avoid touching the deadly point of his javelin aimed at her jugular.

 _And it's going to happen again; someone's going to die because of her stupidity, her weakness, and be it soldiers in Metropolis or Cassie's mother she's never going to learn this lesson, never going to learn not to be weak_ —

 _(Worthless. Pathetic.)_

Wally seems to recover first, jaw tight and teeth smashing together as he screams across the dead man's land between him and her father. "Get your hands off her!" He snarls, hands tight on hers.

Her father sneers, tilting the javelin a little daringly towards Sandsmark's neck, close enough to brush against the frindged ends of her blonde bob. "I could say the same to you." Her father barks back. "You never told me you had a boyfriend, Baby Girl."

 _No. No..._

She can feel her heart stuttering with fear inside her chest, but as if she's been planning this moment all night the girl from Metropolis starts battling her for control, clawing at the backs of her eyes, teeth sinking into the scar on her neck; mechanically she feels her and Wally's hands fall apart as if burned. "Shut up." She snarls at her father in a way that may as well be a confession, taking her bow and snapping it open again.

 _And as she extracts an arrow from her quiver there's a moment, a half second where Wally's eyes meet hers_ — _more plainly than ever she can read what's written there, can tell that he never intended to keep his promise to her. Whatever is about to happen is like taking those bullets in Metropolis, another betrayal of her love and trust, and she can't stop it, he's too fast, she can't keep up_ —

"No." She breathes. "Kid, don't—" She doesn't know what she's about it say, but it doesn't matter.

It's too late catch him, anyway.

 _(And later, when she thinks of this moment, she'll tell herself that Wally stayed. Or at least he wanted to. Wally, with the blisters on his toes. Wally, with the wet kisses he presses into her cheeks. Wally, who laughs as if everything is the funniest thing he's ever heard, Wally, whose freckles seep into the wrinkles on his forehead as he smiles at her_ —

 _No, Wally stayed. Wally kept his promise. It was Kid Flash who was the one who could never stop running_ — _)_

There's hardly a beat of silence in the air again before she moves, yelling intelligibly and racing in a sprint after him; in a split second he's taken off at a break neck speed into the terrifying space between them and her father, moving so quickly that pebbles and dust are forced to stir up from the roof top. Without thinking she charges after him, ignoring the spraying to stones and dirt as she tries to figure out what's happening, what he's already planned out without her for the sake of protecting her, watching as he laps her father several times and making him practically blind to the incoming assault, senses bogged down by the lack of vision and reflexes not quick enough to catch the sensation of a woman being ripped from his arms—

 _He's rescuing the Doctor. He's clearing her range so she can_ —

She switches her arrows out just in time, releasing just as the spray of pebbles and dust are settling, signaling that both Wally and the Doctor are out of harm's way; she doesn't see if it even hits her father but she hears the blinking of the flash bomb on the end of it and manages to close her eyes at the sudden burst of light; releasing her second arrow she hears it collide with the edge of the roof and release another thick cloud of smog, no doubt blindingly black from the recent brightness…

She hears the swinging of his javelin and the sound of a boot sending stones spraying as he stumbles and trusts the Metropolis girl when she extracts a pointed tip from her quiver and fires into the darkness, rewarding her with a scream as she starts sprinting again, for some reason eager for a fight in a way she wasn't before—

The fog clears with the swing of a javelin and she feels a pang run through her stomach when she sees an arrow sticking out of a thigh—she's managed to wedge the pointed tip into the upper part of her father's left leg, dangerously close to an artery and even closer to where her scar from Metropolis would be on her own body. As if he's stunned by the wound or that she was the one who inflicted it Lawrence freezes, muscles tense and popping in his thigh as he looks down to the feathery green of her arrow tip, watching his own blood seep out of him in horror.

"… So it's like that, is it?" He snarls, looking up at her with eyes narrowed behind his mask. "You trying to kill your old man?" He screams at her, ignoring the arrow still sticking out of his leg and swinging his javelin up above his shoulder, charging almost lopsidedly towards her.

She's just about to move when she feels wind whip across her back, her own hair flipping in front of her face and blinding her; there's a half second where it's all she can do not to choke on the length of her pony tail, bow still raise defensively but not knowing where to fire—

She rips her hair off her face, both snarling and blanching when she sees the familiar blur of yellow and red in front of her—Wally's there, he's come back, he's… _He's being an idiot,_ attacking her father head on. Deliberately putting himself in danger, deliberately breaking his promise... In horror she watches, bow string taught and pointed arrow sitting against the notch on her finger, watching but unable to act as Wally hurls himself at Sportsmaster, grabbing weapons from slots and removing knives from holsters and somehow managing to avoid the slashing of the javelin through the air.

Her heart is beating so fast that she feels she might faint, bile threatening to spill out of her throat when suddenly— it's almost as if she can sense Wally's misstep as he plunges hard against the pebbles, ankle rolling and muscles not shifting quite right, or at least not in the perfect way she knows them too. Her father seems to notice how the uneven nature of the roof's terrain is bothering him, and as if it's what he's been waiting for he swings his javelin.

She hears the feral outcry again and for a moment her whole universe comes to a stand still; as if in slow motion she tricks herself into thinking she can see the fibers of his suit being torn apart, separating the padded portions of his shoulders from the clean Kevlar lines of his chest and slicing through skin and muscle and tendons and there's blood, there's blood spurting from the joint in his shoulder—

 _Wally's blood…_

He's moving too quickly for the wound to be deep but she can tell he's shocked by the pain; for a moment Wally stops running altogether, wincing and staring wide eyed at the proof of his mortality flowing from his veins.

She hears herself let out a feral scream: she doesn't sound like herself, sounds a ten-fold more feminine and dangerous as she cries out his name— _and it's his real name; not Baywatch or Kid or anything else either affectionate or sterile that could have crossed her lips. It's Wally._

 _It's always been Wally._

It all happens in less than half a second. Like an idiot Wally looks round at her, wide-eyed and shocked by her scream, and that's about all the hesitation her father needs; spinning his javelin in his fingers he looks at her, hard, as he goes in for the kill.

 _(And she's been right all along; her father would make her watch as he kills Wally, will make her watch as he bleeds out on the pavement…)_

"No!"

She doesn't hear herself let out a blood curdling scream in defiance but she does feel her fingers release her arrow; without meaning to she's let the Metropolis girl gain control again, but she has to, _she has to if they're going to survive—_

Her arrow moves much faster than her father's javelin, and he doesn't even have a moment to block it before it's reached him; flying underneath his outstretched weapon she watches, with a numbed satisfaction, as it pierces through the center of his free hand.

The momentum of the arrow yanks her father backwards and the instability of the other wound to his thigh sends him crashing to the ground— but it doesn't stop the spinning of his javelin. Wally cries out as the blunt end slaps him hard across his open wound, knocking him off balance and sending him crashing, head first into the concrete barrier bordering the rooftop.

Wally's bleeding and unmoving but the Metropolis girl doesn't have a thought to spare for him; Sportsmaster is rising, the arrow previously lodged in his thigh breaking off and the pointed head forced deeper inside him as rolls through the pebbled ground, coming to a skidding stop. She grabs another arrow and feels her stomach churn as she tries to put herself between her quarry and Wally, watching the horrified expression on Lawrence's face carefully as he stares at the center of his palm, split open and bleeding with her arrow poking out of either side.

"You're going to pay for this, Baby Girl." He snarls.

And she knows instantly that he intends to be true to his word; before she can even brace herself for what's coming she watches in horror as he snaps the feathered back of her arrow off and throws it furiously at the ground, wincing when he seizes the blood covered tip and yanks the splinted end through his palm. It's sickening to watch, so much so that for a moment she freezes, blind sided by the anger on his face, the fury on his features.

 _He's going to kill her this time._

She almost doesn't react when he throws the javelin, hurling the pointed metal at her heart; perhaps it's just from spending so much time with Wally, or maybe she's simply gotten faster in these past few months, but for once in her life she's able to dodge the attack, knees aching with the speed she ducks, the movement forcing the arrow notched on her finger to waver, slipping over her callouses— and stupidly she looks after the javelin, because it's falling, going for Wally, and she's relieved when she hears the crunching of metal submerging into the cement wall bordering the edges of the roof, twanging loudly but hitting too high up along it, missing his head by a foot—

Her father takes advantage of her moment of distraction, and when she gets the sense to look back towards him she's terrified at his closeness, and like an idiot she feels her arrow slip even further in her fright, hears it clatter uselessly onto the rocks at her feet, and she needs to reach for her quiver but her arms are frozen, she's frozen—

 _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck_ —

He's too close for her to swing round to hit him properly but she still tries; like she did so many weeks ago with Jade she winds back as if swinging a baseball bat, knowing before she even starts that it's useless— Lawrence is done toying with her, now things between them are more personal than ever, and it's unsurprising when her father catches the bow in his fist and sends it clattering several feet away.

There's something funny in the way he does it, or maybe she's so rigid with fear that her hands almost refuse to let the weapon _(her last hope)_ go, the movement so jarring that for a moment she gasps when she feels her arm crackling and slipping out of its socket, shoulder loose and unbound for a skin stretching, muscle aching moment; in her second of gasping and eyes watering Lawrence has a hold on her, slamming down hard on the joint of her shoulder and twisting her so her back is to him, beating between her shoulder blades until all her breath leaves her body, her muscles screaming with pain— suddenly she's not sure how or which muscles are giving out but she feels a sharpened pulsing at the center of her back and she's on all fours, the uneven edges of pebbles digging into her palms and knees—

She cries out again when he kicks her, as hard as he can in the stomach; there's a hatred to it, a bitterness, and she nearly vomits as the force of the movement knocks her a few feet sideways. She doesn't even get a moment of rest before he's back on her—twice more he kicks her, bruising several of her ribs and making it nearly impossible to move as he continues the assault, only laughing when bile bursts from her mouth and dribbles down her chin. One more kick and she cries out when her head collides with the cement of the wall bordering the building, scalp rubbing against the concrete and splitting open even further, blood bursting; in panic she forces her eyes open, unable to move, unable to scream out as she looks at Wally's unconscious body, looks at the blood still oozing from his shoulder…

She can't stop the tears that start blossoming in the corner of her eyes when her father crouches over her, hands seizing her hard by the shoulders and turning her to look him in the eye. _She's going to die. She's going to die._ "There." Lawrence sneers at her through his mask, and she thinks she can hear the smile in his voice as he watches a thick track of tears begin to leak out of the corner of her eyes, cutting clean lines in the grim coating her cheeks. "That should teach you to disobey your father."

She's so breathless and weak now that she can't resist his clambering on top of her, only a bitter swatch of rebellion bubbling out of her throat. "Fuck—" She starts to swear at him, not managing to get the words out before he slaps her hard across the cheek, nails scratching at her eyes and not even allowing her to finish before his hands are on her throat.

Lawrence sneers when she tries to gasp, back arching underneath him and hands clawing uselessly at his broad fingers. She can feel his blood seeping into her skin, staining her. "Language, young lady." He snarls, head quirking as she starts letting out pathetic sounding choking noises, grip so tight she can feel bruises blossoming like flowers along her neck. "So you haven't learnt your lesson… Maybe I need to change up my methods."

She can see his eyes shifting to Wally almost curiously and she can't stop herself from clawing at him more desperately, fingers slipping between his and managing to get enough leeway to speak. "—Don't…" She croaks out, the only air left in her body bursting out in an effort to save him.

 _(And she knows what's happening, Lawrence has trained her to recognize the symptoms of oxygen deprivation_ — _the victim panics, the lungs ache, spots appear in the corners of eyes... And her brain is moving slower and she's going under, and she has to fight against the strange surge of calm running through her, her fingers going slack and muscles beginning to melt into the rooftop_ —)

Just as she's about to slip into black his fingers release her, her brain nonfunctional and unaware of the desperate breaths her collapsed throat is trying to consume, mind lagging but terrified as her father looks at her, apparently displeased. "You're lucky I have bigger fish to fry than you and your little boyfriend, Baby Girl. But still…"

She's still gasping for breath when he grabs her by the throat again, maneuvering off her and lifting her by her neck as easily as if she were a rag doll; she can hear herself practically screaming as she fights for oxygen, legs trying and failing to kick out in an effort to get him off of her, hands still numb and attempting to claw her way out of whatever horror is coming next—

She nearly faints when he pins her upright against the wall, his hand releasing her throat but making it nearly impossible to draw in the breath she needs as he shoves a forearm against her clavicle; she can barely keep her eyes open as he grabs at her pony tail behind her head, yanking it so hard she's instantly forced to focus. She's slumped into a sitting position, muscles not working properly to hold her up and he's—he's tying her to something—

He's tying her hair around the end of his javelin.

It's meant to be humiliating, her weakness being put on display like that— imagining how the others will find her, pinned up like a trophy, sends a twang of heartache through her churning stomach. It's almost blindingly painful when she stops supporting her, her muscles not working and lungs demanding oxygen she can't give; all her weight is being yanked upwards by her hair which feels as if it's going to be ripped from her bleeding scalp at any moment, the rest of her body too weak and oxygen deprived to do anything other than sit there, useless. All she can do is look at her father and wait, wait for the worst—

Her father's too busy sneering at her to hear the shift in the air but she does; in the middle of her gasping she's registering the sound of voices, the sound of shouting—she can barely see around her father when he takes one of the last arrows from her quiver, pressing the point between his fingers as he takes a step back to look at his handiwork, apparently about to decide where he should carve his brutality into her again; she can barely hear anything above her own choking and battered throat, but somewhere in the back of her mind she recognizes the cackling of electricity, the humidity of water…

"... Now, who ever heard of a blind archer?" Her father muses, grinning when her pupils dilate with fear.

But before he can stick her arrow tip into her eye socket something happens— Lawrence cries out when Kaldur catches him off guard, a swirl of humming water slamming into his side and knocking him several feet away; beside her Wally's sprayed with an off shoot of water but doesn't wake. It's very hard for her to process what's just happened—vividly she can make out the snarling face of Kaldur as he runs into her line of vision, glancing at her once and not quite seeing her, head double taking and stride pausing in horror. "You are alright? You and Kid?" He calls, automatically changing course to free her. "Artemis?"

He's not paying attention, doesn't see what she can bursting out of the staircase behind him—Shadows, dozens of them, flooding onto the roof and calling for blood. Her voice isn't working, arms too weakened to wave out a warning; it's about the most difficult thing she's ever done, forcing her damaged throat to function again, forcing herself to scream. "Behind you!"

But the words come out warbled and intelligible, of no help at all; she has enough time to watch Kaldur turn to glare over his shoulder before all hell breaks loose on the roof—she can see Zatanna coming to their aid, maybe Dick too, but she's not sure— can hear weapons being drawn from places she can't see and smells the bitterness of gunpowder. In the blurriness of the moment she loses a sense of what's happening, bruised skin aching when she feels the back splash of helicopter blades taking flight in the evening air.

And she doesn't know why but her eyes find her father in the crowd; between bodies flying and water consuming everyone he's the one she spots first, despite her vision being black around the edges. She can't tell if it's her own stupidity or her lack of breath but it takes her several long seconds to realize what's happening as a ladder descends from the helicopter, what's happening as her father reaches for it, Kaldur and Zatanna and Dick too outnumbered to stop him—

 _Her father is going to get away_.

 _...No. Not this time. Never again._

It's too much work, trying to force herself to move— even the Metropolis girl can't do anything if she's stuck here, lifeless and defeated. Her hair is so long, he's wrapped it multiple times around the javelin, she doubts she'd even be able to untie it if she was in a right mind to do it. Stupidly she starts struggling against her own hair, a throaty cry sounding out when she yanks against the knot Lawrence has placed there, any movement only tightening its hold, increasing her slumping against the wall and making it nearly impossible to remain upright. "Wally!" She tries to hiss out, knowing full well he can't hear her, won't be able to help, her hand reaching helplessly towards where her bow is still lying several yards away.

She wants to beat her fists against the stone wall she's trapped against—once again her father's reduced her to a helpless little girl, made it impossible to stand up to him. More out of anger than anything she slams her head backwards, blinking hard at the pain and hoping it will help her focus, think her way out of this...

Her ears register something at the movement, the skin growing goose pimpled at the unfamiliar brushing sensation rustling at the back of her neck— she stares hard at her lap as golden threads fall from the sky, and when her shaking hand manages to maneuver onto her lap she it takes her several seconds to realize that her hair is falling out of her head, his knotting around the tiniest expanse of blade is slicing ribbons of her free, loosening the hold he has on her…

 _She won't be able to yank the javelin free of the cement, and nobody else has a moment to spare to help her..._

Experimentally she raises a hand, her fist barely managing to fit between the blade and the top of her head. As she seizes a fist full of hair and rubs it against the javelin she can feel it slicing into her skin, can feel the sensation of her blood dribbling down her fingers, down her neck, but she can also feel...

She doesn't pause to think about her hair, or how she's always loved it's length—this is survival and she's the Metropolis girl again, her own heart beat clanging in time with her hammering back against the wall, hands getting cut open as she slices herself free, ignoring all the shouting and the violence around her as she bangs her head backwards and forwards with the insistence of her sawing, nearly crying with the pain as she shreds her hair from her scalp, her elastic dropping from her locks and landing next to Wally in the pebbles—

Sportsmaster's just gotten into the helicopter when she finally breaks free—ignoring the sensation of hair skimming the bottom of her chin she breaks into a sprint towards her bow. The fight around her is beginning to die, most of the troops down and unconscious but a few remaining to stand and fight as the mission objective is fulfilled. And still she doesn't think, doesn't look back— _she's the Metropolis girl now, she doesn't have feelings or sentimentality, only calculation ramming at the front of her mind as she reaches into her quiver._

And nobody sees as she presses the tip of her arrow, alighting the tracker inside it. Nobody notices as she notches it against her finger and releases it into the night. Nobody watches it fly into the darkness and clang against the helicopter or sees the last pieces of her humanity leave her, disappear and chase after her father like always…

Nobody looks on, pauses even, as her bow slips from her fingers and lands on the roof top. Nobody watches as she crumbles to her knees beside it.

Nobody sees Artemis Crock raise a hand to the back of her head, nobody sees the blood pouring down her wrist. Nobody sees the tears that roll down her cheeks when she feels the uneven ends of what used to be flowing blonde hair, her fingers catching on exposed scalp and ragged pieces that barely reach her chin. Nobody sees her look back to stare at the golden knot still pinned to the cement wall, a souvenir of her father's cruelty.

For a moment, Artemis Crock doesn't exist in anyone's mind. Not even her own.

* * *

 **AN: There! I had a few of you anxiously waiting for this so hopefully that was worth the wait. Once again sorry for such a long break between updates** — **I'm doing Spring courses at my university and I had a paper due the same day I wanted to post this. On the bright side that class is over on the 16th so I'll be in full blown summer writing mode after that!**

 **Please Read and Review!**


	22. Through Our Window

**AN: Now that school's out this chapter marks my return to full time writing and the official start of summer! Enjoy the update.**

* * *

She doesn't know how long it takes for her to feel like she exists again.

The seconds seem to tick by in strange spurts, both as fast as the turning of a page in a book and as slow as the evenings she spent as a child, trapped in her apartment. Her heartbeat slaps against her skin and her hair keeps fluttering down from her scalp, looking like platinum leaves swaying from autumn branches. She feels dizzy, weightless, on all fours and digging her fingers into the ragged edges of the rooftop pebbles, as if afraid the world is about to flip and she'll be launched into the abyss of the evening sky. She's stopped breathing.

 _("You can't not breathe, Artemis." Wally tells her, nearly shaking her and trying to get her to come out of her panic. "Come on, do it with me_ — _in and out together, come on_ —")

She exhales, her breath steaming up in front of her face and stinging her eyes with its metallic scent; she's bitten the inside of her cheek raw and bloody without knowing it, and before she can even exhale again she's vomiting.

Her stomach has been empty for hours and there's nothing to bring up; nothing except that black flakey bile she so hates that clings to the damaged muscles of her throat, nothing except the blood pouring from the inside her cheek and dribbling down her chin. She tries to swallow and instead spits, sweating so much every seam of her uniform is slick, limbs shaking with the effort of holding herself upright.

 _(The easy thing would be to fall to pieces, to collapse under the weight of panic and shock weighing down on her. The easy thing would be to die_ —)

 _Focus._

 _Focus._

 _(And when the familiar tightness digs into her shoulder she thinks of talons, thinks of overlong fingernails that threaten to choke her if she disobeys. She can't lose it now. She can't drown in the horribleness of what's just happened. She can't, she can't_ — _)_

She can't. Not when Wally needs her.

She's hardly aware moving until she's stopped, the palms of her hands splitting open and the padding on her knees ripping as she crawls unsteadily through the jagged pebbles of the roof to reach Wally.

 _(Wally is infinitely more important than she is, infinitely better. And even though she feels like she's about to die she knows she can't, not yet, not until she's sure he's safe—)_

He's soaking wet when she reaches out a bloody hand to touch him, her thumb leaving a crimson mark on his mask when she pushes his fringe back; the spray Kaldur sent flying before has left his hair plastered to his head, uniform clinging to his skin, still sallow and nearly translucent in the half light. He hasn't moved from where he slammed his head into the cement border, arms still spread eagled and legs still bent, as if he's about to take off in a sprint again.

 _(And now more than ever she wants to_ — _needs to_ — _be held by him. She wants him to carry her places far away from the horribleness of tonight, far away from the nightmares that are sure to plague her when she falls asleep_ — _)_

It's childish, the way she tries to lift his arm, as if she can hide from the battle underneath it; it feels heavy and deadened in his unconsciousness and she's too weak to support it. "Kid." She tries to say, but her throat won't allow it; either from damage or shock she's lost her voice, mouth opening and only managing to croak the beginning letters before it trails off in a pathetic, almost mangled noise. "Kid." She tries again, no better. Her fingers leave blood behind on his uniform.

There's the sound of more fighting close by, her neck to sore to crane around and see who's winning anymore— the real fight is over anyway, her father got away. They lost. She failed. Her chin wobbles and the arm keeping her upright gives out, her shoulder cutting open as she collapses into the stones. " _Wally._ " She tries to say, voice breaking and stopping altogether before she can finish his name.

 _(She's only dismissed the battle of Metropolis a few times and now more than ever she doesn't believe herself, especially as she lies there looking at the pool of blood under his shoulder; lying beside him with the life drained out of her she realizes they'll always be running from that place, from the wreck of a person it created. It could be years from now and she will still see it's familiarity in the way they lie in bed beside each other, the way she can taste it in the blood scented air, in the few seconds she wakes from nightmares, unsure what she will see when she rolls over_ — _)_

Tears are still running down her cheeks and selfishly she keeps trying to wake him; he's better off under, better off in the comfort of the blanket of unconsciousness, but she's too cowardly to lie here alone— too weak, as always, to exist. When she reaches achingly for his hand he makes a grunting sort of noise in the back of his throat, head lifting to blink around blearily before his eyes close again. He doesn't respond when she wraps her fingers around his hand, exhaling with relief when she feels the reassuring thumping of his pulse beating back at her.

 _There it is._

 _She can die happy now,_ she tells herself, rolling onto her back and staring out at the stars. The blackened corners of her vision are seeping out in front of her. _As long as Wally's alive she can die happy._

 _("In and out together.")_

It can't be longer than ten minutes before she's awake again; the blood dribbling down the back of her neck has clotted and crusted over in the chill of the night and her limbs feels stiff, bruised and battered and locked tightly with sleep. "A-Artemis?" A very wet palm presses against her cheek and then her shoulder, as if unsure who they're looking at.

She tells herself that she doesn't belong to that name anymore, and can't bring herself to open her eyes.

"Babe?" There's the scuttling of pebbles and the wet hand is back, pressing against her shoulder and rolling her onto her back. "Artemis? Artemis?"

It's the panic in his voice that does it, and no matter how much she hates the name her father gave her she has to answer to it; when she blinks her eyes open Wally's leaning over her, eyes focused on the symbol across her breasts as if he can't identify her without it. "Hi." She tries to say, the word coming out hoarse and barely audible.

He's soaking wet and shivering from Kaldur's water, blood still spilling from his shoulder and leaking a steady crimson line down his chest. "Oh my god." He mutters, and she's a little startled to see tears in his eyes. "What— what happened?" He's still got a lipstick stain on his cheek and for some reason it makes her feel like laughing at him. "What happened to your hair?"

They get to the part she doesn't want to talk about, and instead of answering she closes her eyes.

* * *

She floats in and out of consciousness until the battle really ends, only half listening as people shuffle around them and make decisions. Wally prompts her into sitting up and pretends not to notice when she vomits bile all over herself again.

"Something's wrong." She hears Zatanna whisper in the darkness; it's so open on the roof top, even the smallest sounds creep up and echo against the cement. "... Look at Artemis."

It's the wrong time for her to be glaring blankly at her boots but she's too torn up to do anything else. It doesn't help that Wally's still staring blatantly at the shredded remains of her hair.

* * *

She's disoriented when they get to the hospital. Things happen in strange bursts of speed again: she sees the front desk, feels Wally's hand in hers. The lipstick print on his cheek and the lipstick stain on a coffee cup by the receptionist's keyboard don't match in color but mean the same thing to her, for some reason. Kaldur is worried and she can hear the dialing of the phone but she can't feel herself breathing— someone says her name and she forgets to look back and suddenly she's in the sterility of a cold hospital room, no idea how she got there.

Nurses materialize out of nowhere and she's forced behind a faded yellow curtain to be poked and prodded at; she's ignored when she tries to scream, ignored when she asks where her Team has gone, nurses telling her to be quiet when she tries and fails to shout Wally's name. _Something's wrong._ Zatanna's voice sounds in her head again and again, _Something's wrong, Something's wrong._

 _("Where's Wally?" She says the words out loud but that means nothing to these people; Wally West doesn't exist to them_ — _)_

Cornered behind the yellow curtain she feels just like she did last November— Wally's in trouble and hurt and she's been stupid enough to leave his side; she needs to find him, needs to make sure he's alive because suddenly she can't remember if his breathing on the rooftop was real or dream and she's scared, she's terrified—

 _(If Wally isn't alive she isn't either_ — _she can't live without him_ — _)_

One of the nurses— an older woman with kind eyes who reminds her of a softer Paula— sighs, a stray hand reaching up to double check the crisscrossed bobby pins behind her ear. "You need to calm down, dear." She tells her, as if it's an instruction. "You're in shock."

 _(A part of her feels repulsion at the words; she's a Crock_ — _they don't feel shock, they don't feel weakness. They know only resiliency and determination and adrenaline before they feel nothing, nothing at all_ — _)_

As much as she wants to follow the woman's orders she can't, swearing violently when they come at her with a hospital gown and practically spitting when they try to strip her; after several minutes of a very violent tantrum the Paula-like woman, who seems to be in charge of the rest of them, lets out another sigh and resigns to examining her through her uniform.

It's a waste of time and she tells them as much, and in the few minutes she can stand to sit still for them she rattles of her list of injuries as well as they do: head wound, concussion. Several bruised ribs and a pulled shoulder, palms and knees sliced open with rocks that need to be dug out, her left eye scratched and swollen. Angry purple bruises around her neck but only irritated vocal chords.

"Where's Kid Flash?" She finally manages to say, voice still scratchy sounding but at least functional.

She's ignored.

She's ignored again and again as she repeats the question; for some reason she latches onto the words, saying them over and over until she sounds like a parakeet, voice breaking and occasionally failing to work altogether. She says it to the nurses, to the ceiling tiles, to the speckles of blood and sick on her boots. She doesn't get an answer from any of them.

The softer version of Paula catches her muttering the question under her breath, her hands rubbing together and reopening wounds until there's blood trickling off her fingers. "... Evidence of psychological trauma." She says in an undertone to another nurse, reaching for the bandages.

She feels a lot less warmly towards Not-Paula after that.

By and large there's not a lot they can do for her— her ribs are only bruised and the rest of the wounds are too superficial to need anything other than a good cleaning, although her eye has begun to sting. She allows them to bandage her hands but for some reason starts laughing when they try to wrap her head in what can only be described as a turban of bandages; the second they leave the room she rips this from her head so violently that she nearly takes what's left of her hair with it.

Leaving the bloody turban behind she gets to her feet, not bothering to be discrete; she's leaving, she's going to find Wally, and like a hurricane ripping destruction through a landscape nothing in this world is going to stop her.

* * *

It's slow going, finding Wally; the hallway outside of her room seems mostly abandoned in the lateness of the hour, only a distant squeaking of sneakers against tile telling her that anyone is even in the building.

Parts of her are beginning to ache as adrenaline seeps out of her system, the shakiness and weakness of her muscles telling her that she'll be worse off, way worse off, tomorrow. The weaker part of her is tempted to turn back and return to the plushness of her hospital bed.

 _(Wally. Wally. Wally.)_

Now that the world is no longer as blurry with the overwhelming need for survival it occurs to her that she's been here before— there's something familiar about the light fixtures, the sickly peach of the walls. She pauses, hardly a foot outside her room, hand reaching out for balance to clutch at the door frame.

 _(And the memory hits her, harder than she knows is safe_ — _her fingers are cracked open and crusted in blisters and she's staring at her reflection. She's a mess of bitten lips and sallow skin and Wally is motionless in bed... The salty air of Metropolis is still clinging to her hair and even the sterility of bleach can't hide the lingering scent of vomit and death, and when her fingers press against the door frame she leaves blood smeared pieces of herself behind_ —)

It's the same hospital. They brought her to the same hospital.

And if she's being logical she knows there's a difference between this time and the last, that any old feelings lurching up like vomit in her throat are just the same memories she's been trying to outrun since February. She knows that wherever Wally is he isn't half dead, isn't lying helpless in the dirt with only a few muttered words between him and bleeding out on the pavement.

 _(But a part of her is afraid that if she doesn't double check, see for herself—)_

 _(It would be all her fault if he died. All her fault, all her fault—)_

 _(Worthless.)_

She only checks a few different rooms but it still takes nearly twenty minutes to find him, her ribs practically boiling with anger under her skin at all the movement; by the time she finds the room with the clip board bearing _Flash, Kid_ on it she feels as if her torso has received the same treatment as a slice of beef working its way through a meat tenderizer.

It's in her nature to hesitate but when she pauses outside of his door it's more out of habit than anything— a lingering half memory of when there were boundaries between them, when he was anything other than necessary for her survival, less to her than what he is now: the blood in her veins. A reason to live.

She shouldn't hesitate but she does— thinking only of Wally, of the comfort of his arms. Thinking only of how badly she wants to retreat into the darkness of his bedroom and hide beneath the covers, how badly she wants him and only him to clean her wounds, nurse her back to health, how she wants him to piece her back together because she's fallen apart again, she's been beaten and shattered just as much as she was at the age of ten and for the first time she's not sure she's strong enough to do her own mending.

She's exhausted, so tired, so broken that she can't manage anymore; she wants Wally to carry her to bed and tell her she's still beautiful even though _(and she hasn't looked at her own reflection, she can't cope with the deadened eyes in the mirror)_ she's sure her hair is now only inches long in some places, raw stretches of scalp exposed in others. She wants Wally to treat her like a child and promise her silly things that are simultaneously meaningless and worth the world and—

 _... Promises._

Her hand tightens on the doorknob as the memories from the battle flood back to her in the violent way they always do hours after a mission; suddenly she's hit by a stream of emotion so strong she actually feels waves of it washing over her, making her disoriented, dizzy, confused.

 _Wally had promised her he would listen._

 _Wally had promised he would try to be safe._

 _Wally had held her in his arms, looked her in the eye and swore that this time_ — _this time would be different from Metropolis. This time he wouldn't hurl himself like a human cannon ball, wouldn't sacrifice himself for her, wouldn't bleed out on the pavement and make her watch_ —

Suddenly her throat is burning with anger and her hands are tense under her bandages as she tightens her grip on the door frame. Wally had promised. He had sworn that to her, had sworn that small and stupid thing, and hadn't even bothered to pretend to keep it.

And she thinks of all the other times she's heard those words—

 _("You have nothing to worry about, Darling."_ Her mothers mutters into the end of her pig tail. She's ten years old and no matter how much she tells herself she's excited to finally be out with her parents she can't stop feeling nervous. _"Nothing will go wrong, Mommy and Daddy will be there. We'll have a cup of tea after, I promise_ — _")_

 _("... Don't be such a baby."_ Jade sneers at her, reaching out to wipe her tears. Her mother is gone and Lawrence reeks of liquor in the next room. _"Why are you crying, anyway? I'm still here."_

 _"And you're never going to leave?"_

Jade scoffs. " _Duh. Promise.")_

(Her arms ache as she fires again and against into the targets, trying not to let any relief cross her features as Lawrence calls for her to stop— if she shows any weakness he'll make her run the drill another time. _"We're going to make your sister sorry she ever left."_ He tells her, grasping her chin affectionately and sneering at her. _"That's a promise, Baby Girl."_ )

It's bullshit, it's all been bullshit— another lie told to manipulate her, trick her into thinking she's worth more than she is. The fact of the matter is that Wally broke his promise _(just like Paula, just like Jade, just like her goddamn father.)_ She feels foolish, like she's been played, tricked into thinking he was different from every other awful person she's ever met—

It's time she stopped pretending, stopped trying to be the girl worthy of being loved by Wally West, if he does even love her. She's never going to be that person, never going to be anything other than the broken, runty girl she's always been. She's never going to be anything other than worthless. Pathetic. Better off dead.

 _(She doesn't deserve to be happy.)_

And suddenly there's no difference between this time and the last, no difference between Athens and Metropolis. She's too exhausted for logic, too beyond function to talk herself down or argue with the claws digging into her, making her furious. Wally had broken his promise to her as easily as he would have anything else in the world— hadn't even given it a second thought, hadn't bothered to think of the weight of those words, what the mean to her, _what he means to her_ — he's a liar, a filthy liar, just like Jade and Lawrence and every other person she's been stupid enough to trust—

She throws the door open with a clatter, thinking that if Wally West isn't already dead he soon will be.

She imagines she must look quite wild, standing there with her tattered hair and bugging eyes, the door slamming open and colliding with the opposite wall; there's several people in the room, a team of hovering nurses and doctors that all jump at the noise she's making— she disregards them almost the second she catches sight of ginger hair.

She means to yell. She means to start screaming awful things at him.

Instead she hears him say her name, hears the mixture of relief and something else she can't identify as the sound bursts out across the room. Instead she watches him struggle to get out of bed, ignoring the prodding hands of nurses that are trying to talk him into being still. She hears forceful words about a sprained ankle and other injuries, she hears disapproving clicks. She opens her mouth to snarl something biting and for some reason can't manage more than a choked noise.

Wally crashes into her in a way that makes all her muscles scream out in pain but she can't bring herself to react, can't bring herself to do anything other than rock a few paces backwards with the impact. He's practically clawing at her the way he's wrapping his arms around her, fingers digging into her back and nails breaking her skin, as if he's afraid that pieces of her will dismantle and fall apart and she'll suddenly cease to exist in front of him—

And as badly as she wants to wrap her arms around him, as badly as she wants to curl her limbs around his neck, as badly as she wants to press her forehead into the blood smeared shallow of his neck she can't— she can't trust all this anger, all this wanting, all these thousands of emotions coursing through her.

Instead she stays stock still, hands clenched into fists at her side.

* * *

She glances at Wally in time to watch him shift his weight uneasily, uncomfortable with all the doctors hovering around them; it took a certain amount of coaxing for the nurses to get him to retreat back into the bed, a condition of which was her coming with him. Her hand feels clammy where his fingers are clenched around hers, the hospital bed feeling too small for the two of them.

 _(She doesn't want to sit beside him, be close to him. She can't trust herself or him—)_

"Blood isn't clotting." She hears a nurse mutter, inspecting the joint of Wally's shoulder and picking at the pieces of his tattered uniform sticking to the wound; almost the second she removes the kevlar a thick stream of blood spurts out from where it's being contained from the fabric, landing in thick drops on Wally's thigh.

Wally noticeably flinches, skin still ghostly pale like it had been when he had appeared in the fog. _It's_ _done something to him._ She thinks in a panic. _The fog's_ _thinned his blood, he's going to bleed forever_ —

Her hand tightens on his as the nurse— a younger woman this time— clamps a sterile looking cloth to his shoulder, trying to staunch the bleeding. "We'll have to go about cleaning it— digging out the rocks and such. And then it looks like you'll need stitches."

"Stitches?" Wally repeats in a weak sounding voice.

Something inside her stirs at the fear in his voice, some long forgotten instinct she's repressing in her anger with him; she wants so badly to comfort him but can't, can't bring herself to do anything except sit stock still beside him, glaring at the white tile on the floor. There's too much activity in the tiny hospital room, too many bodies sweating and breathing up all the oxygen, leaving her lungs to be filled with only Wally's scent that she both craves and hates now...

She can't stop the anger from rushing through her every time she thinks of his broken promise, and wishes her fingers were free from his.

One of Wally's legs— the one without the swollen ankle— is tapping anxiously against the floor, thrumming out a rhythm almost too fast for her ears to hear. More doctors bustle around them, gathering medical thread and ripping a wide hole in Wally's uniform to better expose the wound. Wally glances repeatedly at her, as if he can sense something is wrong, but neither of them acknowledge each other beyond the inexcusable affection he had thrown at her a few minutes before, not talking as invasive hands check him over.

 _(She can feel herself shutting down again, being consumed by the Metropolis girl and all her hatred again: Wally broke his promise. Wally broke his promise…)_

 _((And even worse, he had never intended to keep it in the first place.))_

She grits her teeth when Wally's grip tightens on her hand, gripping her so hard she can feel the blisters on her fingers throbbing; the Doctor brandishes a pair of tweezers and a needle and Wally screws up his face, head turning towards her.

"It's okay." She tries to say, throat only managing to croak out a rasping noise before she seals her lips shut.

 _(And for a moment they lock eyes, and she knows that he can sense it as well as she can— he can sense the presence of the Metropolis girl, the ghost of the snarling creature he met last August lurking, barely contained. And as well as he can sense that other girl she can sense him, sense his fear, sense the floorboards crumbling out under both their feet, giving way and throwing them into the flames—)_

"Don't leave." He mutters in an undertone, the tail end of the words cutting off with a gasp of pain. There's several seconds of tense silence and then the tweezers pull back, a tiny pebble twanging into a metal bowl on a table. By now the wound is so swollen and bloody she's sure any disturbing the muscles and tattered skin is going to cause terrible pain. "Stay. Please." He adds through gritted teeth, lips sealing shut.

And at first she does. She stays and she listens to the sound of pebbles being extracted and the needle sewing him up, listens to his torn flesh being worked back together and watches as the blood keeps pouring out between the gaps of the thread. The wound on his shoulder is deep, far deeper than she thought she saw in the heat of the battle; she stays and she watches as Wally's face flips between maroon and chalky, watches as he flashes at her like a warning light.

She manages until the noises come.

It's awful, her own specific brand of torture when she hears the noises Wally makes at the cold metal of the doctor's needle piercing nerves and muscle ligaments— it's as if every gasp or grunt or inhale is peeling pieces of her away, yanking her skin from her bone and only reminding her that she nearly got him killed tonight... If she had only been faster, hadn't screamed, hadn't made him lose his focus— _if he had only listened to her_ —

"Artemis." He gasps out once, her name on his lips sounding like the many other times he's said it; at once she can only think of sweat and languid kisses and the memory alone is suddenly tainted by all this pain.

Finally she can't take it anymore, hearing him try not to scream. "I can't." She mutters, fighting to get her hand back.

Wally calls her name, and like a coward she runs to hide in the quiet of the hallway.

* * *

She practically collapses into a chair outside the little room, throat aching as she draws in breath; even though she's out of ear shot she can still hear the noises pounding against the back of her mind, can feel panic creeping up her spine—

 _Don't be a baby._

 _Focus._

She sits there, breathing going haywire and head pressing painfully into her hands for what feels like too long before Rudy and Mary burst through the hospital doors; there's a considerable amount of shouting and confusion, so much noise that even she can't ignore it from inside her panic. Jerking her wet eyes from where they've been pressing painfully into her knuckles she gets to her feet. "He's in here!" She calls.

It takes a second for the both of them to place her— she realizes vaguely that she's still wearing the mask, the absence of her distinctive blonde pony tail no doubt throwing them for a moment. "He's in here." She repeats gesturing to the door across from her. "Kid Flash."

It takes a half moment for her voice— so raspy, unfamiliar to even her own ears— to register in their memories, Rudy for his part glancing down to the symbol on her breasts, moving to the spot on her belt where her bow is clipped. There's only the vaguest recognition. "Come on." He says to Mary, who's only now finding something recognizable in her eyes.

She doesn't blame them for hardly giving her a glance after she points them in the right direction—they look frantic, like parents who are half convinced that this time, this call, is the one where they discover they've lost their son. She wonders how many of these they've gotten before, how many they'll get again, and feeling overwhelmed with guilt and anger she lowers her head into her hands, trying not to cry.

She feels almost numb to the time passing, eyes glazed over and bloodshot as she sits, slumped, in the uncomfortable hospital chair; it's not until the door to Wally's room snaps open and she jerks out of a half sleep that she realizes nearly an hour has passed, maybe more judging by the soreness in her legs. Ignoring the pain she gets to her feet, barely recognizing Mary's face as she bursts into the hallway, her cheeks soaked with tears.

"How is he—" She starts to ask, the words dying in her throat as Wally's mother launches herself at her; there's a half second where she's overwhelmed, feels as if she's being choked by the sensation of arms circling her neck, tugging her closer until all she feels is chocolate curls brushing against her cheeks.

Mary takes a deep breath, lungs rattling slightly with phlegm. "He's fine, dear. It's alright." She winces at the feeling of her shoulders being squeezed so tightly—her own mother doesn't touch her like this, and in the face of the alien sensation she finds it just as strange as she does comforting.

It finally occurs to her that she should maybe hug the other woman back; her arms feel almost weighed down by lead as she raises them, not managing to produce more than a pathetic pat on the back before the older woman is pulling away. "That's great." She says mechanically.

The Metropolis girl wants to be released from this closeness, from this comfort, but Mary won't comply; instead she's trapped at an arm's length from Wally's mother, finding it very hard to look at her as tears keep running down her aging cheeks. "He didn't like the part with the stitches." Mary tries to laugh. "He never has—I remember once, when he was learning how to ride a bike… He was screaming his head off in the doctor's office." The older woman lets out a watery chuckle and in turn she tries to smile, her cheeks feeling waxy and teeth too pointed to do it properly.

"He's more worried about you, dear." Mary continues sweetly, squeezing her again. "... Wally's always looked forward to going to prom, with a date… I'm sure you looked lovely." She adds quickly, glancing once at the frayed ends of her hair that are sticking up with the beginning of forgotten curls. The older woman's smile falters. "Rudy and I are just so happy you're safe, from what Wally told us…"

There's a moment of sticky silence and she knows what's going to happen before Mary gets the courage to phrase it properly, her stomach sinking. "… He mentioned that your father was there?" The older woman blurts out, looking sorry for how she's putting it. "I thought you didn't see him much? Or is he another hero? Anyone we would know by their name?"

 _Wally told them about her father?_

 _... No. He wouldn't do that to her._

It's very difficult to breath, pieces of Mary reeking so much of Wally that she suddenly feels as if there's snow on the ground and she's admitting to the darkness of her past all over again; inhaling so sharply she nearly chokes she extracts herself from Wally's mother, feeling her face crumple into misery. "… Not another hero, no." She mutters, feeling shame burn hot at the back of her throat as her mind races into a panic.

 _Not again, not again..._

Like Wally, Mary seems to understand without her saying that this is difficult for her; she allows the older woman to pat her once on the cheek. "… It's alright, dear. He's probably just babbling, all the pain medication... We can talk about it later. How about we go in to see Wally, hm? He's been asking for you for the better part of an hour."

She doesn't nod but allows Mary to take her by the hand, trying not to drag her feet as the older women squeezes her fingers tightly the way her son had been doing before; she doesn't know why she's dreading seeing Wally, why the angry burning sensation in the pit of her stomach is both spurred on and quailed by the thought of him…

The air is odd in the tiny hospital room when they enter—it's not just that there's too many people inside it _(although there is; the air in the room feels almost sweltering with body heat and people hissing as they step on each other's toes, the room packed with Wally's family and her and a mess of doctors)_ it's that the energy is off—almost the second she walks in she can read the angry redness of both Wally and Rudy's ears, can tell by the way all the nurses are avoiding her eye as they enter, busying themselves with tending to Wally despite the fact that it's clear he would rather yell than sit still.

"... Hi." She croaks out when she sees him, not sure why she suddenly feels like crying. Mary helpfully prods her in the small of the back and like an idiot she takes a few steps towards the bed where he's sitting, stopping before she even gets close.

Wally tries to smile and doesn't quite manage it. "Hi."

The nurses wrapping gauze around Wally's shoulder seems to notice the angry silence, and almost tactfully she can see them picking up the pace; as if the rest of the doctors can sense the uneasiness she's suddenly aware of people filing past her, anxious to leave the cramped room.

Mary seems to notice the tension as much as she does, except the older woman is brave enough to act on it. "What's going on?" She asks very suddenly, eyes following the path Rudy's have marked, still glaring at her and his son across the room. "What's happened?"

"Nothing." Wally says shortly, turning his gaze to her as the last of the nurses file out, their rush towards the door forcing her a bit closer to him. "Where did you get off to?" He asks her, sounding annoyed when she stops a foot away from his bed.

It's about as much as Rudy can take, and before she can answer she's being talked over. "Did you know about this?" He bursts out gesturing wildly at the two of them and snarling at Mary so loudly that the last nurse leaving jumps in surprise, the door clattering shut behind her.

In answer his wife looks at the two of them, nonplussed. "About Artemis and Wally?" She says confusedly, looking a little blank. "Of course dear—we had her over for dinner—"

"Not that." Rudy waves her off, the movement of his hand so violent that for a moment Mary flinches, as if expecting to be hit. In the corner of her eye she can see Wally's hand tighten around the starchy hospital sheets. "About her! Did you know about her?"

Almost instantly her head wheels back to Wally, looking at him angrily. "You told them?" She bursts out, practically spitting.

"—They're my parents, Artemis." He mutters, glaring and not looking sorry about it. "I'm under eighteen, League requires it if I end up in a hospital—"

"League also says that I'm entitled to a secret identity if I want it, Wally—"

"What about Artemis?" Mary cuts across their bickering, voice hardly snarling like Rudy's but somehow commanding more attention in the room.

She opens her mouth but finds suddenly that her throat is too dry to speak; Mary gives her several seconds to pull herself together, and when it becomes obvious she's not capable of doing anything other than glare at her feet the older woman tries again. "Artemis? Is there something you need to tell us?"

Before she can even gather the nerve to try opening her mouth again Rudy's speaking for her, gesturing at her wildly across the room. "Yes, anything you'd like to mention? How about you start with the fact that your father is the monster that did this to my son—" He snarls at her.

" _Dad_." Wally cuts across him, looking just as furiously back; once again she's caught off guard by how similar the two of them look when they're angry. "I'm fine—"

Mary manages to silence the room again, raising a hand to quiet her son. "I—" She starts, and she feels her heart sink into her stomach at the look on the older woman's face. "I don't understand, dear. I thought you never saw your father?"

She senses the movement when Wally tries to take her hand again, _as if he can somehow fix this by being supportive_ , and instinctively she moves away from him. She won't be able to get through this without crying unless she acts tougher than she is—still, it doesn't stop her from wishing there was a computer screen or a keyboard for her to hide behind like all those months ago. "I don't." She manages to get out, glaring at the floor. "See much of him much, I mean. The only time I— _my father is Sportsmaster_. One of the villains who escaped during that mass break out last month."

She allows Mary several seconds to get over the initial shock before she raises her eyes from the floor; she's expecting horror, anger, at the very least surprise, nothing like the politely muddled expression the older woman is wearing before her mouth splits into an understanding smile. "… Oh. Well—Well, then you're just proof, aren't you, the apple _can_ fall far from the tree." She says kindly, walking across the room until she's a clean foot away from her. This time she doesn't quite manage not to flinch when the older woman takes both her hands in hers, trying to chuckle. "Really, it's not as if you come from a whole family of— _of bad apples_ …"

She notices Rudy's seething over Mary's shoulder and forces herself to pull her hands away, trying not to feel heartbroken when the other woman's face falls. "… That's the thing, actually. I… I'm kind of…" She loses her nerve again. "Everyone in my family has been… _A bad apple_ , at one point or another. Even me." She admits.

Wally's not expecting that last part and she doesn't spare a glance over her shoulder at the noise he makes in the back of his throat; Mary for her part remains quiet before Rudy's pouncing on them again, charging across the room and ripping his wife behind him. "I've had enough of this." He snarls out. "Get away from her, Mary—"

"Now Rudy—"

"Enough!" He snarls out, the hospital room now so quiet that she can hear her own humiliation burning and bubbling at the back of her throat. "I warned you to stay away from my son, young lady, the first time you set foot in my house, I— And now look at him! Bleeding through his damn uniform and being stitched back together in a hospital room—"

"Dad—" Wally starts, shifting in his bed and looking as if he's about to charge across the room. " _If Artemis wasn't there I'd be dead right now—"_

"And whose fault would that be?" Rudy counters, moustache bristling. "That damned father of hers—Sports-whatever… Probably ordered her to finish you off in your sleep—" As if something's just occurring to him Rudy turns a spectacular maroon, his cheeks firing far darker than any shade she's ever seen plastering against Wally's. " _Get away from my son!"_ He hollers, charging at her.

He isn't trained the way is, getting distracted by the uproar that seems to burst out almost immediately when he makes a move to hit her; instantly Wally's shouting from his bed and Mary is screaming after her husband, several hospital staff whirring into the room at the sound of all the commotion. Before his fist can make it closer than beside her shoulder she acts without thinking, ducking under the blow and smacking it off balance, sending the whole of Rudy's impressive weight into his forearm as she grinds his bone against the wall.

It all happens quickly; in a matter of seconds she feels hospital staff prying her hand off Rudy, feels herself being steered to the opposite end of the room. Rudy keeps swearing every few seconds, hand clutching his wrist and glaring at the bright red mark she's left there.

"It's fine." She snarls when Mary tries to apologize, the older woman's cheeks going crimson as she shrugs out from underneath the comforting hand she's trying to place on her shoulder.

There's more hospital staff rushing into the room, now trying to subdue Wally and Rudy, who are both spitting swears at each other and fighting to whack each other about the ears; she can feel herself blushing a furious red as Wally makes to swing with his bad arm, upsetting his stitches and sending a fresh wave of blood coating his bandages.

When she moves to storm out of the hospital room she doesn't make it far; she's hardly even out of the room before Wally's stepping on her heels, swatting away his parents and nurses who are trying to reel him back into bed. "He didn't mean it, Artemis." He's saying hurriedly.

"Of course he didn't." She snarls sarcastically, ignoring the shocked look a nurse sends her as she hurries past. "Just like he doesn't mean it when he hits your mom. It's just another one of his _quirks_ —"

"How did you know about that?" Wally asks in a rough sounding voice; for once he's struggling to keep up with her, his rolled ankle not up to his usual speed.

Taking pity on him she whips back, ribs aching. "Does it matter?" She spits savagely, ignoring the nagging memory of her conversation with Connor thrumming against the back of her mind, her eyes flickering back and forth between his.

"... No." Wally admits after a moment, ears going off. "... Are you okay?" He asks very suddenly.

She snorts. "Yeah, Wally. _I'm great_."

His ears glow brilliantly at her sarcasm, frowning as he struggles to read her expression. "... Look, I've said it a thousand times, he's an asshole, okay? It's been a long night, we've all been through a lot... It doesn't have anything to do with you."

He says it as if this somehow makes things better, as if she wasn't just humiliated and as if he wasn't the one who put her through it. "Okay." She nods angrily, turning to walk away.

He grunts when he moves to cut in front of her, ankle no doubt twanging as he prevents her from going any further. "Okay, what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know!" She bursts out, hating that her voice rasps and breaks with exhaustion. "I just— _I can't deal with this right now, Wally._ I can't— my Dad just tried to kill you, your parents know that I'm basically vermin, and your dad just tried to—"

"So what, you're just going to leave?" He snarls out, interrupting her. "I'm stuck in a hospital and you get to disappear on me? Again?"

She can feel her cheeks blotching. "I'm not disappearing— God, I just..." She's so furious she's finding it difficult to put anything into words, the fact that heads are beginning to pop out of doorways and peer curiously at their fighting not helping in the slightest. "I'm not doing this here." She says finally, seething.

"Doing what here?" Wally bursts out, sounding alarmed.

She doesn't answer, instead ducking around him in a way that makes her ribs ache. "Get your shoulder fixed. Meet me at the Cave when you're done."

"Meet you at the—"

She interrupts the beginning of his snarling, too furious to let him finish. "Your shoulder, _Baywatch_." She hisses, not looking back at him as she stomps away.

* * *

Almost the second she materializes in the Cave it occurs to her how much she doesn't want to be there; already she's regretting agreeing to meet Wally here, regretting thinking that she'd be capable of talking about... Talking to him at all, after everything that's already happened tonight. Her mind is buzzing too much, she's unfocused—

Vaguely she considers turning back, considers simply running away from the disaster of an evening; the thought isn't even fully formed in her mind before a nasty voice scratches at the back of her skull: _it's not like she has anywhere else to go._

 _(Her apartment? Paula will be there, will ask questions._

 _Oliver's place? She's never been, and even if she managed to find her way he's never been one to let things sit unanswered..._

 _Jade's apartment? She knows the approximate location, thanks to her run in with Red all those weeks ago... But going there is a death sentence, practically asking to have a sai thrown into her throat...)_

Her muscles are tense, feet tottering and shifting back and forth on the tile, mind racing and debating what her next move will be. She could use the zeta tubes again, go somewhere else—she knows instantly it's a no go, even if she had another place to run off to. While Team members may not be able to see the last coordinates a public zeta tube is programmed to she knows the one at the Cave is designed to lock on the last known location, simply for the sake of convenience come mission time; should she try to go somewhere else Wally will surely be smart enough to check and follow without hesitation.

 _("Look at it this way... Even if I do run away, you can always catch up.")_

Resolutely she turns her back on the zeta tubes and starts moving, hating the sensation of being still.

She'll have to stay here, have to simply wait for whatever is coming for her. Instantly her stomach sinks at the thought; a larger part of her—the one that keeps repeating Rudy's words, snarling them at the back of her mind and scratching them into her skin until blood is drawn for ink— is arranging pieces, replaying the night over and over again. It isn't just that Wally broke his promise, that he disregarded the one thing she was sure would keep him alive.

 _It's that he betrayed her, just like everyone else._

Her stomach tightens. Standing here and waiting for it isn't an option.

Childishly she considers hiding, her eyes roaming the kitchen as she passes through it; she's sure the Cave has its fair share of nooks and crannys, and even though Wally may know its layout better than her—or at least she assumes, he's spent more time here than she has—there has to be at least one place he hasn't found. This idea isn't appealing either, and absently she slinks through the common area, head turning automatically to look out her and Wally's window, wondering if she can run far enough along the beach for it to turn into anything worth going towards…

She pulls her eyes into focus, no longer looking out into the distance and instead staring almost shocked at her own reflection. She doesn't recognize the girl she's looking at, and a little stupidly she glances back over her shoulder, wondering vaguely if there's somebody else behind her.

She's still squinting at her reflection when she finishes crossing the room—the girl looking back at her looks entirely unknown, a stranger with her mother's lips. She looks once over the injuries, scowling when her mirror raises a hand self-consciously to her hair, feeling the uneven and haggard ends that in some places brush the tops of her breasts and in others don't bristle out much further than her scalp. The girl bouncing off the window is not pretty.

She doesn't know why but she watches as her expression goes sour; hating herself and her reflection she feels her face screw up against the emotion rising inside of her, her teeth grinding together and a pathetic sob sounding strangled as it comes out of her throat.

 _(The girl Wally fell in love with is gone.)_

She wants very badly to shatter herself, to start drawing arrows from her quiver and fire them at her and Wally's window until it doesn't exist anymore, until she doesn't exist anymore—she hates herself, she hates her reflection, she—

The wrinkle pops up over her nose when she tries to hold another sob in, there's a very sudden tightening in her chest, a kind of pain that feels old, familiar in how it unsettles her.

She's back. Really and truly back.

She realizes it as she starts biting hard at the inside of her cheek, her breath beginning to come in short and the buzzing that's been only teasing the back of her mind beginning to hum, low and furious like a swarm of wasps, stinging the edges of her vision. It's time she faced the truth:

The Metropolis Girl is back.

Or maybe she never left, not really; maybe she simply shoved her in one of those boxes that couldn't fit Wally, the ones where she puts the things she needs to survive but is afraid of. But she's out again, she had no choice but to bring her out the second she was threatened, the second Sportsmaster turned his gaze to Wally and marked him as a target.

And it had been foolish to put her away in the first place, she sees that now. Childish, to think that something as stupid and frivolous as love could be enough, could protect her. She owes her life to the Metropolis girl, who she realizes now has been alive much longer than simply the battle in Metropolis. She's been the one shoving aside her human instinct, pushing all those emotional impulses and affections away. She's been the one keeping her alive since Jade left, she's—she's everything Jade taught her, everything her older sister did for her to keep her alive after Paula was taken away. She was the thing that protected her from Lawrence, from her own taste of hell that painted over the peeling wallpaper in the apartment…

The Metropolis girl. That's who she's been all along, save for these few months of madness with Wally. She hasn't been Artemis since she was ten years old, since she last had the protection of her older sister. And she had needed to be the Metropolis girl because of Lawrence—and that's why the Metropolis girl had kept her alive, that's why she's been so furious at being boxed up all these months.

The Metropolis girl was created by Lawrence, made lethal by Jade, and she'll be the one to set everything right. She'll be the one to destroy her father, to bring Jade home, to protect her mother... And nothing, not even Wally, is enough to stop that.

... And that's what it comes down to, isn't it? If she wants to fall in love she has to be Artemis. If she wants revenge...

But maybe it isn't about revenge. Maybe it's about finally living, maybe it's about breaking free of the chains her father fastened around her, maybe it's about eliminating the source of all her pain and suffering— Artemis can be the one to live, later, when the time is right. The Metropolis girl can be the one to murder—

But she can't do that with Wally by her side. She can't expose him to that, can't hold him so close to the line of fire.

... No. He needs to be out of the picture. He needs to be safe.

It's confusing, trying to think this way with her head so full of emotion, logical thought drowned out by the buzzing in her temples and the exhaustion in her limbs. But it's clear to her now, clearer than it's been in a while at least—unaware of her heavy breathing she stares at herself in the glass, finally recognizing the slightly deranged girl that's there. She can't be both at the same time—she can't be Artemis and the other girl. Artemis is soft, Artemis shows mercy… Artemis loves Wally, and it occurs to her how troublesome his existence is suddenly. He loves both these girls, has managed to tame one to form the other. He's a problem, her one weakness, the one thing between her and the death of her father and—

 _(And what?_

 _She kills him and Jade comes home? Paula gets her legs back?_

 _No. But the score is settled at least.)_

And she read the words once, telling her that if she loves someone to set them free and it makes so much sense to her now— _she's not supposed to be with Wally_. She's been blinded these past few months with her own selfish human impulses, forgotten how repulsive she is, how horrible, how truly despicable she is in comparison to him. If she loves him she should make him leave, not because it's safer, or better, or the right thing to do _(but it is, it is, it is.)_ She should let him go because she isn't human enough to have a life with him— and how can she be? As long as Lawrence still breathes she'll never be more than lost inside her own head and trapped in the stuffiness of the apartment. She should set Wally free because it's in his nature to be so, it's how it has to be—he can run and be as wild as the wind that used to catch in the length of her hair but it's not fair, it's not fair to make him keep coming back to someone stuck in shackles. In chains.

 _(And tonight has been proof of it_ — _the Metropolis girl can control herself but she can't control Wally. Can't control love. And if she can't manipulate him, destroy him the way she's destroyed herself, then there's no purpose to it. None at all.)_

Her thinking slows for half a second and she has enough time to register the low and unbearable heartache in her chest before the feeling is promptly cut off. She can't afford to be upset, can't afford to be weak. She can't afford to be Artemis, because being Artemis means ruining Wally and even the other girl can't stand the thought of breaking him like that.

It's settled. The Metropolis girl is her load to bear.

And hers alone.

* * *

She nearly jumps when she hears the whirring of the zeta tubes; her mind has been racing so rapidly inside her head it's difficult to tell how long she's been standing there, staring at herself. Stupidly her first instinct is to run, all her muscles fighting her mind to move, and she realizes she isn't entirely in control anymore—

 _Artemis is a born runner. But the Metropolis girl…_

She stands still, rigid in the half light. So this will be Artemis' last act: ending it with Wally. Fitting. The other girl was always awful with feelings anyway.

If she's being honest she knows the right thing to do is end things now. Before they get worse.

 _(Before she hurts him even more than a flesh wound to the shoulder, before the next time he pays the price for loving her with a bigger piece of himself getting carved out by her father, before a javelin point is slicing through the tendons of fingers or the marrow between his joints, before she gets him killed because she wasn't strong enough to keep her distance—_ _)_

 _And in the end, nothing has changed. It may as well be the New Year all over again for all the progress she's made._

It takes all the courage she has not to run, all her strength not to betray herself with anything other than a shaky breath and a quivering chin. She remains stick still, facing out towards the window and trying as hard as she can to stare at only the stars and not the reflection of what's happening behind her; she can see the familiar golden light barely leaking into the kitchen, the hum of molecules coming back to themselves. A part of her nearly turns around _(nearly goes running to him, nearly changes her mind, nearly breaks down)_ when she senses her favorite shade of auburn hair come back into existence.

 _Focus_ , the buzzing in the back of her mind seems to tell her. And like a fool she trusts it, because this is the buzzing that's kept her alive for fifteen years. This buzzing has been the only thing she could count on.

He makes a funny turn when he gets past the kitchen, as if to start off towards her bedroom, before he seems to realize she's standing there; she suspects the light above the island is enough to illuminate a few parts of her—maybe a few tangled shards of her hair, she thinks bitterly. Regardless of how he sees her he still stops, a mess of taut muscle and ragged lines of his torn uniform, one arm being held a little awkwardly as if aware of his injury.

She blinks her eyes closed when he makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat, so quiet yet so loud in the nothingness between them; she finds she can't even stand to look at his reflection anymore when he lets a few words fire out across the room, sounding a mixture of angry and annoyed. "... You said you wanted to talk?" He scowls, a faint edge of suspicion tailing the ends of the words.

She watches his reflection for a moment, studying the hum of unasked questions that seem to hover in the air around him. She finds she doesn't really know how to go about answering any of them—Why is she angry with him? Why couldn't she stand to be alone with him in the hospital? Why did she attack his father? Why did she leave?

Her throat burns as if her father's hands are still clutched around it.

Artemis isn't strong enough to do this, to throw away the only person who's been an unfailing source of comfort so long—she can't imagine a life without Wally, without the steadiness of his arms or the predictability of his scent… But she has to, if she's going to protect him she's going to have to be strong enough—

Something must break on her face, something large and painful enough not to be dulled by the muted reflection off their window's glass; she manages to hold herself together long enough to watch the anger on his face falter before she's back to screwing her eyes shut, leaning forward until her forehead bangs loudly against the glass. "… Artemis?" She hears him repeat, sounding wary, as if he thinks this is a trick.

She's not aware of the fact that she's started repeating the motion, not aware of the fact that she's started sobbing until he's suddenly pulling her back, a bruise rapidly swelling on her forehead and a disgusting mixture of mucus and tears dripping off her chin. She doesn't know why she fights him on it when he tries to pull her closer, why she wants to keep hurting herself, why she wants to go burling through their window and feel the pain of glass ripping through her skin—all she knows is that even though she has to she doesn't want to be the Metropolis girl, not when the one comfort she won't allow is so close, not when it would be so much easier to send broken glass scattering and maybe, just maybe, put herself out of her own misery.

 _It would be easier to put a gun to her head and end her life than to look Wally in the eye and end things with him._

She doesn't realize he's been saying her name until he stops, his voice dropping down to a whisper so quiet she can hardly hear it above the desperate sounding sobs that are coming out of her own mouth. She stops fighting against the too-solid arms that are encased around her and instead turns her head towards the hollow of his chest, trying to at least half listen to the words of comfort that are coming out of his mouth. "It's okay." He tells her, even though it isn't. His heart is pounding under her ear, a reminder that as long as she loves him those beats are limited, being hunted down by her father... "Artemis—calm down— I'm here."

 _I'm here._

 _I'm here._

 _I'm here._

 _(Until he isn't anymore…)_

The last thing he says sends a new wave of despair through her, one long and drawn out sob escaping her mouth before she silences her crying altogether, any noise of desperation or sadness hitting the curled in ends of her lips and escaping only through the tremors now knocking through her limbs. Wally doesn't realize what's about to happen yet, he still thinks she's Artemis. He doesn't know that she's not really in control, it's the other girl—

 _(And for a second she wonders—does the Metropolis girl love Wally? Yes, she has to. But it's a different kind of love, an all-consuming kind of love…_

 _Artemis loves Wally for his softness. For the warmth he rubs into her joints, how tender he can be with her when she's knows little more than abuse. She loves him for the feelings he brings out in her, how he can make falling in love both frightening and exciting and the best adventure she's ever been on—_

 _But the Metropolis girl… She loves Wally for the sole fact that Artemis cannot survive without him, cannot function without his existence. He is a tool to be manipulated, a motivation for her twisted mind to keep her weather-beaten body going when she's close to giving up. She loves him like an object, a prize, the symbol of an unmarked life, of betterment, of status. She loves him like a hunter loves their trophy—affectionately, but still with the full knowledge that to put him up on the mantle she had to hollow out his insides—)_

Wally manages to force her out of the safety of his chest, hands taking her gently by the shoulders and holding her at an arm's length, only wincing in the slightest when his muscles strain against their stitching. For a moment she can still see the anger in his eyes, can see his weariness at the no-longer fun game she just can't break the habit of playing, but almost the second she registers them all those emotions vanish, being replaced by something softer, more concerned. Instantly she can tell it's because she must look like a real wreck of a person, her eyes puffy through the holes of her mask and uneven hair frizzing out like a lion's mane, lips still sealed up and lungs barely managing to take in any oxygen.

In typical Wally fashion he tries to smile at her. It's a poor substitution for the crooked, freckled grin she adores. "Breathe." He reminds her just as she realizes she's been staring too hard at the triangle bottom of his mask— _t_ _he lipstick smudge is gone_. "Let's… How about we get your hair out of your face, okay?"

She keeps staring at his mask, memorizing which freckles are visible and which are hidden as he fumbles for a moment with his wrist; he must have plucked up her elastic from the battle field, must have managed to keep it securely around his wrist the whole way from Athens to the Cave. The idea strangely settles her, makes her feel more grounded, and she hears herself suck in a rattling breath through her mouth.

She doubts even she would be able to force her hair into a decent pony tail now—the ends are too frayed, too short in some places and overlong in others. Still, she doesn't say anything, just watches Wally's face in silence as he struggles, trying to recall small details she won't remember later, after what needs to be done is done. She thinks of the crinkles around his eyes that deepen when he smiles. The triangle of freckles below his left eye. The stubble on his chin that always appears in patches. She blinks, looking at his nose and studying the lingering sunburn. Could that really have only been weeks ago? Just a few weeks ago when she had tricked herself into believing in forever?

 _Just this morning she had thought she was in love._

Wally curses under his breath as her hair refuses to cooperate and she finally manages to speak; her words sound ragged and she wonders if it's her own emotion or her father's hands that are to blame. "… You broke your promise." She tells him. Or at least she tries to tell him; her voice breaks and turns nearly indistinguishable as another sob racks through her. The trembling is starting again.

Wally's hands fall from her hair, unsuccessful, and slip the elastic back onto his wrist. She hates that it's there, a souvenir of the worst night of her life. "… I know." He says quietly, looking defeated. The shame in his voice isn't enough to quail the anger burning inside her, and this time when he reaches to comfort her she takes a step back— she can tell by the look on his face that this hurts more than anything she can think to say. "… Is that why you left me behind?"

"Yes." She says defiantly, even though it's not the whole truth. _It's why Artemis ran, but it isn't why the Metropolis girl did._

Wally pauses, eyes narrowed and scrutinizing. She knows he can tell she's not quite right in the head anymore. "… Was it because of my dad?"

 _("Was it because you couldn't stand the truth?")_

She doesn't want to deem this with a response. "No." She can still hear Rudy's words ringing inside her ears, the disgust as he had found out what she was seeming to slap, permanently painful, against her memory. "... Not like he said anything I didn't already know."

For some reason her eyes start stinging again and more to avoid his penetrating gaze she wipes her nose loudly on her forearm, nearly missing what he says next. "… Was it because of yours?"

Her hand drops obviously and for a long time they look at each other; it feels just like it used to months ago, those sparse moments when they would lock eyes and glare, silently battling each other… It's one of their classic stale mates, both of them unwilling to compromise or admit to anything. Even if they've outgrown all their other games they never truly outgrew hating each other.

 _(And she knows what he's really asking: "Did you run because you were afraid of your father? Afraid of what he did? Are you still a coward, hiding under the blankets from your dad the same way you did as a little girl? Are you ever going to grow up and stop letting him control you?")_

There's a bitter taste in her mouth when she's the first one to look away—it feels like she's admitting something, some kind of shameful secret he isn't to be trusted with. "… You promised me you wouldn't leave my side." She says quietly, trying to force herself to be as angry as possible. "You promised me you'd stay safe, and that you'd listen to me." She hesitates, and feels a burst of fury through the numbness. "… You're a liar, just like everyone else."

Wally hardly moves as she says this, only blinks once as the last part slaps him across the face, her breath no doubt reeking of hatred and spite. "… Everyone lies, Artemis." He finally says back, and she can see his expression beginning to harden again, no longer indulging the girl at the window. "Stupid to pretend otherwise. How many other deals do you have with Kaldur behind my back, huh—"

"That's different." She snarls out.

It's not really a confession to anything but Wally seems to take it that way; before she can think to move back he's less than a foot away, getting both her wrists in a death grip, forcing her to stay close as he starts talking, voice so low and dangerous it scares her. "Everyone lies." He repeats. "They do, okay? And I've never lied to you unless I had to. What was I supposed to do tonight? Tell you I would be a good little boy? Tell you I would wait on the Bioship for you to finish?"

"You could have stayed behind."

She flinches when Wally throws her hands back. "... You know I couldn't have done that. You know that." He snarls.

They're both breathing so hard in each other's faces that the window is beginning to steam; letting out an annoyed hiss she watches as he cranes his neck backwards, looking as if he's asking a higher power for patience. "... _You should have stayed behind._ " She mutters.

"Yeah, well." He huffs out, finally glaring at her again. "I didn't. It happened. Deal with it."

There's too many emotions thrashing in the space between them, so many unsaid thoughts and half phrased arguments pummeling inside her head that's she's beginning to lose focus, beginning to forget why she's angry. Maybe she was wrong, maybe tonight is the wrong night for this conversation. Maybe she's better off doing this with a good night's sleep, when she can actually think about her words instead of just blurting out the first thing that comes to her mind.

"... I'm going to bed." She tells him.

She wants to run away before he can touch her but suddenly his hand has caught her about the elbow, pulling her back until she's flush against his chest. "Don't leave like that." He says lowly— not quite angry but not quite anything else, eyes flickering between hers. "... Come on. What happened tonight— your dad, my dad— It doesn't change a thing, Artemis." _And all she can think is that she's not Artemis, not anymore_. "Tonight was just tonight. A bad night, a bad mission. Everything's the same between us, okay?"

 _Her heart breaks when she hears the desperation underneath his words._

"Not for me." She tries to say angrily, arms aching as she tries to push him off of her; instead she sounds exhausted, defeated, hardly moving in his grip.

"… What's that supposed to mean?"

It's supposed to be snarling but he's let a bit too much emotion slip through it, an edge of disbelief and curiosity. The words send a dull twisting through her stomach—he genuinely doesn't know what's about to happen next. "I—" She starts, losing any resolution when she makes the mistake of looking into his eyes again, nearly biting her lip as she gets lost for a moment in the confused wrinkles forming around the lines of his mask. "... You know what it means, Wally." She says lamely, finally taking a step back.

Wally stares at her as his hands fall back to his side; without wanting to she's back on the Bioship all those months ago, and he's bare faced and his eyes are locked on hers, trying to read the expression behind her mask. It's very difficult to shove all those old feelings aside, all the distant memories of people they used to be before tonight broke them.

They must stand there in silence for nearly a minute before his throat bobs, voice sounding rough. "... Say it."

It's a command, and even though her mouth opens to obey it she can't.

He glares at her, fingers clenching into fists at his sides when she closes her mouth, lips sealing together as she scowls at her feet. "Say it." He repeats, not even hesitating before he's hurling more words at her, voice getting louder. "Say it!" He snarls. "Tell me you want to end things."

She can't. "I don't have to." She gets out after a moment, voice breaking. Whatever fight is in her has slipped between her cracks and is collecting in a puddle on the floor. "You just did it for me."

It's about the best that she can do; there are still tears cutting tracks in the grime on her mask but she refuses to start sobbing in front of him again, refuses to allow herself to be comforted a second time—she knows full well that if she lets him touch her like that again she won't be able to leave, not really.

She's hardly turned away from him before his hand is shooting out, yanking her by the elbow and trying to get her to turn back towards him; although he stops her from leaving she refuses to face him again, all her muscles growing ridged and tense at the feeling of his gloved fingers touching her skin. "So that's it?" He snarls, fingers shaking as they clench her. "I break one lousy promise and suddenly I'm out? It's just that easy for you?"

She rips her elbow so hard out of his grasp that she can practically feel his nails clawing at her, not leaving a mark but still burning on her skin. "Yeah." She spits out, feeling spiteful as she turns to glare at him for the last time. "Yeah, Wally. This is easy. You figured me out."

It's not the time for sarcasm and Wally goes still when she says it, redness leaking down from his ears and appearing in blotches below the lines of his mask. She wants to move, wants to run and hide in her bedroom, but something in the small of her back keeps her still—maybe some larger instinct is keeping there, can sense that things aren't over, not quite yet, especially when Wally blurts out his next words. "... You're gonna go after him. That's why you're doing this, isn't it?"

He doesn't specify—he doesn't have to. Unconsciously her hand reaches behind her to pick at the end of her pony tail that's usually hovering about the small of her back, a dull wave of shock running through her when she remembers it isn't there anymore. "Maybe." She says vaguely to her shoes.

Out of the corner of her eye Wally shakes his head in disbelief, jaw tight. "You're an idiot." He tells her frankly, eyes narrowed. "The biggest fucking—"

"—Skip the lecture, Baywatch—"

"Have you even thought this through? At all?" He snarls at her, yelling so loudly her ears are aching. "What about after? Let's say you do get him back in prison. What are you going to do then? Wait for him to get out again?" These last few sentences are almost mocking, and despite her determination to never look him in the eye again she catches her head swinging towards him, nose wrinkling. "You're going to spend the rest of your life playing cops and robbers with your Dad?"

"You sound like Zatanna."

"Answer the question." She grinds her teeth together, glaring when he snarls at her. Wally allows her several seconds of angry silence before he laughs, loud and mocking, in her face. "You don't have a clue, do you? Go to bed, Artemis. You're not thinking straight—"

Her cheeks heat up. " _I'm not thinking straight—_ "

She's not even finished repeating his words angrily before he cuts her off, yelling over her. "No you aren't! Going after your father— I forbid you—"

" _You forbid me?_ " She snarls, so furious that she actually raises her fists, ready to clock him about the jaw. There's several moments of silence in which it seems to occur to Wally that's he overstepped a boundary, one of his hands raising as if getting ready to block an attack.

 _... Focus._

 _... He might be right. Maybe she does owe him an explanation._

She lets out a very loud exhale though her nose, thinking hard; she doesn't know why she's bothering to explain herself to him. He lost that right the moment he left her side in Athens. Still, she listens to the pounding silence for nearly a minute, trying her best to keep her voice level when she finally speaks."… He terrified me as a kid, Wally." She blurts out badly, fists lowering.

It's very hard to look at him but she forces herself to hold his gaze, careful not to blink. "I spent my whole life letting him break me. Letting him terrorize Jade, letting him tear my family apart… I was too young to stand up to him." Her voice is beginning to get louder than it should, her throat tight and threatening to cut her off with a sob any moment. "I couldn't save us from him… But I can save you, okay?"

"... I don't need you to save me." Wally says gruffly.

She swallows, finally looking away. "I need to save you, Wally, and I need to go after him. I need to do it for me." It's worded badly, and when she says it Wally only looks more confused. She exhales again. "Look, I don't expect you to understand—"

"Then explain it to me!" Wally cuts her off, grabbing her by the shoulder and forcing her to turn back to him, eyes raking desperately between hers. "You don't have to do this by yourself, okay? _I'm here_. I don't know who taught you that you have to do these things on your own, why you think it's easier to disappear on me when things get hard..." Something in his voice breaks and he squeezes her tighter, his thumb rubbing anxious circles on her bicep. "I can help, Artemis—"

"You can't, Wally." She repeats, so loud that whatever else he's saying quickly dies in his throat. For the first time in a long time he looks slightly afraid of her, afraid of the wildness in her eyes and the slightly bug-eyed way she stares at him, trying to get this through his head as she jerks out of his grasp. "You can't help okay? You—" Her voice catches and she's forced to let out a shaky exhale, head ducking to address the floor. "He knows what you are to me, Wally. I could see it on his face tonight. He knows how much I—" Her throat tightens and she nearly loses it altogether. "He'll use it against me. Just like he uses Mom, and Jade. He'll figure out who you are and it won't just be you who's in danger—your parents too. It's just… It's better for everyone if I just disappear on them."

Wally's eyes narrow as she says this, head shaking as he turns to glare out of their window. The stars are reflecting off the glassiness of his eyes, as if he's trying very hard not to start crying as well. "… What about what's better for you?" He asks her quietly.

She sniffs loudly, sounding choked. "Doesn't matter." She admits, one knuckle reaching up to rub at the eye hole of her mask. "I don't care what happens to me."

Wally's head jerks back from the window to look at her. "… I care." He says almost defensively.

For some reason she lets out a bitter sounding laugh, the tail end of it breaking half in exhaustion and half with the thickness of her tears, which are now pouring thickly down her cheeks. Her mask feels water logged. "Don't say things like that to me." She half sobs, trying to smile and only managing to stretch her quivering lips tighter against her teeth. "… Look. Let's just… Call this for what it is, okay?"

Something in the back of his eyes darkens, his jaw tightening angrily as he stares at her. "… What is this, then?" He says very slowly.

She feels as if she's no longer looking at Wally, as if some hostile figure has replaced the freckled and laughing boy she so adores; in the back of her mind she can vividly hear a sai clattering against tile, and without knowing why she feels bile rising in the back of her throat. "… I don't know." She says honestly. "Another one of my mistakes, I guess. And maybe one of yours too."

She doesn't entirely believe what she's saying, more letting the words fall out of her mouth as a last resort, something to hurt him enough to hopefully convince him to keep his distance; when she gets the courage to glance at him again his jaw is clenched almost painfully tight, the corners of his eyes oddly wrinkled. "A mistake?" He repeats, eyes so cold she can't find any trace of affection there. "That's all these last few months have been to you?"

She shrugs, the whole movement thrown off by the fact that she's still trembling. She doesn't have anything else to say. "… Yeah."

She waits several seconds, as if giving him the chance to say something horrible to her—she doesn't know why but she's convinced herself that this will be easier if they part ways hating each other. Absently her eyes stray out their window, focusing on the brightest star she can see and staring at it with an odd intensity, her fingers clutching painfully about her elbows. As she watches some of the navy sky begins to fade— dawn is coming.

 _She wants to hate him so badly, and sometimes she almost thinks she does._

 _But she can't._

When she hears the bitter sounding laugh firing out of his mouth her head turns so quickly back towards him that she feels a spasm running through her muscles, eyes widening in disbelief to watch his mouth twisting into a malicious smirk. "You're the worst liar I've ever met." He tells her.

She narrows her eyes, back straightening as she forces herself to stop trembling. "Excuse me?"

It's another challenge between them, like everything is. Wally keeps staring at her, looking almost predatory as the smirk on his face widens. "You're lying." He tells her frankly, looking slightly maniacal as he keeps talking.

She can feel the wrinkle popping up over her nose and doesn't do anything to stop it. "No, I'm not." She says very slowly, feeling a chill of anger run flush down her spine when he lets out another brash chuckle.

"Prove it." He challenges her, more snarling than actually speaking.

For a moment her jaw mashes together, lips pulling back over her teeth in a feral snarl that hasn't crossed her features in what feels like the longest time; it takes her several seconds to level out her expression again, blood angrily hammering against her ear drums. "… You're an idiot." She says lowly, and before she can think it over she decides to do the meanest thing she can think of:

She decides to walk away.

It's meaner to turn her back on him but instinct doesn't allow herself to let her guard down—she doesn't entirely trust Wally right now, can't see anything familiar or affectionate in the way he's leering at her. Stupidly she makes to step around him, eyes straying one more time to the stars outside their window—

It happens so quickly she can't block it, can't fight against it; before she's even passed him Wally's rounded on her, hands forcing her arms to unfurl around herself and slamming her back against the window. She feels pried open as she cries out, vulnerable and ribs aching as he pins her wrists against the glass, her eyes flying open in shock—

But his grip on her isn't painful, more insistent as he braces their hands on either side of her head. His body is looming so close to her she can feel the heat, can see the haze in his eyes when he won't allow himself to touch her, the seams of their uniforms barely grazing each other as he shifts his thighs in front of her. It isn't predatory, threatening—it's a demand for her to stop running, for her to stay still for a moment.

His grip on her wrists is loose enough for her to break free if she wants to. She hates that she doesn't want to.

"What are you doing?" She tries to snarl at him, voice not quite sounding angry.

In answer Wally drops his jaw, now so close to her that she can feel his hips hovering near hers. He's staring at her, hard, carefully reading her face and studying her reaction. Another one of his experiments. " _Prove it._ " He repeats, face now so close to hers she can feel his breath against her lips.

She swallows, trying her best to keep staring at him. She's not aware of him releasing her hands until she feels his fingers sliding down her forearms, gloves squeaking against the glass before taking her waist, gently tugging her off the window until her hip bones are pressing against his; unwillingly her neck rolls up to keep looking him in the eye, the back of her head rocking back into the window and face now tilted up to him. "... Prove it." He says softly one more time, half curious, half tempting.

She opens her mouth to snarl something awful and realizes her lips are shaking too badly to speak; she still has her hands up, pinned against the glass as if in surrender to some invisible force. "I-I don't have to prove anything to you."

She feels a flood of heat between her legs when Wally skims her nose with his. "That's what you think."

When Wally kisses her it isn't soft; it's a mess of chapped skin and teeth, of mouths prying each other open and desperate half-thoughts spilling over their tongues. He's clawing into her again, arms winding around her waist and trying to pull her close, trying to stop her from getting away and she's surprised when she realizes she's doing the same back—they're a mess of fingers in hair and nails digging into shoulders. And she knows this is it, her last kiss with Wally—and for some reason it hits her even harder that this is going to be her last kiss with anyone, ever. She was right when she called it a mistake, that's what it was—a distraction from her greater purpose, something to get lost in when her own reality was too horrifying to face. She's never going to love another person again, not when being loved by her is such a danger—

 _She's the Metropolis girl now._

She starts sobbing, the sound bubbling out of her throat and forcing her to pull back for air; she's back to shaking again, Wally's arms forcing her to stay in the comfort of his warmth rather than pull back to the safety of the cold glass. She realizes with a pang that he's shaking too, his chest quivering underneath her cheek. "Don't do that!" She gasps, one of her fists beating against his chest. "Why do you always—"

He disregards her hitting, flinching but still trying to keep a grip on her; for every one of his hands she deflects there's another, wiping at her tears or caressing her cheeks, overwhelming her senses with walnut flavored breath. "I'm sorry." He whispers, repeating the words a thousands times. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"

And she's not strong enough to fight back, not when he's pressing his lips to her cheek and murmuring other comforts into her skin. It's easy, as it always is, to drown in him, to forget the real world. "I'm so sorry." He mutters against her mouth, kissing her for only a second before his voice breaks; his cheeks are wet.

"Wally—" She starts to say, ducking her head.

"... I love you." The words are whispered into the mangled ends of her hair and followed by more frantic kisses against the shell of her ear; they're said so quietly she probably wouldn't have heard them, were they muttered anywhere else.

It's about the last thing in the world she can stand to hear; as the words slip out of his mouth she feels like actual pieces are being ripped from her heart, a kind of torture so intense and painful that she's actually wishing for the pointed tip of a javelin instead. It takes about all the strength she has left to push him back, fighting against his arms until she's escapes him, skin prickling against their window as she flings herself back against it, wide-eyed and quivering.

Wally stares at her for a moment, looking pained when she stays silent, glassy eyes reflecting the mess of stars behind her. "Don't do this." He whispers, shaking his head. "Don't, okay? I— I love you, Artemis." He repeats, waiting for her to say something back.

She wants so badly to get her mouth to work, but the Metropolis girl is smarter than she is; instinctively she crosses her arms across her chest again, as if trying to force a physical barrier between the two of them. "… Why would you say that to me?" She chokes out after a second. "Don't you— It's over, Wally. Why the hell would you—"

Wally blinks, eyes screwing up tightly for a second; she half tricks herself into thinking she sees tear tracks on his cheeks in the half-light before he's back to looking her dead in the face, throat bobbing. "I don't know." He says gruffly after a moment, wincing when he tries to shrug. Blood is beginning to leak through his bandages. "Because it's true, I guess."

She feels another pang run through her and tightens her arms, physically restraining herself from reaching out to comfort him. "Well— It's over." He voice breaks and she finds she can't speak unless she's staring at the lightning bolt on his chest. "… I don't love you." She spits out quickly, pushing herself off the glass and dodging around him, hating the way the words taste on her tongue.

This time he doesn't move to block her, doesn't try to catch her arm as she steps around him, heading for the zeta tubes; he doesn't move at all, actually, except for the pained dip in his jaw, his shoulders slumping in frustration and hurt. She forces herself to keep moving, tears running so fast and thick down her face that nothing she can do will stop them.

"You're lying again, aren't you?" The words are blurted out too loudly, as if she's across the room instead of only a few feet away.

Despite herself her feet pause, head turning to glance back over her shoulder. Her stomach tightens when she catches Wally's gaze in the reflection of their window, which she supposes won't really belong to the both of them anymore, not after tonight. For some reason he's got his face stretching into almost an intolerable smile, the warbled reflection of freckles and yellow making her heart ache.

She forces herself to look away. "No."

"Prove it." He yells after her, the words following her into nothingness.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up. I've been procrastinating posting this because even looking at this chapter makes me upset, but I had a few of you yelling at me in the reviews to get a move on.**

 **Q &A:**

 **Q: Will you ever do a _Parenthesis_ from Wally's point of view?**

 **A: Unfortunately that is unlikely** — **Artemis' _Parenthesis_ is actually the biggest work I've ever attempted to write, covering the 5 year gap between Season 1 and 2. As I'm planning on going quite in depth with plots and sub-plots, I just don't know where I would find the time to write something unique and interesting from Wally's perspective. I do, however, have a few stories I'm planning that will be written from Wally's POV**— **if you're interested in seeing what those will eventually look like, check out my profile.**

 **Well, I expect a lot of you are angry with me. Feel free to read and yell at me in the reviews.**


	23. Battle Blind

**AN: Enjoy the update.**

* * *

She runs. And for the first time Wally doesn't follow.

She feels as if she's collapsing in on herself; vividly she recalls Wally's hands gesturing wildly at the night sky, remembers him telling her about dying stars and how they always implode with a burst of light, a last bit of energy before they dissolve from the inside out.

 _(Her heels hit the pavement hard when her molecules reconstruct and she wonders if she starts sprinting before all of her is really there_ — _)_

She had never really understood it. She would get lost in his words and the look on his face— _he'd grown so handsome in the months they spent together, his jaw getting more angular and his body becoming more man than boy—_ her mind only able to conjure images of sinkholes she's seen on the news, only able to remember how the earth would split open and swallow houses or people or whole cities in one clean but violent motion. She feels that same splitting occurring in her heart now, opening ventricles and ducts along invisible lines of organ and sucking in her lungs, her ribs—snapping off parts of her whole and consuming her, creating landslides that slice her skin open and quicksand that drags her down into the buzzing of her mind, the buzzing that won't stop—

 _(Pathetic.)_

She beelines to her bedroom the second she gets home. Later, when she can only partially breathe again, she tells Paula what's happened through a thick layer of tears and the wood paneling of her bedroom door.

Her mother jiggles her door handle, her voice nearly impossible to hear over her sobbing. "Darling, I don't understand—"

"It's over!" She shrieks, banging her fists on the ground like a child. The blisters on her fingers burst and her ribs ache as she gasps in air. "Dad came after W-Wally and now it's over!"

She knows it doesn't make a lot of sense but it's about as much as she can manage, the bursting and vibrating in her head so overwhelming she can hardly think; she can feel herself sinking into a panic like she's never known, the lines of her uniform digging into her skin as she forces herself into a shaking ball. Her fingers comb relentlessly over her scalp, scratching open healed wounds and creating new ones, what's left of her hair growing blood coated and stiff.

And above everything she can hear Rudy's voice, snarling in her head: "Get away from my son!"

(She's gone, she's gone. And why does it hurt this much, nothing in her whole life has ever hurt this much, why—)

 _((It's over. It's over. She must repeat these words a thousand times inside her head, screaming them silently in her mind and trying to drown out everything else that's happened in just a few short hours. No matter how many times she repeats them they don't feel real, begin to lose meaning, as if she's speaking another language inside her head. Wally haunts her like a ghost, and she half convinces herself that should she open her eyes he would be there, watching her suffer.))_

* * *

It hurts constantly, never ending and unceasingly in her bones. Her body aches with the absence of someone who was once there.

After years of insomnia she finally discovers the key to a goodnight's sleep: crying. Night after night she thinks herself into a panic, until no amount of snarling or shaking or clawing from the Metropolis girl can contain anything anymore. She screams into her pillow and digs her nails into her mattress, hating herself and her father and her mother, who doesn't know a cure for a broken heart.

Her phone remains silent. Nobody calls, or texts, or leaves her any voice mails demanding she return to the Cave for a debriefing. She supposes even her friends don't know how to comfort her, or probably have their hands full with Wally. While she's retracted quietly into isolation she suspects he's probably seeking comfort in others, no doubt crowding the Cave and forcing everyone to be miserable with him.

 _She's in exile._

She stops eating, knowing full well that whatever food she manages to keep down will simply come up again in the evening, during the vomiting that frequently accompanies her panics. The cups of tea her mother brings her grow cold sitting untouched on her bedside table. She doesn't shower the whole weekend, doesn't go to school when Monday hits. It takes more energy than it should to finally strip herself of her uniform and yank on mismatched pajamas. The Metropolis girl is annoyed at how pathetic she's acting but even she can't convince her to do anything other than waste away.

She tries to live in books more than anywhere else; it doesn't take her long to find _Alice in Wonderland_ on the shelf and almost desperately crack open the pages, hating that she finds comfort in the sourness of Jade's lingering scent. She manages several pages before the white rabbit makes his appearance, not knowing at first why the character sends bile rising in her throat. When she remembers their booth at the diner she hurls the book across the room.

 _(She stares at the cover long after it's hit the floor, until she memorizes how the pages look crinkled and flattened against the hardwood. Her life is one long novel, filled with dog-eared pages and words that skate over her mind in long, seamless bounds and symbols she won't know are important until it's too late, until the story is nearly finished. And maybe her life is supposed to feel this divided, sectioned off into chapters: an unhappy childhood and Paula leaving and Jade disappearing in the middle of the night— loneliness and training and beatings and the Team, the Team, the Team has been the best chapter thus far. And maybe everyone has that one chapter they never read aloud— maybe Wally is hers, the one thing she won't let cross her lips again, no matter how much time has passed...)_

She begins to lose herself the same way she loses time. She can't stand to track the minutes and days that have passed since she last saw Wally, can't stand to think of how he's doing or remember the last smile he sent her that was so warbled by the glass of their window; whenever she's foolish enough to let her mind stray she feels an overwhelming aching sensation in her chest, as if the weight of his absence is sitting atop her lungs and choking her. Everything seems endless, anyway, the only thing keeping her going—and alive, as always—is the occasional prompt from the Metropolis girl. _Time to wake up, Artemis. Time to cry, Artemis. Time to miss Wally, Artemis. Time to swallow your heart, Artemis._

Despite not wanting to she sees Wally in everything: the lines of her floorboards remind her of the lines on his forehead when he laughs, the greenish hue of her curtains, although nothing like them, resembles his eyes; the sun warming her through her window feels as comforting as his hands used to on her skin, the stars speckled across the sky like the freckles on his cheeks.

 _(She makes lists in her head of all the times she almost told him she loved him and tortures herself over the fact that he doesn't know.)_

She knows it's crazy. But she can't stop.

One afternoon the light shines through her window so brightly she feels as if she's looking into the sun itself; the heat that once hit Happy Harbor is now rolling into Gotham, and despite the sweltering weather she keeps herself burrowed under her blankets, as if she can sweat all this heart break out. Rolling onto her back, it doesn't occur to her that anything is different until she registers that the blinds on her window aren't on her window anymore—someone has drawn them entirely open.

Someone laughs when she sits bolt upright in bed, blanket slipping from her shoulders and revealing the stained nightshirt she's been living in; the laughter is too loud, bark-like, and in less than a second she places it.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty." Zatanna smirks, sitting primly on Jade's old bed.

When she speaks her voice sound hoarse, and she realizes suddenly that it's been a while since she talked, since anything came out of her throat other than screams and sobs. "How did you get in here?" She croaks out, glancing automatically towards the window.

Zatanna uncrosses and then re-crosses her legs, the hem of her mini skirt rising up her thighs. "Oh no, not through the window. I don't like you enough to scale a building for you."

She scowls. "You wouldn't have to scale the building." She says peevishly for some reason. "You could have climbed the fire escape."

As if the conversation is losing its entertainment value Zatanna reaches towards her purse, extracting her phone and snapping it open. "I don't do fire escapes. Unless I'm being carried down one by an older but still attractive fireman."

"Zatanna."

"Your Mom let me in." The other girl says easily, flipping her phone shut. "She seemed glad to see me. Unlike you."

It occurs to her that she's beyond thirsty, her lips aching and splitting as she speaks; when she reaches out to lick them her tongue feels so dry it's almost sandy. She can't remember the last time she drank more than a mouthful of water. "... What day is it?" She asks stupidly.

Zatanna raises a well manicured brow. "Wednesday."

She feels her eyes narrow in confusion. She feels as if she's been trapped in a swirl of misery and anxiety a lot longer than simply a few days. "... Why are you here?"

Zatanna raises an arm to flip the long length of her hair over her shoulder, the ends fanning down her back and swooping below her shoulder blades in one clean motion. "To take care of you, silly."

The haughty way she says it makes her roll her eyes, and with a huff she collapses back into her mattress, ignoring the heat and sinking under her blankets again. "You're wasting your time. I'm fine."

( _"You're lying again, aren't you?" Wally's voice sounds out in her mind.)_

She doesn't blame Zatanna for laughing. Underneath it she can hear the sound of the zipper of her purse being dragged open, can hear her floor boards creaking as the other girl crosses the room, seizing an empty glass of water that's been sitting on her bedside table for a while now. "Oh yeah, just fine. That's why this room smells about as bad as you look." She feels her face sour and tugs her blanket up over her head, cutting out the brightness.

"Shut up."

There's a pause in which she gets the impression that Zatanna's trying to phrase the next part tactfully. "... Dick says you haven't been at school for a few days. Don't you think that's a bit... I mean, finals are soon." She says with the air of lecturing her. "He just wanted to make sure you aren't—"

"Don't lie." She scoffs under her blankets, feeling her cheeks burn with anger. "Dick doesn't give a damn about my school work. If Wally wanted you to check on me just say it."

There's a long silence. "It wasn't just Wally." The other girl says evenly; despite the words she feels her nose wrinkle. "We all wanted to—"

"I'm fine." She snaps.

"Artemis—"

"I don't need a baby sitter, okay?"

She knows she's being childish but she can't help herself, grabbing one of her pillows and pressing it hard against her ear, blocking out whatever argument the other girl is about to make. Through the cotton she thinks she can hear a sigh and the sound of glasses being knocked together—maybe she has more old cups there than she remembers. "Come on." Zatanna prompts her after a second, sounding annoyed. "Your mom sent me in here with some water. At least drink it so I can leave."

She hesitates, hating the offer but obliges the other girl in sitting up— she is thirsty. Very suddenly she's aware of how awful she must look; her hair is blood slicked and matted in plenty of places, her body reeking of sweat and infection. The pajamas she's wearing are stained with her own vomit and she can tell her face is oily and stained with unwashed make-up, probably bursting with acne. It's very hard not to blush and feel self-conscious when Zatanna passes her a glass, looking expectant when she raises it to her lips.

She gets as far as taking a mouthful before the burning hits her, angry and blistering over her cracked lips and tongue as it trickles down her throat; before she can stop herself she's spraying the liquid across the room, eyes watering as vodka drips down her chin. "Fuck— _Zatanna!_ "

"What? I thought after everything you'd like a drink more than anyone." The other girl smirks, looking delighted as she swears and slams the glass down. Her whole mouth is burning, from the back of her throat to the parched cracks on her lips, no amount of swallowing or gagging relieving it.

"Where the hell did you even get that?" She coughs out, glaring as Zatanna sits on the edge of her bed, leaning until the back of her tank top is pressing against the wall and her legs are curling demurely towards her chest. "You're fourteen!"

An odd expression crosses her face, a long panel of ebony hair obscuring her face for a moment before she tucks it back behind her ear. "Fifteen, now." She smiles. "Today's my birthday."

She frowns, trying and failing to yank her blankets up to hide underneath them again. "Oh." She says dumbly. "... Happy Birthday."

The other girl nods in acknowledgment, something a little bitter sweet in her attempt at a smile. "My Dad had expensive taste before he—" Zatanna breaks off, not finishing. "Figured I might go back to our old place, see if there was anything I felt like celebrating with. What you just spat all over your blankets was probably worth about twenty dollars, you know."

Her eyes narrow when the younger girl leans across her, grabbing the cup of vodka from where it's sitting beside a half empty glass bottle with a fine golden label on it. "… Sorry." She says without meaning it.

Zatanna takes a small sip without wincing, pulling back the glass to stare at its clear contents. "… It's my first birthday without him." She says very suddenly before sipping again, as if to silence the words as they come out of her mouth.

She hears herself sigh, and when the younger girl offers her another sip of the noxious drink she accepts, mouth puckering when she swallows a proper mouthful. The liquor burns in her throat the way her screaming does but it also lights a fire inside her that wasn't there before, igniting in the low part of her stomach that she hadn't realized had been chilled until now. The warmth reminds her of Wally, and unthinkingly she takes another generous sip, wincing.

They're too young to be doing this sort of thing yet here they are, sitting in silence and drinking: two teenagers who have seen too much, felt too much hurt, known too much badness. Back and forth they pass the vodka between them, until pink blotches have appeared high on Zatanna's cheekbones and the empty glass is set on her bedside table. Then, still without breathing a word, Zatanna crawls under the covers with her.

It feels like it did back in November, the two of them trapped under blankets and miserable—only this time the grief is doubled. The two of them mourning the loss of two different men. She can't tell if it's the liquor or the blurriness of her own unhappiness but all she registers is sensations: a well shaved leg wedging itself between her calves. A hand closing tight around hers and refusing to let to. Their breathing slipping into a common rhythm. She's not aware of either of them starting to cry until they're facing each other, sharing her lonely pillow and watching each other's tears dripping sideways towards her mattress.

"Well." She says after a long time, voice sound water logged. "If you're looking for a pity party, you can join mine."

Zatanna lets out a laugh that isn't loud enough to be real. "Better than any birthday party M'gann's planning on throwing me, anyway." She sneers, rolling onto her back.

She hesitates, waiting for something. It takes her a second to realize what for, her cheek pressing harder against the pillow as she waits for the right words to come to her. "… You aren't going to ask me what happened?"

She doesn't need to get more specific. Zatanna understands. "No." The other girl shrugs, not looking at her. "I know what happened. Same thing happens to me five minutes after I leave Dick." One tear rolls down her temple and disappears into her dark hair. "You remembered who you are."

The words are strange and she actually lifts her head, as if hoping the other girl will repeat herself and make things more clear. "What?"

Zatanna finally looks at her, pink lips curling into a frown. "… You know what I mean." She says unhelpfully. "You and me have unfinished business. Both our fathers—they need reeling in." She blinks, and when she pulls the other girl back into focus she's not looking at her anymore, staring instead at the _Alice in Wonderland_ poster across the room. "You can't be yourself with another person if half of you is hunting someone." She says frankly. "You can't devote yourself to anyone when all of you isn't there. It's not fair."

She nods, settling back against her pillows. "I guess." She mutters. "… You said you were already after Fate?"

"... Not in the same way you're after Sportsmaster." Zatanna concedes. "But yeah. I've got my hands full."

She nods, mind back to buzzing as she rolls over, staring hard at her wall for a moment and pretending the other girl isn't there. "… Ever wonder what would happen if—"

"Don't think about the 'what-ifs,' Artemis." Zatanna cuts her off, and even though her voice isn't stern she recognizes the warning. "They don't matter, okay? They don't change anything. All they do is make it impossible to move on."

And maybe Zatanna's right. Maybe there are some choices you can only make once— like when she turned her back on Wally for the last time, or when he sprinted away without bothering to listen to her screaming after him. Maybe it's better to accept that they happened and deal with it, instead of pretending that she can go back to that choice and make a different one. Maybe pretending this is fixable in some way is only making her feel more broken.

She can sense they're nearing dangerous territory and decides to change the subject. "… Is that why you're here? To help me move on?" She forces herself to snort.

The bed creaks as Zatanna rolls closer. "Maybe." She doesn't know why she jumps when she feels fingers running through her hair, picking at tangles and over long pieces. "... Although I thought first I'd start with a haircut."

* * *

True to her word Zatanna starts with her hair, although even that seems to a take a while; the uneven and straggly strands have grown so filthy and matted together that her once platinum locks now sit in a tangled, brownish mess on the top of her head. Even though it's almost unbearably painful when the younger girl runs a brush mercilessly over her scalp in a repeated attempt to get the knots to unravel she doesn't let her feelings be known beyond a tiny, barely there hiss that manages to escape between her lips.

"Drink your water." The younger girl tells her when this happens, gesturing to the fresh glass she retrieved from the kitchen.

The shower Zatanna draws for her is too hot for even her taste but she doesn't have the energy to turn it colder, instead staring unfeelingly down at herself as her skin is scalded and turned bright pink. She doesn't feel as if she belongs to her body, doesn't recognize the limbs holding her upright; it's amazing how much damage has been done in only a few short days. Ribs poking out of her side in skeletal ridges. Skin too loose in some places and coating seemingly deflated muscles. Bruises coloring her in violent patterns of blotchy purple and blue. Strange cuts and abrasions she can't remember getting.

Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the obvious signs of abuse. Maybe it's the liquor— all she knows is that she doesn't try to stop herself when she vomits, stale vodka dribbling off her chin and sticking to her feet. Instead of fighting all the toxic things coming out of her she scrubs herself viciously with soap and is thankful that the mirror is steamed when she leaves the bathroom, too cowardly to examine herself properly.

Parts of her feel like they're emerging again, remembering how to work. _Pull on your socks, Artemis._ _Put on a clean pair of jeans, Artemis. Fasten your bra and put on a tee shirt, Artemis._

 _(_ Automatically she reaches towards her wrist for a hair elastic. _Put your hair in a pony tail, Artemis._ It takes her several seconds to remember that she can't anymore.)

Zatanna takes the sharpest pair of scissors from the bathroom and sits her around the kitchen table, ordering her to keep her back straight. She feels like she's a specimen in a lab as Paula rolls in, watching as several long strands of hair fall to the floor, coating the tile in what's left of the girl she used to be.

"You were born with hair." Her mother says suddenly, just as Zatanna's prodding her about the jaw to tilt her face towards the ceiling. "It was still blonde, but a lot more yellow. It looked strange when your hair started growing in so light. I remember cutting it in this kitchen when you were hardly more than a few months old."

She doesn't know what to say and is saved by Zatanna, who makes a few minutes of easy conversation before holding up a hand mirror for her to look in. "What do you think? I always thought short hair was cute for the summer."

Her hair is shorter than it's ever been in her life, now bursting from her head in slightly uneven but still mostly uniform patches. She can still see her scalp in some places.

She stares blankly at the girl in the mirror, whose hair she can barely pinch between her fingers, and wonders what to make of her.

* * *

She's forced to put her life back together.

The first few days after Zatanna arrives are the hardest; despite the near constant company she feels so alone it's as if the Metropolis Girl is consuming her heart from the inside out, making it hollow and cold.

It feels like much longer, the two weeks that pass without Wally. The taste of vodka never seems to leave her mouth, and the fire it lit inside her isn't extinguished no matter how much water she drinks. Between the Metropolis girl and Zatanna she's prodded into leaving her bedroom.

She thrives on distractions, the Metropolis girl latching onto the intensity with which she throws herself into things. She stays up half the night focusing only on school work: re-doing old assignments, completing extra credit, studying for exams. She starts eating again, starts preparing elaborate meals that don't appeal to her but make Paula happy when she comes home from work. She starts running, training harder, pushing her broken body to heal before it's ready. She gets called out for infrequent low-ball missions that always feature a small squad, always missing the scarlet and bright yellow she's forgotten she's not supposed to be looking for.

She goes to the Cave once and leaves the second she smells walnuts.

She tries not to allow herself to think too much but nothing she does will silence the buzzing in her mind, the Metropolis girl's impatience with her growing more intense every day. Occasionally she types her father's name into search engines, into Justice League indexes, but doesn't have the courage to hit 'enter.' She wonders if she'll ever be ready, really, to see what comes up.

She tries not to sleep and only goes to bed exhausted, knowing full well that if she doesn't she'll find Wally in her dreams, feel him hovering on top of her and feel the warmth of his laughter as he runs his fingers through the full length of her hair—

When this happens she wakes in a cold sweat, growing bitter over the fact that she feels more alive in her dreams than in reality.

 _And she knows, deep down, that nothing but time with heal her. And she supposes that she's started feeling better, started thinking straight again. But some things she suspects will never change_ — _like the fact that when she tries to smile it won't reach her eyes anymore, like the fact that she won't laugh when someone makes a joke but can hear Wally's chuckle in the back of her mind, snorting with mirth..._

May ends and June bursts open with a flurry of school work and she does so well on her final exams her mother can't believe it. She wonders what Wally would think.

Zatanna, who seems determined to get her through this, is the one who convinces her to push through the final barrier. "What's this?" She asks when the other girl appears at her apartment one evening, tossing a dry cleaning bag over the back of her chair.

"You're borrowing a dress from me." Zatanna explains, waving hello to Paula before placing her hands sternly on her hips. "Megan and Connor's graduation is tomorrow, remember?"

The dress is a light grey thing she's never seen before that seems to hang off of her too loosely; months ago the two of them were the same size, but she's lost so much weight recently the dress bunches oddly in some places. "It looks bad with my hair." She tells Zatanna when she puts it on, raising a hand self-consciously to run over her forehead, pushing the too-short bristles back.

Her hand is smacked away as the other girl smudges more make-up on her eyelids. "Don't be stupid. You look great."

She's thankful her eyes are closed when she bites her lips, brows furrowing. "... Maybe I should stay home." She mutters, cheeks reddening. "Wally's going to be there."

In answer the other girl sighs, the brush placing make-up slowing. "... You're going to have to face him sometime, Artemis."

 _It's the truth, and she hates it._

The graduation ceremony is a lot to handle, all the happiness and the photography and excited squeals that only seem to make her more on edge. Zatanna links her arm firmly through hers and steers her through the crowds, thankfully indulging her when she suggests sitting in the back row of the auditorium. Her heart, which has been so void of any feelings other than misery, feels overwhelmed enough when Connor's name is called and he stomps across the stage, hat crooked. She nearly cries when M'gann accepts her diploma, looking so happy it half reminds her how to be too.

She knows the rest of the Team is hidden somewhere in the crowd; it's been so awkward lately, as if her break up has been with all of them and not simply with Wally. It's hard not to feel resentful for their spending so much time with him and so little with her, hard not to feel annoyed at the fake way they all pretend to like her hair, the way their eyes fix on her with worry folded into the lines of their faces when they think she isn't looking. Still, she supposes she might be too hard on them; maybe there's some kinds of sadness so intense that you can't help but stay away.

 _Her head turns automatically to scan the crowd for the familiar mess of red hair and finds nothing._

She hugs Kaldur when he comes over and allows Dick to waggle his brows in mock flirtatiousness at her appearance, trying to ignore the nervous twisting in her stomach that can't be quailed. The only thing that half settles it is when M'gann and Connor make an appearance, bursting through the wall of bodies with grins on their faces; she's still weak and nearly falls over when M'gann collides into her, squealing and insisting she pose for photos. Even Connor looks somewhat excited, shoulders broad with happiness as they all congratulate them.

Almost blissfully she welcomes the distraction from her worrying about Wally, and she forces herself to focus only on their happiness.

She's doing oddly well, posing for photos even though her grin has begun to feel like less of a smile and more like a snarling mess of teeth. She's just half convinced herself she's going to be alright when she glances over her shoulder, only half hearing M'gann's request for a shot of her and Connor as a camera is shoved in her hands.

Her heart stalls and like an idiot her hands spasms, nearly dropping the camera. She sees Wally, and all at once times both stops and speeds up.

He's a good twenty feet away from her, almost hidden behind passing bodies, his absence explained by a bag of chips he's no doubt paid too much for out of a vending machine. Even from here she can see the bags under his eyes, the paleness behind his freckles. He's done something strange to his hair— it looks as if someone, not him, has combed product through it, tried to get it to lie flat instead of in the permanent wind swept way she's still trying to tell herself she no longer adores. She swallows, he blinks. She watches the redness begins to blow out at the top of his ears; even from here she can see his eyes flickering up to look at her hair, now shorter than his, a frown appearing about his lips.

So this is what they are now: two people who can't stand the sight of each other.

And a thousand thoughts burst inside her head, filling the momentary blankness: she wants to run full speed at him, to bury her face in his neck, to kiss him full on the mouth; simultaneously she wants the shift back into the crowd, go into hiding, but also storm up to him and punch every surface she can reach, clobber him until he feels all the pain she's been enduring, just a fraction of it—

 _(And now she remembers why she shouldn't have been with him in the first place: love is a different kind of a fire, and different kind of danger. The kind that sends a thrill over her skin, the kind that makes a person look death in the face and not care, not care at all, as long as the other person is fine. And she can't do that, can't afford to not care about herself, not when she's the only one who can beat Sportsmaster, the only one who can put an end to the torture_ —)

Even after everything Wally's still dangerous; even at over twenty feet from him and she can still feel a pull towards him, her heart aching and struggling to burst out of her ribs and be cradled in the arms it belongs to. But she can't. She can't allow herself to be consumed by that fire. She can't be reduced to ash again.

Something shifts behind his eyes and before she can figure out what it is she's forced to watch as he looks away first.

She drops her eyes too, and when she gets the courage to look back at him he's gone, disappearing and leaving nothing behind other than the ruffling of people's hair and the flipping of the hems of dresses, so fast nobody will ever know of his presence or his absence. Her own hair is flickered back off her forehead.

She doesn't know why this hurts as much as it does, watching him run away from her; she doesn't understand why her lungs are refusing to inhale the air she needs or why her heart feels as if it's being boiled alive in the acid of her stomach. She was the one who ended things.

"Say cheese." She hears herself say hollowly, snapping a picture of Connor and M'gann that's about as out of focus as she feels.

* * *

Time passes, as it always does.

She replays the moment over a dozen times in her head, even though she tries not to. She can't help it, she can't not remember the blankness in his eyes, the tightness of his jaw. Everything around her— _her apartment, her bedroom, the Cave, the beach_ —it all reeks so much of Wally and happy memories that she can't stop herself from obsessing over it, memorizing the memory in a way she's sure isn't healthy. She walks the paths they used to walk together, her footsteps sounding oddly lonely without their usual, too quick partner.

She wishes she would stop hurting. Not just over the fact that it's over—no, she accepted that the moment he left her side to play hero, the moment he broke his promise. She wishes she wasn't left with the knowledge that it ended before either of them were ready for it to be over. She wishes she could forget that they both still want each other, still love each other. She wishes he had been the one to do it—it would make it so much easier to hate him, to turn her back on him. She wishes she didn't have to live with the knowledge that she hurt him, that she was the one who made him fall in love and she was the one to tear him apart. She wishes more than anything that she were dead.

 _(She wishes she wasn't left with the fact that he ignited her. She wishes that life before him had meaning, had something for her to cling onto. But it didn't and it still doesn't now. Before Wally she had been surviving, she hadn't… She hadn't been living. She had been cooped up in that apartment alone and half-crazy and hardly existing. But somehow he saw her—and he had loved her, and she hadn't been good enough or pretty enough or brave enough or just plain enough to give that back to him... She's ruined him, she's destroyed him—)_

In the evenings she lies on her side of the bed—she still hasn't dared to roll over and feel the hollow beside her that means his absence—and avoids sleep, instead recalling more obscure things about the half second they had together, so detailed she's almost sure she's making them up. How the wind had caught his hair despite the stiffness of the product, how it's growing a bit too long. The glint of overgrown stubble about his chin telling her that he isn't shaving. The dullness of his skin, the way it's taken on the same pasty, almost waxy hue hers has. The bags under his eyes. The gaunt look to his cheek bones.

 _(Wally needs her, but she can't be the one to go to him. Not anymore.)_

Sometimes she wakes up and for several seconds it's as if nothing's happened. She rolls over in bed and squints at the morning light, sometimes buries her face in her pillow and wishes for more sleep. She's allowed two heart beats of normalcy before the remembering of what's happened washes over her, drowns her all over again, the Metropolis girl dragging her back under the second she manages to breathe.

When she has to be at the Cave she takes to hiding in the small grove of trees just off the beach, craving silence and solitude and escape from the awkward glances she's forced to endure if she has to be around her Teammates. Sometimes she reads. Mostly she sits with her back against the bark of a tree and digs her fingers into the dirt in a way that's almost painful, listening for the moment when her presence is no longer noticed and the small thrum of chirping birds begin to sing out a few notes of incomplete songs. She wishes she could hide in here, unnoticed and forgotten, forever.

One day her eyes snap open when the bird song abruptly stops. In the silence she listens to red-breasted feathers rustling against grey waxen wings, and without being sure if she'll get a response she hears herself speaking. "... How's he doing?"

There's several moments of quiet and she watches as a few startled robins leave their branches, finding a more lonely part of the copse to sing their songs. "… About the same as you." She hears Dick's voice call out somewhere to her left.

She doesn't turn her head to try to find him. "… Did he send you here?" She asks, trying not to sound bitter. "Because I don't need anyone checking in on me. I'm fine."

There's more silence, and when she doesn't receive an answer she rises from her spot at the base of the tree, trying not to resent the loss of another hiding place.

* * *

After that she resigns to return to her regular haunts; as much as she dislikes being pitied she hates being pitied in secret even more— hates being spied on like some sort of mental patient being observed only quietly behind two-way mirrors.

She supposes she'll have to get used to Wally all over again. And have to get used to all the brokenness she's caused.

And she doubts she'll ever be ready to face him, even though she knows she must. Is there any way to prepare for that? Ready to hear what he thinks of her now? Ready to know how much hurt her rejection caused, is still causing—ready to hear everything she could have done, should have done, if she'd only been smart enough or paid better attention? She knows there isn't a way to prepare for all the words he's going to throw at her when it finally happens, isn't ready for him to scream at her all the ways she's failed him, even if the screaming is only done in the blankness at the backs of his eyes as he looks at her across the room.

She grits her teeth and shuts herself down, preparing for the worst. The Metropolis girl ties Artemis' hands behind her back and is happy when she doesn't struggle against her restrains.

She sits now at her usual stool around the kitchen island, staring hard at the pages of her book and pretending not to notice Kaldur's presence on the couch several yards away, scowling as he flips absently between channels. Lately it seems she can hardly go anywhere alone, as if members of the Team are taking turns to watch her—yesterday it had been Connor, lurking unusually while she was training and offering to be her sparring partner, and the day before it had been Zatanna, who had lingered outside the stall as she showered, insistently making small talk and pretending not to hear her swearing when she dolled out her usual, but now too large, dose of shampoo. She suspects that despite her renewed presence she's still being talk about, as if they're all secretly worried about her.

Eventually she manages to tune out the changing of channels that are obviously not really being watched and submerges herself in her book, feeling strangely numb as the words wash over her, sounding monotone and lifeless even inside her own head. For the first time in a while she feels hungry, one hand reaching out to pick at a plate of cookies someone had placed there to tempt her into eating, her fingers breaking off small chunks and coating themselves in chocolate. She feels the familiar burst of warm sweetness coat her tongue for several seconds before it hits her—she can't figure it out at first, what suddenly forces her mouth to go dry and sends her teeth grinding unpleasantly.

She glances back at the plate and nearly spits the food out of her mouth. Walnuts. M'gann made chocolate chip walnut cookies.

It's painful to swallow but she does it anyway, eyes watering and stomach churning and threatening to send her vomiting in the sink. It disgusts her, how easily she can come undone, how the smallest, most innocent thing can slap her across the face and threaten the entirety of the wobbly existence she's operating in. _Wally. Walnuts._ She prods the plate away and clenches her hands tightly around the cover of her book, fingers shaking.

 _Yuck. Yuck. Yuck._ She repeats the word inside her head, trying to convince herself of the repulsiveness of the taste. Instead she only remembers Wally's mouth on hers and the smell of his bedroom in the mornings, and she thinks it would be less painful to skin herself alive.

 _Focus._

 _Don't be a baby._

She's not even fully recovered from this when she senses the change in the air, can smell the dreaded walnut scent much more strongly than she should. He's coming, Wally's coming and— _and it can't happen like this, not when she's already halfway undone, she can't do this—_

She hides behind her book when she feels the familiar burst of air slamming into the kitchen, cover raised so high that the whole of her face is hidden, back hunched as she presses her elbows into the counter. Her too-short hair is ruffled and she's all to aware that her fingers are still trembling.

 _She wishes the kitchen tiles would split open and swallow her._

There's several seconds of silence in which nobody moves—even Kaldur, who she can see out of the corner of her eye, has stopped his channel changing in favor of sitting painfully still on the couch, pretending to be absorbed in the sixth inning of a baseball game but no doubt listening closely. She stays hidden behind her book, knuckles gripping the pages so tightly they're turning white; she can tell without looking that Wally's startled by her presence in the kitchen, as off guard by the moment as she is—and he can hardly turn around and leave now, not when his presence has been so obviously announced, not unless he wants her to know that he can't stand to be around her (and at this thought her stomach quirks, because is he only staying because he doesn't want her to know that he's repulsed by her? Or is he staying because he's not taking this as badly as she thinks he is? Is he fine? Is he fine when she so obviously isn't?)

 _(And she thinks only of their first meeting in the kitchen, his first glimpse of her without a mask; how his eyes had widened at her appearance, how he had stopped his eating to stare at her... How she had found out later in that moment he was only thinking of how beautiful she was, how he was in trouble...)_

Her heart aches and her fingers flex around her book, so stiff than half her knuckles crack. Then she hears a sigh.

( _And she's several feet away but she may as well be an inch in front of him, judging by how hard that walnut smell hits her—)_

She listens as Wally remains still for several more seconds, not aware of the fact that she's started holding her breath until she exhales loudly upon hearing movement; her breath flutters her pages as Wally lumbers around the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling a plate from the cupboard, rattling around with cutlery. She hates how aware she is of every sound, how colossal every one of his movements feels to her, as if they're magnified and borderline explosive in the claustrophobic nature of the kitchen. She flinches with every beep of the microwave, eyes unmoving on her page but refusing to give up her hiding place behind her book, not even when she smells what can only be, undoubtedly, her leftover stir fry being warmed up.

 _("Amnesia, remember?" Her own voice snarls in her head. "Completely forgot how truly annoying you are.")_

Her nose wrinkles, but not even a love of her mother's cooking can coax her out of hiding.

 _(He has to know that's her food_ — _he's eaten dinner at her house enough times to recognize the distinctive Vietnamese flavors, the few unique spices her mother is so prone to using. Is he doing this to get a rise out of her? Tempting her into a fight? Or has he already forgotten, forgotten his favorite meal at her house as easily as he's forgotten her_ — _)_

She realizes with a jolt that she's started angrily holding her breath again when the time on the microwave runs out, now feeling lightheaded as she tries her best to inhale quietly, listening as he extracts the stolen plate of food and starts moving again. She just needs him to leave, she just need to get through this without wanting to kill herself or him, she just needs to—

She nearly screams when she hears the stool across from her being pulled out, his plate being set noisily against the counter top. The platter of cookies beside her is rummaged through and left empty.

 _He's got to be kidding._

Ridiculously she's again reminded of months ago, reminded of sitting in this very spot and trying to decide whether or not to hide from him, trying to decide whether or not she could trust him to enough to see her bare face. It's so stupid to her now, how so much has happened between them yet nothing has changed, not really. She's still sitting here like a coward. Still sitting here, waiting for his judgement.

For some reason her stomach twists to the point of throbbing, something inside her that she's trying to keep buried beginning to fight back against its confines, beginning to bother her. He's still Wally. And she's still _(mostly)_ Artemis. She's going to have to do this eventually.

She hears herself exhale sharply, and it takes more bravery than it should to lower the book, painfully slow, until just her eyes are visible above the cover.

Wally glances up at her as she emerges, still looking sleepless and unshaved and distinctly un-Wallyish, except for the fork that's suspended halfway to his mouth. He's still got cookie crumbs around the edges of his lips. For a long moment she stares at him, two unblinking eyes barely visible over the top of the navy cover of her book—she's suddenly very aware of the fact that she must also look sleepless, unshowered, not like herself.

They stare at each other for so long that Wally's hand grows shakey, still suspended on its way to his mouth. "… What?" He finally asks her almost accusingly, frowning. Several grains of rice fall from his fork and onto his plate, pulling her eyes away from his; her mouth opens behind the book, about to glare pointedly at his food and demand to know why he felt the need to—

The thought stops in her head, bile instantly rising in her throat.

He's wearing her hair elastic on his wrist.

Her elastic. _His wrist._

She recognizes it immediately—it's overstretched, the way all hers are, now loose enough to fit properly over his knuckles and palm and sit a little too large around his tendons. As she looks more closely she can see a slightly reddened mark underneath it, as if he's accidentally caught it on something and sent it snapping mercilessly against his skin.

 _Vividly she remembers a thousand memories at once—she's wearing a ridiculous circus costume and he's fixing her hair so it sits properly under the cheap white material of the mask… No, she's interrupted him doing homework and noticed it sitting around the mug where he keeps his pens and for some reason she almost cries—Now he's handing it to her on the Bioship and she's kissing him like it might be their last kiss but it isn't, that happens much later after her hair is sliced off and he's shoving her against a window and there's her elastic, there's her elastic—_

 _("You still have this?" She had asked him, not understanding why her throat was tight._

 _"_ _Yeah." He had said, half spinning in his desk chair. "You know. Souvenir.")_

Vomit almost bursts into her mouth before she swallows it down, her heart beating so loud in her ears that it drowns out any other thoughts. She deserves a medal for not reaching across the table and strangling him.

 _That's her elastic._

Because it makes her far angrier it should, especially when he rolls his eyes at the scowl on her face and shoves the forkful of her food into his mouth, as if not understanding why there's suddenly no blood anywhere except her cheeks, which are now past maroon. It's infuriating, mortifying, evidence of her awfulness as a person right there, adorning his arm as a token of his heartbreak. Her food, the elastic— he's doing this _specifically_ to piss her off.

She can feel herself shaking with anger and quickly hides behind her book again, breathing heavily through her nose.

 _Souvenir. Souvenir. Sourvenir. Souvenir of the girl who broke his heart._

It must be obvious that she's not really reading because Wally sighs again, a clattering sound telling her that he's thrown his fork down in frustration against his plate. "Artemis." He says her name, and she hates how rusty it sounds on his lips, as if he's unfamiliar with using it all over again.

She lowers the book just below her eyes again, glaring with as much maliciousness as she can muster. "Kid." She sneers, before disappearing again. She hopes he takes the renewed us of his alias as the insult it is.

There's another sigh followed by an angry silence, and before she can stop herself she's lowered her book to peek at him again. The two of them must look stupid, her leaning forward in her seat and looking as if she's about to commit a murder, him slumped on his stool and slouching over crossed arms. It strikes her how so much has happened and yet very little at all has changed; they're still the same people they were in August, still sitting in the kitchen and bickering. The only difference is the few months worth of complicated history.

 _The thought makes her sadder than it should._

She watches as Wally frowns at her, disregarding his fork and instead reaching with his fingers to forage through the rice for the larger chunks of vegetable strewn throughout— predictably he goes right for a large chunk of carrot. She doesn't know why but there's something she can't read in his eyes, something unsaid and sad and painful to look at, and before she can stop herself her anger is getting the better of her. "… Will you just say it?" She blurts out, more hissing than actually speaking.

Wally's eyes flicker up from his plate, looking wary when she doubles her grip on her book, the only barrier keeping her from launching herself at him. "… Say what?" He says after a second.

Her book lowers itself below her chin and she feels a surge of annoyance when Wally's eyes flicker up to examine her hair again. She supposes she owes him the pleasure of doing it to her face. "I don't know." She says dumbly, clarifying after a moment. "... Tell me all the awful things you want to say to me."

It takes more effort than it should to look him in the eye as she says it; it's painful, forcing every ounce of bravery she possesses to prompt him into getting it over with, convince him to scream all the horrible things she's not strong enough to hear but knows she must if she's ever going to be able to look at him without having her whole body ache with wanting. She needs to hear him say it, needs to know he's done with her, that he hates her— but instead of saying anything he blinks, looking at her as if he's only just now seeing her properly.

 _(And she wonders if he's trying to decide which is worse: the girl with the heart of ice he met in August, or the girl with no heart in front of him now.)_

It's nearly a minute before he replies, his head shaking confusedly. "... I don't have anything to say to you."

She makes it about a second before she understands what he's saying. "Oh."

It's about the meanest thing he's ever said to her.

And it's worse, so much worse than the thousands of words she had been expecting to be flung at her, screamed at the top of his lungs for everyone to hear: _Worthless, Pathetic, Heartless._ She had wanted hatred, had wanted only the worst because it's what she deserves— because it's easier to fight anger, fight spite. You can't combat indifference... " _I don't have anything to say to you."_ The honesty of it kills her, is more painful than stab wounds, than bullets, than her own skin being torn to shreds... Because that's all Wally has left for her. No feelings, no hatred. Nothing. That's all she left him with. He feels nothing.

Before she can stop it there are tears burning at the backs of her eyes, angry and threatening to spill over; at once she raises her book back to hide herself, hands shaking all over again. She doesn't know why her breathing suddenly sounds like barely audible sobbing, but it does.

She can practically sense the alarm on the other side of the book as Wally sits in silence, apparently too surprised by her reaction to starting eating again. "Artemis?" He says after a moment, and hearing him say her name in that stupid unused way again sends one angry tear sliding down her cheek before she has the sense to try to stop feeling again. "Artemis, come on, you know I didn't mean it like that."

She doesn't know how he was supposed to mean it and resigns to glare at the words on her pages as hard as she can, fingers flexing as she struggles to both maintain a grip and wipe the wetness from her cheeks without him seeing. "Whatever." She mutters stonily. "Not like I have anything to say to you either."

She's more than a little offended when his hand shoots out across the counter, getting soy sauce on her cover as he forces her to slam her book against the island. "Hey." He says fiercely, the tell-tale red of his ears telling her he's beginning to get angry too. "What the hell are you doing?"

She can feel the heat of his hand, only a few inches from hers. The fact that's she's so aware of him makes her sick. "I'm not doing anything." She tries to snarl.

She watches as Wally's eyes flicker around her face, taking in the single tear track on her cheek. "Why are you crying?" He asks almost accusingly.

She feels the wrinkle over her nose pop up as he says it, and as if it's what he's been waiting for Wally pulls back, returning his hand back to his side of the no man's land between them. "I'm not crying." She sneers unconvincingly, very aware of the fact that as she says it more tears are burning, hot and insistent, at the backs of her eyes.

"You broke up with me." He blurts out very suddenly, shaking his head in confusion as his eyes narrow.

She scowls again, teeth gritting together. "… I know."

She can't follow what he's going to say next and is instead silently thankful when they're both interrupted by the thrumming of the zeta tubes. She watches for a half-second as another glare crosses Wally's features, watches as his mouth opens, as if he's about to angrily tell her off for—

 _"Aquagirl. B-11."_

The two of them have enough time to register the rapid change from anger to shock on each other's faces _—she can feel her brows raising and Wally's eyes widen and she can see the tiny hazel flecks she so rarely gets a glimpse of—_ before both their heads are whipping in opposite directions, his towards the zeta tubes and hers back towards Kaldur.

Seconds pass. The room is painfully silent except for the sound of the television remote slipping through webbed fingers. Even from here she can see the stiffening of Kaldur's back, tattooed muscles rippling along his arms in a panicked response.

Her heads whips back towards Wally and it's immediately unnerving how suddenly things feel almost normal between them—she can see her own alarm and surprise reflecting back on his features, can see the way both of them are waiting in the silence for the announcement of Garth's number—

A muscle tightens in Wally's neck as he surveys her, the two of them communicating silently and waiting for the next move. Her ears are straining for noise and her hands are straining against her book, fighting against the sudden temptation to touch him.

In less than a second she's saved— Tula finishes reconstructing and bursts into life; none of them can see her, not with the kitchen cabinets and walls in the way, but her presence is so close to them it's suddenly as if the other girl never left at all, the familiar salty-sweet hue all Atlanteans carry seeming to flood into the air and announcing her arrival just as well as the disembodied voice did.

Garth's number is still absent and in the silence Tula hesitates, unseen and no doubt hovering by the zeta tubes. "Kaldur?" She hears the familiar voice call, sounding nervous. "Kaldur'ahm?" As if it's what he's been waiting for this whole time Kaldur immediately rises from the couch, obediently moving towards the somewhat desperate edge to her voice.

"Kal?" She hears herself say weakly, half rising from her stool and struggling to read the tense lines of his expression. Something about the other girl's voice isn't right— it sounds odd, too feminine to be in character.

He hardly glances at her, instead raising a hand in dismissal. "Something has happened." He says simply, bare feet picking up speed and slapping loudly against the tile as he moves through the kitchen, addressing her quickly. "Stay here. I must go to Tula."

He brushes past her without looking, even though she knows that he can sense the questioning look on her face; her eyes follow him out of the kitchen, staring hard at his back as her fingers clench her book, wondering what is going on. Almost habitually her head swings back to Wally, a little off-guard by the fact that he's already looking at her.

"Do you—" She starts before immediately stopping, not sure if they're allies anymore. Not sure if she's worthy of asking him questions.

Wally blinks at her, waiting for her to finish what she was going to say and frowning when she remains silent. "... Do you?" He asks after a moment.

She's not entirely sure what he's asking but when she risks a glance up to his face she can see the end of the sentence written in the crinkles of his brows. _Neither of them feel right, sitting here being useless, when something may be wrong._ Instead of answering she shrugs, flattening her book against the counter. "Kaldur said to stay here."

For some reason Wally sends her a hard look, as if he's disappointed by her answer. "... Whatever." He says after a moment. "You do what you want to do."

"... What's that supposed to mean?" She asks gruffly, but before the sentence is even out of her mouth he's on his feet, popping a last chunk of carrot into his mouth before slipping away from the island. "Where are you going?"

She knows she's lost the right to demand things from him and feels stupid doing it, especially in such a ridiculous undertone— the zeta tubes aren't that far, and she knows that Kaldur and Tula would no doubt be able to hear them bickering if they were to talk at full volume. Wally glances back at her over his shoulder, rolling his eyes at her. "Where do you think, Blondie?"

She feels a pang at the renewed nickname and instantly scowls; she makes it about ten seconds before her curiosity gets the better of her and she's forced to follow him, seething.

From the kitchen it's really only a small hallway that separates the common area from the zeta tubes, and it's here that she finds Wally; he's hovering about the final edge of the hallway, peeking around a corner and watching Kaldur's progress, no doubt almost hidden from the other two in the vastness of the room in front of them. Feeling odd about it she takes her place on the opposite corner, ears straining to catch the voices by the zeta tubes.

It's childish, to be spying like this, but she has to admit that she's curious— the last she heard Tula had left after a fight had broken out between Kaldur and Garth (which she was partially responsible for) and she had been forced to pick between the two of them. Her appearance now, without the other boy at her side...

Wally ignores her appearance; she has a second or two to register that this is as close as she's been to him since they broke up, the two of them taking opposite sides of the hallway and leaning around it, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body and for her to notice the uncomfortable bobbing of his throat. Once again she's thankful for the distraction of Kaldur, who has only just stopped bounding towards Tula in almost the dead center of the receiving room.

"What has happened?" She hears Kaldur calling out, now straightening; even though she can't see his face she suspects he's got his jaw clenched, brow furrowed in the same look that always crosses his face in times of distress, the same look she's grown to be both assured and panicked by. "Tula? Are you alright?"

The second he asks the question the tip of the other girl's nose turns a delicate pink, the shade quickly blossoming out to color the insides of her cheeks like a rash. "I—" She starts, immediately stopping as she bites her lip. Even from here she can see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, as if she's out of breath.

Kaldur pauses, and she's sure he's having as much trouble reading the expression on her face as she is; there's several seconds of silence in which his hands repeatedly clench and unclench at his side, mind no doubt whirring with confusion. "What has happened?" Kaldur repeats, taking a cautious step closer. "... Is Garth alright?"

"He is fine." Tula manages to get out, still bright pink and staring at him with wide eyes before a guilty look crosses her features. "Or—well, he will be. In time."

She something clicks inside her mind and automatically she glances at Wally, instantly regretting it as she does— he's already got his eyes fixed on her, trying to read her face. The two of them exchange a quizzical look as Tula's hands wind together nervously in front of her stomach. Kaldur for his part seems to deflate slightly. "I do not—" He starts, shaking his head. "... Then there is nothing wrong?"

Tula blushes an even brighter pink, hands now curling together so wildly that the webbing between them looks as if it's straining almost painfully. "No."

Kaldur seems to hover awkwardly on the balls of his feet for a moment, obviously confused. "I do not understand." He mutters, and she thinks she can see the beginning of purplish blush creeping down the back of his neck. "... I thought... You are simply visiting? But... You are visiting without Garth? He knows he is not permitted inside the Cave."

Tula lets out a loud exhale, looking as if she's caught between tears and laughter. "Oh, Kaldur'ahm. You are such a fool."

Kalur gets as far as stammering out something in Atlantean before Tula launches herself at him, crossing the room in only a few nymph-like bounds before her arms being thrown around his neck. Ridiculously she feels a burst of happiness in her stomach at the sight of them kissing, and unthinkingly she turns to Wally again, beaming.

For what feels like the thousandth time this evening it's as if nothing's changed between them as they stand grinning at each other, both their backs pressed flush against either side of the wall and eyes crinkled as they pretend to be disgusted by the kissing noises now coming in louder from the zeta tubes. It feels as if, should she want to, she would simply have to lean in, throw herself at him and kiss him and... And everything would be fine again. All would be forgiven.

She wonders if that's what she wants.

 _(Yes. Yes please.)_

Wally keeps grinning at her, the smile looking out of place among the shadows under his eyes and the patchy stubble on his chin. For some reason he raises his hand, whether to fix a piece of her hair or to scrub at his own, she can't tell; either way she catches another glimpse of her elastic, still wrapped firmly around his wrist.

 _(And it would be so easy to lean in again, to kiss him as if nothing were wrong. So easy to pretend that this was just another one of their squabbles, another of the bumps on the road back to finding each other… But it isn't. It can't be. She knows why she can't be with Wally again.)_

The smile on her face sours, and before his hand can find its destination she forces herself to walk away.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! Thanks to everyone who reviewed. As usual I'm overwhelmed with support and kindness towards myself and this story. You guys are amazing.**

 **Q &A:**

 **Q: Will you ever give us Wally's POV of _Artemisia?_**

 **A: One of these days, probably when I have a lot more time and can have two different stories on the go. But it is on my to-do list, don't you worry.**

 **On another note, this story might be on a brief hiatus. Usually I try to update once every two weeks and I'm expecting that to be stretched out by a few extra days** — **I'm taking off to Pemberton music festival next week and won't be near a computer for the whole weekend I would normally spend getting the next chapter ready. Rest assured, I will update as quickly as I can when I get back.**

 **Please Read and Review!**


	24. Corner of Your Heart

**AN: I'm back! Enjoy the update.**

* * *

Oblivious to her mood the weather continues to be almost unbearably hot and shamelessly sunny; the soil in her grove of trees is soon cracking and begging for rain the cloudless sky won't give it.

For the first time she doesn't miss the long length of her hair or the way it used to stick to her sweat slicked neck.

The first few days of June pass and she avoids Wally at all costs, leaving the room whenever she senses his arrival and instead going on long walks to the more lonely parts of the Cave, seeking solitude. She can feel herself slipping deeper into the miserable corners of her own existence, growing hollow and oblivious to the world around her. Her feet prowl unknowingly through the Cave, retracing old paths and trying to fight her own exhaustion, knowing full well that sleep means only an empty bed beside her and half-imagined pictures of Wally plaguing her dreams.

It happens the morning after their encounter in the kitchen— her reflexes are weakened by lack of sleep and she isn't quick enough to escape the walnut smell as it comes peeling around the corner. Instead of running away she ignores him completely when she passes him in the hallway, practically sprinting to her bedroom like a kicked dog with its tail between its legs.

She hears a sigh before her door is closed, and it takes several tense minutes of her pressing her shoulders against the wood paneling before she hears Wally's footsteps on the other side, signaling his retreat.

And she can't help it; on the rare occasions she's forced to be in his company she checks for her elastic on his wrist and each time she sees it another painful twinge sounds through her stomach. He never takes it off— it's there during training, at breakfast, popping up under his uniform when they go on missions. She even accidentally catches him leaving the showers once, dripping wet with the damn thing still there.

Despite the showmanship of the elastic Wally remains sneering, almost painfully indifferent to her, as if determined to remind her that whatever passed between them in the kitchen was meaningless; nevertheless she can feel his eyes on the back of her neck, can sense the way his head turns to follow her as she passes through rooms.

 _(They don't look each other in the eye anymore, or at least she doesn't look at him— she can't stand the thousand stabbings of pain that run through her when she does, the burning jolts of old love she hasn't quite squashed out of herself yet...)_

The Team all seem determined to crowd her still, despite the fact that she's trying harder than ever to maintain a façade of normalcy; although her head is still reeling from her last encounter with Wally, still obsessing over her elastic and whether or not his hand was actually going to adjust her hair, she does make an effort to at least appear less surly. She tries to smile. She does her best to listen when people talk to her.

She starts running again, relishing in the blisters that pop up on her toes and the way her shoes gouge bloody lines into her feet. It has the same effect it did months ago— her whole body aches as she forces her feet to plow through the sand, forces her lungs to endure the heat and humidity and the sweat coating her limbs. Afterwards she stares at the tile coating the shower walls and watches as a mixture of her own blood and sweat disappears down the drain. She tries not to wish she were drowning away with it.

One day she makes the mistake of running in the heat of the day, her calves pulled taught and her muscles straining so hard for muggy oxygen that she's beginning to see spots, when someone calls out from behind her. "Hey!"

 _(And without knowing why she expects to see Wally when she turns around, flinching automatically as if anticipating a spray of sand to hit her like it did all those months ago—)_

Instead when she turns she sees another, less boyish mop of ginger hair on the beach. Her stomach, previously twisting, relaxes almost comically. "What do you want, Red?" She tries to yell, leaning forward to brace the heels of her palms on her knees. She feels as if she might faint.

Roy takes his time walking up to her on the beach; he's sweat coated too, no doubt having just made the same mistake she did and tried to exercise in such intense heat. "Is that all I get?" He huffs at her, pretending to look angry. "It's been weeks, Sweetheart."

She makes an annoyed noise in the back of her throat, too exhausted to keep arguing; instead she sends him a scathing look before collapsing into the sand, her back pressing into the wonderfully cool beach so recently moistened by the ocean spray. "What do you want?" She repeats through her teeth, hands scrubbing the sweat from her face.

To her annoyance Roy actually sits down beside her; he's so much taller than her that his runners are actually being lapped at by the tide, the cold ocean water probably sticking to his socks. "Just saying hi." He mutters peevishly.

Her knees knock together, one elbow throwing itself over her eyes to block out the sun as she squints at him; as usual he's very hard to read, especially so in the glare off the water. As if he can sense her stare he deliberately avoids her gaze, instead glaring out towards the horizon. " _Hi._ " She practically snarls, hoping he gets the message to leave her alone.

"Hi."

A bubble of impatience flares up inside her, her teeth gritting together automatically. "... Anything else?"

For some reason the corners of Roy's mouth quirk upwards, his head swinging away from the water until he's looking at her properly. She registers the usual flash of eyes up to her forehead everyone always tries and fails to do subtly, and with an uncomfortable flip of her stomach she waits for him to finish examining the too-short blonde bristles. "... Nice hair cut." He tells her after a moment.

The second he says it she feels her whole face sour. "Go to hell." She spits at him, sitting up.

Roy keeps looking at her for a long second. "Are the rumors true?"

"What rumors?" She mutters darkly.

"That Sportsmaster did it."

She feels her nose wrinkle, fingers curling into fists and seizing a handful of sand to stop herself from reaching over to throttle him. "... Just... I don't want to talk it over, okay, Red? If that's what everyone—"

"I didn't hear from the Team." Roy cuts her off, going back to staring at the water. "... Cheshire heard something. Wanted to know if it was true."

It takes a full heartbeat for this information to penetrate her skull and the second it does she jerks her head towards him so quickly her neck spasms, sending a sharp jab of pain down her spine. " _Cheshire?_ " She gasps out, rubbing at her neck. "You're still seeing her? _Even after Athens?_ "

Roy's face darkens at her disbelieving tone before he shrugs. "... Not my call, Sweetheart. Your sister has a knack of showing up unannounced whenever she wants something."

"Like you're trying so hard to stop it—"

Something twitches about his cheek bones, a flash of some emotion she can't quite place as he shifts beside her, shoulders tightening. "Artemis—"

" _Call the League!_ " She snarls before he can argue, swiveling towards him in the sand; she hates that suddenly he won't look at her, his shoulders tensing and rising like a wildcat's haunches as her voice gets louder. "Go into hiding, Red, come on—"

"No point." He mutters, shrugging.

He makes to stand and she feels her cheeks reddening, not sure what to do with the slightly deflated Roy she's so unused to dealing with. "No point!" She repeats, watching him get to his feet. "So you're just... You're just going to be her little call boy for the rest of your life? Be her messenger until she doesn't have a use for you anymore—"

Roy turns back, glaring down at her. "Do us both a favor and shut up, Sweetheart." He says firmly, scowling. "Don't talk about things you don't understand. Besides, I'm not here for Cheshire. I need to talk to you."

She opens her mouth angrily but finds herself oddly silent as he extends a hand down to her. "... What is it?" She asks despite herself, allowing him to help her to her feet.

His hand feels starkly similar to Oliver's; the same blisters, callouses, the kind of wear and tear you can only get from being an archer... She supposes hers must feel the same, perfectly molded and beaten in after so many years of practice. "... You broke his heart." Roy says after a moment, voice no longer snarling but instead quiet, dangerous.

Her fingers tighten involuntarily; as if expecting it Roy's grip on her doubles, refusing to let her go and scarper down the beach the way she would be tempted to do if it were anyone else. "... Red." She sighs after a moment, trying to get her hand back.

Roy's eyes are still blazing at her, reading every emotion passing over her features, no doubt memorizing her reaction and trying to find some deeper meaning to what's there; she hears herself exhale, eyes staring guiltily out at the water.

"... I had to, okay?" She says after a moment, finally managing to get her hand out of his. "... You know my family. You know why I had to."

Roy lets her take an awkward step back, still staring at her with an odd intensity. "... Explain."

"Do I have to?" She bursts out, sand clinging to the sweat on her skin. "You know Jade, and Sportsmaster... And you know me, Red. We're all hunters, it's in our blood and I— I can't protect him from that. You know I can't. I'm not enough to stop them."

She's not expecting Roy to argue against her own insecurity and she's glad when he doesn't; instead he exhales loudly through his mouth, no longer watching as she blinks prickly tears out of her eyes. "... But you still love him."

She wants to answer and instead rounds on him, glaring. "And you still love Jade."

Roy scowls for a moment before looks away, shaking his head. "... You remind me of her, you know." He says after a moment. "Trying to leave people for their own protection, always running away..."

 _"That's not a compliment."_ She grits out between her teeth, hands balling into fists.

Roy smiles grimly, seeming to enjoy her anger. "It's not supposed to be." He says frankly. "But it is true... Let me give you some advice that she wouldn't listen to, Sweetheart." When she looks skeptical Roy pauses, watching her for a long moment until the strange smile falls from his face. "Life is short, alright? And the whole hero thing... All I'm saying is, after everything you've seen... You should stay close to anyone that makes you glad you're still alive."

It's a very odd thing to say, and she feels the lines of skepticism and anger deepen around her eyes as she scowls. "What's the supposed to mean?"

"It means," He tells her, turning away. "That letting go of Wally was the biggest fuck up of your life."

* * *

Roy's words haunt her even hours later, seeming to follow her around the rest of the day and catch on the backs of her heels. _"You remind me of her, you know... Trying to leave people for their own protection, always running away..."_ He doesn't know anything— the words had been another one of his taunts, another way to unnerve her, knock her down a peg for breaking his friend's heart...

 _("... Letting go of Wally was the biggest fuck up of your life...")_

Well, at least that part she knows it untrue. It was being with Wally in the first place that was by far one of her worst mistakes...

Despite the scalding water from the shower head sending soap running down her body she still feels tainted by his words, as if lingering grains of sand are still digging into the seams of her skin. As usual she's dolled out too much shampoo, her inch long strands doused in suds. What does Roy know, anyway? Her and Cheshire... There's nothing there anymore, no bond between her and the monster who had dug a sai into her neck only a few weeks ago, no lingering affection between her and the creature who had tried to drown her in the heavy weight of mud... The only thing she has in common with Jade is her eyes, the same steely grey as Paula's.

 _But Roy knows Jade._ The malicious voice in the back of her mind hisses. _And she had said it herself_ — _Roy knows her._

 _"Trying to leave people for their own protection..."_ The words seem to wrap around her diaphragm like iron, making it nearly impossible to breathe in the heavy steam of the shower. Isn't that what she did to Wally? Turned her back on him to keep him safe? _"Always running away..."_

But Jade didn't leave to save her; if there's one thing she knows about her sister it's that she left that day to save her own skin, left because they no longer had Paula's protection— she abandoned her baby sister and left her to face Lawrence's wrath alone. What other reason could there be for that kind of betrayal? For that kind of selfishness?

Her stomach twists as she thinks of Lawrence's obsession with getting his better daughter back, the sometimes fortnight long absences where he would be hunting her, the maniacal way he would return only to force her through training...

Had that been the reason behind Jade's leaving? To draw Lawrence away? At the thought her fingers slip, sending a great rush of frothy shampoo into her eyes.

Had her older sister honestly thought that sentencing her to five years of near isolation would be better than dealing with Lawrence? Did she really think that she would have rather been alone and safe than suffering by her side?

 _Did Jade really mean to sacrifice herself to keep Artemis, in the loosest sense, safe?_

The shampoo is still stinging her eyes but she can't be bothered to scrub it out, instead now standing almost immobile in the shower stall, mind racing. It doesn't make any sense. Jade's tried a thousand times to kill her since, it doesn't—

 _Has she tried to kill her?_ The malicious voice is back, snarling at her. _Sure, she's roughed her up a few times_ — _shoving her face into a television screen, attacking her on roof tops, throwing sais..._ But there's only been the one time Jade's really tried to kill her...

 _(And without wanting to she remembers the taste of mud in the back of her throat, remembers the maliciousness in her own voice as she was convinced she was about to die, remembers wanting her last act to be to humiliate her sister. "I should have let him kill you. I wish you were dead!")_

Jade had only turned on her when she had thought she had regretted keeping her alive. When she had thought she had been given up to Sportsmaster...

 _(And suddenly her heart is throbbing in her ears, beating so quickly that she can feel her own blood pounding inside her to her pulse. Had she even meant that? Did she really want Jade dead at the hands of her father?)_

 _((No.))_

Before she realizes what she's doing she's ripping at the temperature valve, not stopping until her skin is screaming from the cold and she can't remember why her knees are shaking.

* * *

Exhaustion clings to her like a disease that evening, settling into her bones and making her joints ache; she can't even bring herself to be annoyed when Kaldur inexplicably shows up to her abandoned corner of the library, holding a cup of tea.

"Are you speaking with me yet?" He asks her after she simply looks at him dryly without offering any words of greeting.

Her eyes narrow, neck lolling back into the armchair she's sitting in as she surveys him. "Why would you think I'm not talking to you?"

As if taking this as a good sign Kaldur makes the odd Atlantean shrugging movement, passing her the tea and settling into the chair beside her, flexing his webbed fingers around the armrests. "I thought you were perhaps still angry over the squad assignment in Athens. We have not spoken properly since..."

He trails off uncertainly and instead of answering right away she takes a sip of the tea, wincing slightly as it burns her lips; if she's being honest it hadn't occurred to her to be angry with him beyond the few spitting remarks she had made in the moment. So much has happened it feels as if there simply isn't room in her body to feel anything else other than miserable... The girl who would have once been furious over the betrayal feels like someone else entirely, someone without a broken heart and the knowledge that being with Wally is horribly unallowable.

The tea spills over the rim of the cup as she settles it against her knee. "... To be fair I haven't really been talking to anyone, Kal. And you've been pretty busy yourself the last few days. How are things with Tula?"

Kaldur ignores her teasing tone and her attempt at changing the subject, his eyes instead finding the weak smile she's trying to wear. "Tula is fine." He says simply, watching as the stiff corners of her mouth twitch unconvincingly.

"That's great."

Another pause in which Kaldur's milky eyes follow her shaky hand as it lifts her mug to her mouth. "... Are you feeling well, Artemis?"

"I'm fine." The words are said into her cup and stupidly she slops tea down her front. "I'm good."

He keeps staring long after she's replaced her mug on her knees; very suddenly he bursts into words that sound well rehearsed, as if he's been thinking them over guiltily for a few weeks. "I am sorry for everything that has happened, Artemis. I had no idea that going to Athens would be so... You have my deepest apologies for breaking my word, but I had—"

"It's fine, Kal." She interrupts, pressing the back of her head into her chair again. For some reason she closes her eyes, not wanting to look at him. "It doesn't matter."

She can sense his staring and isn't surprised when he keeps talking, not recognizing her dismissal. "... You have been through a lot." He says carefully, and when she opens her eyes to look at him he's got his webbed hands pressed together, elbows braced on his knees. "I have arranged counselling sessions with Black Canary, if you wish to—"

"I don't want them." She says quickly. "I'm fine, Kaldur. Really."

Once again she can sense that he wants to keep talking, but before he can get the words out she starts speaking again, forcing herself to keep her tone cheerful. "So." She hums, taking a page out of Zatanna's book and cutting to the chase quickly. "Am I ever going to hear the whole story?"

A confused look crosses his features, his brows contracting. "The whole story of what?" He asks, leaning back in his arm chair. "What are you referring to?"

She rolls her eyes. "Don't play dumb, Kal. What made Tula change her mind? What made her come back?"

For some reason Kaldur's cheeks blush the familiar deep purple color, his head shaking slightly. "Is it not obvious?" He says plainly, still looking confused. "It was love, Artemis. We— Tula and I are in love."

Something strikes her at the way he says it, as if it's something simple that she should have the sense to understand. He's still looking at her as if he can't quite make sense of her questions. "... Well, I know that." She says dumbly, blinking. "But, I mean— why now? What changed?"

"Nothing changed." He says, still using that same slightly confused tone. "We have always loved each other."

She can feel herself beginning to get annoyed, brows furrowing and mouth twisting into a frown. "But, I mean— what about Garth? Why did she ditch him?"

Kaldur blinks at her once, very slowly, as if digesting the words. "I believe we are coming to one of our familiar misunderstandings." He says vaguely. "... _Nothing has changed, Artemis._ That is what is important. The fact that we still love each other, despite everything else that has happened."

"But—"

"I am not arrogant enough to believe I understand it." Kaldur nods his head in acknowledgment. "But perhaps that is the beauty in it: that you never have to give each other a reason. You simply do as your heart tells you."

It still doesn't make sense to her but she can't think of any more questions to ask; instead she sips her tea, the silence weighing heavily on her eardrums.

* * *

 _"_ _You can tell me stuff, you know." She watches as one of his feet reaches out, nudging the toes of her boots, trying to push past the barriers she's always putting up. "... We're friends." He adds, almost as an after thought._

 _For some reason she can't stand to look at the honesty in his smile, the boyish freckles she once hated now glinting in a familiar way on his cheeks. Familiar? Wally? It strikes her how odd it is, the way he's burrowed into her; the way someone who was a stranger sprawled at her feet a few weeks ago can suddenly be sitting_ — _a little too close_ — _beside her. It's even more odd that she's not bothered by it._ _Has it only been a few months since she told herself that she could never like him? Since she narrowed her eyes at his back and deemed his freckles, his Wally-ness, entirely unacceptable?_

 _As if knowing her mind is elsewhere Wally nudges her boot again, leaning closer until their elbows are touching. Only a few months and now her heart starts thundering at the smallest of smiles, her stomach twisting as he brushes against her._

 _Only a few months and she's trusting him with her secrets._

 _... She's an idiot._

 _The silence is stretching out as her mind races around inside her skull, and more to avoid the mixed feelings of excitement and nervousness she ducks her head, fingers flexing into the carpet; h_ _er pony tail swings down the side of her face, hiding her smile from his too-kind eyes but doing nothing to block the walnut smell from caressing her cheeks._

 _"Right." She mutters, feeling the wall outside of Black Canary's office digging into her spine. She exhales, opening her mouth to push words past her lips. It doesn't matter what she says, if it's eloquent or poorly worded. Either way Wally will always listen. "... Friends."_

 _The second she says the word something changes; the carpet underneath her turns icy on the backs of her legs, the warmth indicating his presence vanishing; s_ _he hasn't even properly raised her head in alarm before his arm shoots out, latching onto her with such an intensity that any other words quickly change into a gasp of pain._

 _The walnut smell is gone and is replaced by the smell of rotting flesh and blood, the sourness that clings to all dead bodies flooding through her nostrils; when his palm slaps against her she feels a flash of lightning inside her, feels the white hot and excruciatingly painful grip he takes on her forearm, so fast she can hardly process the thought of reacting, of defending herself—_

 _And his nails are burrowing into her flesh, digging into her and peeling back her skin, he's skinning her alive_ —

 _When she screams so does Wally, continuing to claw at her as she struggles against him; he's not right, he's bleeding out his mouth, he's got holes in his chest and a gaping wound in his shoulder and he's carving swatches of her out, trying to fix himself. "Artemis!" He keeps screaming, peeling layer after layer of skin from her arms, some pieces of her clinging so tightly that she can see her bones when they're stripped away. "Artemis, help me!"_

 _He flattens on top of her, shredding her clothing, ripping her apart as she tries to run, tries to call for help, tries to fight against the rotting fingers peeling her legs apart_ — _b_ _ut there's nothing to do, she can't help him, can't save herself, not when her hair is wrapped around a javelin point and her father is laughing somewhere too far for her to reach and Wally's pressing into her, hollowing out her insides—_

 _"Please, Artemis!" He screams into her neck, one hand scratching up her arm and latching onto her throat. "Please_ —"

The frantic noises coming out of her throat are what wake her, the animalistic and feral pants of pain forcing her to jerk up so quickly in her bed that the blankets she's thrashing in immediately entangle her. She's a mess of sweat and tears, of imagined nails still scratching at her and sticking to her newly healed scalp as she screams, loud and guttural, the bile in her throat threatening to choke her. Ridiculously she starts clawing at the back of her head, fingers searching for a pony tail she no longer has and fighting to free herself from something that isn't real.

It takes several tugs on her too-short hair for her come back to reality; the air in her room feels oddly cold after so many days of heat, strange shivers spasming through her muscles as she finally escapes the blankets. She's not on a roof top. She's at the Cave. She's not in a hallway, she's in her bedroom, she's safe, she's—

 _She was dreaming_. She tells herself, not convinced as she drops her hands from her hair, unthinkingly rubbing at the same place her imagined Wally had been clawing at her, as if checking that the skin on her arms is still there. _It was a dream. Not real._

 _Is she sure?_ Something whispers maliciously at the back of her mind, voice low and torturous and reminding her unwillingly of Jade. _How can she be sure of anything? She's crazy now, she's not Artemis, she's the Metropolis Girl, that wild and terrible thing that haunts the broken shell of her body and—_

She's not aware of curling into herself until her head is smashing against her knees, teeth gnawing painfully on the inside of her cheeks as she wills herself not to scream again. _Just a dream_. _Calm down. Keep it together._ She keeps repeating the words to herself, fingers gripping her sheets like a lifeline.

 _("You can't not breathe, Artemis."_ _Wally voice whispers, and unwillingly she forces herself to take in oxygen.)_

Her nightmares have been getting worse lately, have been getting worse for a while; sometimes, weeks ago, she would wake in a panic like this, thrashing against Wally and screaming over what she had seen inside her head... And he would hold her tightly, he would roll on top of her and press her firmly into the mattress until she would stop fighting him. He would encase her in his arms and smooth her hair against her back and he would hum unknown songs into her ear, hum until her mind quieted and until nothing felt real except the sound of his voice and the feeling of his fingers pressing reassuring circles into her back—

 _But Wally and her aren't even friends now._ The voice chimes in, recalling the few soothing moments in the dream, in which she had felt warm and comforted and safe. _She made sure of that, the two of them can't even look at each other now without all the blood draining from her face, a familiar coldness spreading from her heart to her finger tips…_

She realizes she's sobbing and promptly stops, feeling nauseous when she tastes blood on her tongue.

All at once there's a spectacular crashing noise above her, the walls of her bedroom rattling dust from the ceiling as thunder and lightning wage war on Happy Harbor; the heat had finally broken after dinner, all the mugginess and moisture in the too-hot air turning into the first truly violent rainstorm of the summer. There's another roll of thunder and automatically her hand flies out to the opposite side of the bed, searching the hollowed out space Wally used to occupy with a kind of desperate insistence before she remembers that he's not there. He won't be there ever again.

 _She ruined things between them, broke what they had. She's worthless, she's disgusting, she's—_

The snarling words pounding inside her head only inspire more pathetic sounding whimpers from her mouth; as if it's what she's been waiting for she feels a tightness around her heart, feels the familiar numbness spreading through her as she cries, alone and in the dark. Like she's hiding something indecent she yanks her covers over her head, teeth clenching around the knuckles of her fingers as she tries to keep quiet.

 _It was only a dream._

 _Don't be a baby._

 _Focus._

 _((Wally never had these dreams. Nobody else on the Team is too afraid of the dark to sleep. Keep it together.))_

Now that she's awake she can hardly believe she's slept through the noise coming from outside; every few minutes she can hear lightning crackling, can feel the force of the thunder shaking the walls and rattling the objects on her desk, but neither of those compare to the colossal crashing of the rain against the mountain. There's static in the air, so much so that her hair starts frizzing, already short and unruly and now a full blown mess under the influence of both sleep and the storm. She spends the next half hour tossing and turning, routinely wiping sweat from the small of her back and growing more sour in her mood as she desperately fights off both her panic and the urge to seek out Wally, to selfishly ask for the comfort she no longer has a claim on. Finally, after nearly forty minutes, she resigns herself to getting out of bed.

All the heat of the day has disappeared in a matter of hours; when she opens the door to her bedroom and peers into the hallway her skin immediately prickles, legs bursting into goose pimples under her sleeping shorts and nipples perked underneath her tank top. Unthinkingly she grabs the perfectly folded sweatshirt on her desk, half-asleep and unaware of its significance until she yanks it over her head.

It hits her hard, as it always does when she's not expecting it; the walnut smell washes over her as she fits her arms into the sleeves, the shock of it so quickly after her dream sending her bare feet halting. _Wally's sweater._ The same one she set there when she had purged her room of memories, the same one that— unlike his English notebook from the previous semester, old pieces of loose leaf in which he had scrawled their initials in the heart together, and the corsage she had found rumpled on her bedside table— she had been unable to throw out.

 _("Souvenir." She had grinned as she stole it off the back of his desk chair; they had been in a fight, of course, so he hadn't said anything..._

 _But a few weeks later he had caught her wearing it around the Cave, had eyed the way the faded blue fabric had clung to her. "You keep it." He had told her, waving her off when she tried to return it. "Seriously. It won't fit me in a couple months, anyway, I've been growing so much...")_

The sweater rumples down her front the same way it always does, fitting her more properly than she's always imagines a boyfriends' sweater should. She doesn't know why she couldn't throw it out, doesn't know why of all the damn things he left behind she had been unable to stuff this in the garbage bag too. She feels traitorous wearing it now and half glances back into her bedroom, still visible through the crack in the door, debating returning to bed and giving up any night time excursions. As if tormenting her the rumpled bed sheets look back.

 _("Please." The dream Wally seems to call to her.)_

Unwillingly she shivers, shutting the door behind her— she won't be able to return to her bedroom until the sun is up, until she has the safety of day time and wakefulness to hide in. Besides, it doesn't matter; by the time anyone else gets up she'll be changed.

* * *

His smell is hardly clinging to the fabric anymore; it's a small comfort, one she latches onto to as she begrudgingly shoves her hands deep into the front pockets, beginning to walk silently through the hallway. It has to be about four in the morning now— she can tell by the light in the hallway, by the quiet that seems to stick to the walls. The Team is usually up at all hours, just by the awfulness of all their sleeping schedules, but four in the morning is usually the only time the building feels remotely abandoned; even Wally would normally still be asleep, even if his sleeping was full of twitching and—

She stops walking when she enters the common area, thoughts freezing inside her head when she automatically glances towards the window her and Wally would look out of in better times. Stupidly one of her fists, covered in the fabric of the sweater, pauses in the act of scrubbing old tears from her cheeks.

 _Wally's at their window._

Her first instinct is to sprint back down the hall, and ridiculously her feet actually stumble backwards; she can't imagine anything more embarrassing than being caught standing here, tear stained and in his sweater, running away from her nightmares. She can't handle it, the stickiness of feelings and the complicated mess that is all the emotions that are running between them. The other day only proved that… Whatever she had wanted to exist between them after they broke up, this friendship this… Understanding, it isn't going to work. It can't work, neither of them are built for that kind of thing, especially not her—

She actually turns around, already two steps back down the hall before another instinct kicks in, one that's much more tender than the first and— although she won't admit it— so recently raw from her conversation with Kaldur. Her eyes narrow, inhaling the last few notes of Wally's scent coating the fabric of his sweater before she turns back to him.

... He's shaking.

Shaking and naked from the waist up—Wally looks as if he's having some sort of fit, the muscles of his back she's so familiar with clenching almost painfully tight as he sits crumpled in on himself, fingers clutching tightly at the hair blossoming in the windswept fashion from his scalp and yanking at it repeatedly, as if wanting to pull it out. His knees are trembling, hidden beneath the fabric of the scarlet sweats he always sleeps in but still looking as if they're practically vibrating, inches from the floor.

Fingers seem to tighten around her heart, and as badly as she wants to hide, as badly as she can't stand to be seen... She can't bring herself to do anything other than stand there, unmoving.

She remains still for nearly a minute, flinching when the sky outside lights up with another streak of lightning and is followed almost immediately by a crack of thunder; she's always hated thunderstorms, disliked the noise. It's always reminded her of memories she can only half recall, odd flashes of an early childhood marred by her parents fighting, but the clanging of things being thrown across the room and Jade's tears. Between the old memories and the shakiness the nightmare has left her with she can't help it, can't stop one of her hands from reaching out in fright to grip the door frame like a lifeline, as if she's afraid that the wind outside will somehow burst into their sanctuary and sweep her away into the darkness—

The lightning illuminates the window, and her stomach twists.

It happens so quickly that she would have missed it if she had blinked— the second she grips the door frame Wally seems to jump, his muscles constricting and a feral sounding grunt flying out of his mouth, his fingers going white in his hair. And she can't help it, the sound does something to her the way it always does—

"Kid." The old alias bursts out of her mouth before she can stop it, sounding frightened and too quiet; almost the second she says it she wishes she hadn't, wanting to remain alone and concealed in the dark.

She's lucky; the rain must be too loud on the window because Wally doesn't even react, remaining balled up and broken on the floor. She catches herself biting the inside her her cheeks, debating... She shouldn't do this. She doesn't have any business doing it. She should go back to bed, she should leave him alone, it's not her problem anymore—

She glances back down the hallway, skin still prickled against the cold air filling the room.

 _("We're friends, you know.")_

((She's not sure what makes her turn back; later on she'll tell herself that she was being selfish, simply avoiding the ghosts that haunt her bedroom. But Wally— the boy so unlike the surly version who's been sneering at her all week— is right: they are, or at least were, friends.))

Whatever she tells herself she still feels her heart thrumming loudly in her ears as she advances exactly one measured step forward, clearing her throat. "Kid?" She calls, as loudly as she dares to in the quiet of the night.

Again her words hang in the empty air, growing more embarrassing by the second the longer they go unanswered. She waits several moments for him to look over his shoulder, to say something back to her; instead she watches as he seems to tense, shoulders positively quaking with the effort of breathing. She's never seen him like this, never seen him look so… Horribly and frighteningly un-Wally-ish.

 _... Maybe Wally's afraid of thunderstorms?_

For a long moment she stares at his bare back and racks her brain, trying to recall some memory she isn't really sure exists. _"I don't really like horses."_ He had told her once. _"They're... I don't know. Creepy. You can't tell what they're thinking."_

No, Wally isn't frightened of thunderstorms. The thought alone is ridiculous— he got his powers from lightning, after all. And even as she thinks on it she distantly remembers standing with him in front of that window, watching a storm unfurl on the horizon as they had sipped tea together for the first time. He had been fine then, hadn't he? The rain, the wind ripping across the ocean, it hadn't bothered him but… But he had still been standing at the window long before she arrived. Almost like he had been waiting for something…

There had been static in the air then, just like there is now—she can feel it when she takes another step forward and crosses her arms in front of her chest, can feel the way it sticks to her skin and coats her hair, sending the too-short ends flying away from her scalp in unruliness. Wally still hasn't turned around yet, not even when she clears her throat again, mind probing her memory for something, anything that might help…

She remembers his fidgeting, his feet tapping and his anxiousness, refusing to take his eyes off the shore longer than a few moments, no longer than it took to thank her for the tea... He had only really looked away to make her laugh the one time, his mouth stuttering out words that were too scientific for her to follow, unknown facts about storms that didn't really make sense to her but seemed to be important to him…

Then she remembers the crack of lightning—it hadn't been close, miles away on the opposite end of the shore, hardly loud enough to disrupt her drinking her tea. But Wally had stopped talking, his head had snapped towards it, his whole body had gone rigid…

Had Wally been waiting for the thunderstorm?

But why? She can't remember much more, nothing beyond the way he had teased her for finally going to bed— _"You're going to miss the best part." He had told her, making to grab her sleeve and drag her back. "Come on, Artemis…"_ He hadn't liked that she was going to bed, his teasing a little too insistent, he wanted her to stay up with him, she's sure of it…

 _Wally had been waiting for the thunderstorm to come. Something bigger than him had prompted him out of bed, had dragged him to the window—their window, the only vantage point, the only place in the whole building where the walls are penetrable, almost thin… What had happened last time? What had happened after she left?_

Has she already abandoned him once when he needed her, but didn't know how to ask?

She hesitates, still several feet behind him. Maybe this is beyond the realm of her understanding… Or maybe she's overthinking it, misunderstanding something simple. Well, it's not her business to understand, anyway. She's not his girlfriend anymore.

 _She should just leave him alone, she'll only make things worse._

She makes to turn around when lightning strikes again, crackling loudly on the water and lighting up the room in an almost blinding white; once again Wally makes that feral, dying noise in the back of his throat, without meaning to her mind is slapped with a thousand emotions, a thousand memories... There's sand on her tongue and they don't know each other's names and he's holding in his arms like she's the most precious cargo in the world; she's shivering in the September air and unthinkingly he offers her the sweater dangling off his cast-clad arm; he's bandaging her hands, he's holding her upright on the battlefield...

She bites the inside of her cheek, gathering her nerve. She knows what Wally— righteous, goody-two-shoes, better than her, _Wally_ — would do if he found her in front of their window, like this, in the middle of the night... Regardless of what was happening between them.

 _("We take care of each other, Artemis. It's what we do.")_

As much as her mind is set on it her body still battles her; ridiculously her legs twinge when she forces them to move, one hand shoving the sleeve of his sweat shirt up her arm nervously. "Kid?" She tries again, a little louder this time.

Nothing. She takes a few more steps forward. "Hello? Kid Idiot?"

She's no more than a foot from him now, staring as the muscles in his back keep jumping, the rolling in his shoulders positively shuddering as thunder clangs against the harbor. Unrelentingly Wally doesn't reply.

She's beginning to get truly frightened now, instinct overwhelming her and telling her to run, telling her that he's dangerous, something's wrong—

 _(Because she can only think of one other time Wally didn't come when she called him. The one time the snow in Metropolis was stained red with his blood...)_

"Wally?" She croaks out his real name, closing the distance between them and not stopping until she's standing beside him.

A spasm of cold fear bursts through her when she crouches to better see his face—all the muscles in his cheeks are screwed up as if in pain, his freckles standing out against the strange waxy color he's turned. He's sweating, beads of it bubbling out of his forehead and dribbling almost too slowly down his jaw. His eyes are shut tightly, as if trying to avoid seeing something.

"W-Wally?" She whispers, suddenly afraid to be too loud should she startle him—something's wrong, she's not sure if she should get someone; he's having sort of fit, he's—

The wind outside picks up and his hands start pressing more insistently against his scalp, the muscles of his chest straining and the tendons on his forearm popping—he looks as if he's trying to stop himself from doing something, trying to show restraint, a low groan firing out of his throat, barely audible through clenched teeth.

She doesn't know where the courage comes from, doesn't know what prompts her to be brave when the only emotion she can process is fear; all she knows is that she can see the terror on his face, can see no recognizable part of the boy she loves etched into the person in front of her and it's unacceptable, it's... All she knows is that her jaw is suddenly setting, hands clenching where they're still inside his pockets.

"Hey." She says as firmly as she can, trying to sound less afraid the she is. "Baywatch. Listen when I'm talking, idiot."

It's an old tactic, trying to bait him. She's not surprised when it doesn't work.

" _Hey._ " She repeats more forcefully, practically snarling in his face as she settles into the floor beside him. "Kid Idiot." She grits her teeth when nothing happens other than his increased trembling, his breath coming hard and fast out of his nose. "Will you cut it out?" She hisses.

Still nothing.

She doesn't hesitate, because she knows if she allows herself even a second to think about it she's going to end up not doing it. Trying to ignore the twisting in her stomach slides herself over until she's sandwiched between him and the glass.

The window feels as cold on her back as it did through her uniform the last time the both of them were here; behind her she can hear the thunderous sound of the rain, her knees squashing up against her chest. She's careful not to touch him as she settles— for some reason that would feel wrong, more wrong that it does to be sitting here, comforting him, when she should be literally anywhere else.

He still doesn't acknowledge her, doesn't look up as she shivers; it's like all the heat Wally usually radiates is gone, sucked somewhere deep inside himself. As if waiting for something both her hands reach to grip the hem of her shorts nervously, trying to yank them further down her legs to cover more of herself. "Kid?" She whispers, voice breaking. "… _Wally?"_

There's a beat, long enough for her to see her breath rustling a few pieces of his hair that aren't stuck slick to his forehead with sweat.

Then one of his fingers twitch.

It happens so quickly that for a moment she's not even entirely sure it's real—almost immediately his finger is back to the clenched position, knuckle turning white again. "Wally." She repeats, watching again as it happens and trying not to feel a twinge of relief. Okay, she can do this, she can do whatever this is.

Without thinking on she tries to keep talking—she doesn't know how she knows but something is telling her to get Wally away from the window, to get him somewhere where the rumbling of the thunder won't be as loud and the lightning won't be as threatening. She can't do that with him stuck still like this. "Wally? Listen to me, okay?' She says quietly, watching as her voice sends both of his hands quivering this time.

His hands clench and unclench, as if unsure he's even hearing her. Unwillingly her eyes fall to the bullet shaped scar on his bare chest and suddenly she can't help but remember the last time she talked to him when he was unresponsive. "... It's A-Artemis." She tells him, voice wavering.

Still no reaction other than his fingers; stupidly, one of her hands releases the hem of her shorts and raises, tentatively, towards his shoulder. "You're freaking me out." She tries to say sternly, instead sounding faint. "Can you just stop being such a—"

It all happens at once; her hand reaches out towards him, hardly touching his skin—in a second lightning has shot out across the water, bursting white into the room and—

And she cries out when a hand snatches her wrist, a scream ripping out of her throat as he slams her back against the window, ramming her bones with so much force against the glass that she's sure they're shattered; it's painful, so painful that tears are burning in her eyes, but not as painful as the fact that Wally's snarling at her, something out of her nightmares, his skin ice cold and vibrating against hers—

"Wally!" She gasps out, throat tight and not letting her speak properly as she thrashes against him, her feet catching him in the stomach—she can't feel her fingers, his hand dragging hers up above her head when she tries to struggle against him, ribs aching and other hand clawing uselessly against his. His face is still hard, inhuman, no part of him the boy she loves as he hovers over her. "Wally, stop it—"

She sobs, loud and heart wrenching, and suddenly something on his face breaks; as quickly as she can blink his pupils are blowing out, color returning to his cheeks, expression no longer blank and ruthless but pained, confused, staring at her wide-eyed and not understanding as she slouches there, cowering beneath him. "A-Artemis?" He gets out.

His eyes move too fast for her to see, not when she's so panicked and strangely out of breath, pupils firing between her face and her wrist, to her useless struggling; at once he's looking frightened too, stumbling as he releases her, rocking violently backwards. "W-what's going on?"

She can't even bring herself to move away from the glass, can't bring herself to try to comfort him; her wrist is still throbbing white hot against the window, adrenaline coursing through her and telling her to stay away. Almost too slowly she drags her hand in front of her face, eyes wide and breathing uneven as she stares at the ugly blotchy red and purple bruises blossoming there.

"I—" She starts, voice sounding raw from her sobbing and screaming; it seems to take a bit of extra effort to pull him into focus, to not flinch when his arms move violently to scratch through his hair. "W-what—"

"I'm sorry." He blurts out, hands scrubbing his face as he seems to crumple into himself. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry—"

It hits her suddenly that he's crying, a trail of hot and pathetic tears bursting out of the corners of his eyes and being smeared painfully away by his hands, which seem to claw at his face that same way they did to her in her dream. "Wally—" She starts, trying to move forward.

"No!" As if he's afraid of her he scrambles backwards; usually his movements are so elegant, more planned, nothing like the feral and clumsy ones he's doing now, socks catching on the bottoms of his sweats as he staggers to his feet. "Don't, Artemis, just— _just stay away from_ —"

There's another massive crack of lightning and almost immediately he seizes up, face curling into a grimace of pain and muscles stuttering and stopping with impulses, half of them twitching with the need to move and the others looking as if they're being forced into stillness; at once he's groaning again, hands clutching at his head, sounding as if he's about to burst—

"Wally." She says as loudly as she can, ignoring him when he shakes his head. His eyes are opening in a horrifying grimace, staring out the window and at something she'll never be able to see. Never learning, she stands, reaching for him.

This time she's expecting the fight, expecting the way his limbs shoot out and try to shove her backwards, the way his shoulders positively vibrate when she gets a grip on him, trying to throw her off. "Kid!" She screams, nails digging into his neck when he keeps fighting her, near snarling as his pupils reduce to pinpricks. "Wally!"

— _She doesn't know what else to do, how to calm him when he's wild like this_ —

Instinct tells her it's suicide to lean in and kiss him, but the softer, fiercer part of her spurs her on, her hands grasping either side of his face and yanking his mouth to hers— she feels as if a part of her is dying when she tastes the familiar walnut scent, the lingering cinnamon, the unknown sweetness she can't place that always seems more noticeable in times of last resort. Suddenly his mouth is opening underneath hers and nothing is as real as the shaky breath she pulls out of him, or the way all his muscles seize up and then shudder into relaxation, as if she's dopamine firing through his bloodstream, drugging him, relaxing him—

( _And even though her feet remain planted firmly on the tile in front of his she can feel the Bialyan wind biting at her skin, goose pimples prickling about her ankles as the Happy Harbor water laps at her toes, the earth turning behind her as his gloves run down her shoulders, her core pulsing as his heat blossoms between her legs. All she can feel is the thousand other kisses that have come before this one, and the thousand more she's forever going to be denying herself—)_

It lasts less than a second, as quick and as familiar as blinking, but when she pulls back he's gone perfectly still, muscles slack and pupils blown out, body shaking as he struggles to breathe her in. She doesn't pause to think about it, doesn't allow it to occur to either of them to lean in again. She just starts talking, ignoring the pain in her chest. "Is it the storm?" She asks, voice as hard as she can get it, silently begging him not to say anything about what's just happened.

Wally's pupils are so large she can hardly see the green in his eyes. "I—" He breathes, glancing down to his hands which are hovering stupidly about her elbows. "... Yes."

"Okay." She nods, taking a step back, hoping the space will make her feel more in control. "Then let's just..."

She doesn't finish her sentence, instead reaching out to prod him in the shoulder; obediently Wally takes a step backwards, still looking at her dazedly. Her heart is still thrumming loudly in her ears, mind whirring inside her head, but she doesn't indulge the anxious thoughts slamming into her or the terrified twisting in her stomach—it's as if the only thing that exists for her in this moment is Wally, an old loyalty to him forcing her to stay focused, to keep him safe—

"Let's just get you to bed." She says weakly, prodding him backwards again until he gets the message to start walking.

 _And her life is like a bus stop—people pass her by, linger for moments until something better happens to roll by. And as much as she knows that Wally's ride is here, it's time for him to move on… She's gotten too used to the feeling of him sitting beside her, of passing by the hours together..._

She knows this isn't a good idea— her being here, comforting him. But instinct, the one much softer and tender than anything the Metropolis girl would allow, is guiding her now.

Wally follows her prodding, still looking a little wide-eyed and confused, as if he doesn't know what's going on. Uncharacteristically he doesn't say anything the whole walk down the hallway.

 _(She feels his fingers brush once against her knuckles and like a coward she pulls away, shoving her hand into the pocket of his hoodie.)_

* * *

"Here." She says dumbly when they arrive at his door. Her head is still reeling from kissing him, still half dazed— she doesn't know how much longer she can stand to be around him without doing something stupid again. "... Just try to sleep, okay?" For some reason Wally keeps staring at her, pupils still large and unnerving as he stays silent. "Wally?" She croaks out, blinking up at him.

Something in his expression breaks when she opens the door for him, twitching out of her reach when she tries to prod him inside. "Can you...?" He doesn't finish, instead sending her an almost pleading look in the darkness.

She feels her throat go dry when he trails off, head jerking towards his door before his gaze promptly drops to the carpet. "... Wally." She sighs.

"Please?"

She feels like vomiting when he says the word, but it's next to impossible to swallow the bile in her throat when he blinks too suddenly, eyes oddly glassy in the half light. Instead of answering she glares hard at her bare feet, waiting for Wally to go first before she follows, feeling like she's being lured by a wild animal into its den.

She closes the door behind her and immediately feels as if she's being gagged; as always the intoxicating walnut smell is strong in here, emanating from his sweat soaked skin and messy hair and clinging to the carpet, sending her mouth salivating and knees knocking together. It's suddenly all too difficult to keep herself from running to him, from kissing him again, from forgetting every stupid reason she can't allow herself to love him anymore. It's painful how much restraint it takes, how cold she has to force herself to be as she presses her shoulders against his door, trying to keep her distance.

"Better?" She asks him, voice cracking with exhaustion, watching as he drags his feet across the room, collapsing into his bed. As if testing the both of them she can feel a roll of thunder in the distance, it's rumbling now slightly dulled and no longer shaking the walls or pawing at the scarred corners of her mind.

A muscle jumps in Wally's cheek but again he doesn't answer her right away, instead arranging himself into a hunched position against his headboard. "… Better." He confirms, arms wrapping around his knees.

She's sure she can't trust herself to leave the safety of the doorframe but even she can't stop herself from looking at him, watching the long lines of muscle she knows so well tense and he winds his limbs together. He still doesn't look quite right: eyes wide, skin waxy, shivering and staring blankly at the creases of his bed sheets.

 _Something's wrong._

She can practically feel the weight of all the unsaid words between them and it takes nearly a minute of her biting her lip raw in the silence before she's brave enough to break it. "… Wally?"

She nearly sighs with relief when at once he raises his chin from where it's been digging into his knees, eyes finally finding hers. "Yeah?"

Her stomach twinges at the roughness in his voice, sound raw and broken as if he's been screaming for hours. "… What, uh—" She starts, not entirely sure if she can be tactful. "… What the hell is wrong with you?"

She's expecting him to laugh at her bad phrasing but instead she's greeting with only a stony silence; when she looks back at him he's ducked his head, forehead pressing against his knees, looking suddenly more boyish and vulnerable than she's ever seen him. "… I'm sorry." He says very suddenly, sounding choked. "I didn't mean to— how's your wrist?"

Inside the pocket of his hoodie she can feel her tendons aching, and more to spare his feelings she burrows it deeper inside, not wanting him to see the bruises he's left there. "It'll be okay." She says vaguely.

Wally's shoulders raise and lower, as if he's just let out a relieved breath. "Good." He says to his knees. "Good. I—" He breaks off, a strange noise sounding in the back of his throat. "Sorry."

Again it's hard not to immediately run and comfort him; traitorously her feet twitch against the carpet, willing her to leave his doorway. "Stop apologizing." She tries to say meanly. "I don't need that, okay? Can you just… Can you just tell me what's going on?" She can tell that this isn't exactly the right thing to say—the words aren't even fully out of her mouth before Wally's shaking his head and curling tighter into himself, muttering words that she doesn't catch. "Wally—" She starts to sigh, beginning to get frustrated before she cuts herself off, deciding to change tactics. "Okay. Okay…"

There's another low roll of thunder and instantly his shoulders tighten; she actually has to reach out to grip the doorframe to stop herself from rushing to him. "Let's just… Let's just play questions for a bit, okay?" She decides, pressing herself more firmly against the door. "Like that first day at the beach all those months ago, remember?"

There's a beat of silence before Wally looks up at her, one hand scrubbing at his face in a way that makes her realize almost jarringly that there are tears burning at his eyes. "Yeah." He says, sounding water logged.

"Okay then." She says firmly, feeling like she's addressing a child. She gets the sense that if she's going to figure out what's going on she's going to have to lure Wally out of his shell, just like he's done with her so many times in the past. "You go first."

Nothing happens for a long while; Wally simply looks at her, still shrunken and unseeing but with something a little more human in his eyes—it's almost as if he's testing her, trying to figure out if she's serious, still half-waiting for her to disappear into the darkness and leave him to deal with this alone.

Finally he blinks, eyes leaving hers and glancing down. "… Is that my sweater?"

The question makes her knees quiver so violently she's sure he notices. "Yes." She mutters defiantly.

"...Oh."

It's so little of a reaction that instantly she can feel her cheeks reddening. "I've been meaning to give it back—"

"Don't." He cuts her off, voice slightly raspy. "... I don't really want it."

She has no idea what that's supposed to mean, her blush quickly disappearing from her cheeks as she tries to decide whether or not he was trying to be rude; Wally only watches the confusion on her face for a few seconds before he scrubs again at his cheeks, fingers trailing over his forehead and disappearing into his hair.

It takes every ounce of courage she has to clear her throat, forcing herself to speak. "... What's going on, Wally?" She asks, voice oddly hushed.

She thinks she hear a sigh. "... I-I don't know."

The words don't sound quite right coming out of his mouth, and instinctively she hears the sternness in her voice, habitually prompting him the way she used to. "Wally."

For some reason he flinches at the sound of his name coming out of her mouth, finally sitting up properly against his headboard; there's another sigh as he presses his elbows against his knees. "I don't know, Artemis. I just... I had a bad dream."

"A bad dream." She repeats, stomach squirming uncomfortably. She wonders if she was the only one who revisited the rooftop tonight.

"Yeah." He says back, beginning to sound annoyed but more like himself. "And I— I just needed to get out of here. The storm— I don't know what happened."

She catches herself folding her arms awkwardly in front of her chest, shoulders finally unsticking from their spot on the door. "... You don't think you could have had a, uh..."

When she trails off Wally looks at her, eyes narrowed across the room. "What?"

Stupidly her feet shift against the carpet. "Well— I mean... I-it looked like you were having a panic attack, Wally."

There's several beats of silence where he stares at her, looking offended. "... I don't get those. I'm not crazy."

" _Excuse me?"_

"You know what I mean." Wally brushes off the annoyed look on her face, going back to glaring at his knees. "It wasn't like what happens to you. I wasn't— I wasn't screaming or freaking out or—"

"Or attacking people?" She finishes for him dryly, glaring. There's a very sticky moment in which she can hear her own shrieking loudly in her own mind, can remember her thrashing out against him, still convinced she was fighting imaginary threats inside her mind; he should know as well as she does that anxiety attacks aren't always hyperventilating and rocking back and forth. He's seen enough of own personal hell to know that sometimes they burst out of you in fits of rage, in stumbling over words, in fighting to breathe as you sit, paralyzed as your mind threatens to drown you.

In the silence she's sure Wally's remembering it too, and before he can make another excuse she hears herself speaking. "... Look, I know what I'm talking about, okay? Unless you've suddenly developed a fear of thunderstorms—"

"This wasn't like that!" Wally bursts out, sounding angry. "I don't— I don't know how to put it into words okay? I had the dream, I just wanted to get out of my room, clear my head and— and it was the noise or something, I don't know, but it was like... I could feel it." He says badly, ears going off with embarrassment. "The lightning. Running through me."

The way he says it sends her stomach clenching. In her many years of near lunacy and anxiety she's never felt anything like that— only a persistent numbness that seems to lock all her limbs together."... You could feel lightning inside you." She repeats, voice oddly blank. "But... We've watched thunderstorms before. Sometimes we've been out on missions and ended up in the middle of one. What—"

"I don't get it either, okay?" He says roughly, hand clenching his hair. "I mean, at most sometimes I'll get a little jittery, or whatever, but... And Uncle Barry says I'll grow out of it, but I don't know why tonight it was like... Like I could hear it calling out to me, like I-I—" Something in his voice sputters out again, and as if he's afraid to look at her he drops his head to his knees, hiding. "… It was like sensory overload." He mutters, barely audible.

She's not aware of how tense every muscle in her body has gone until she tries to speak, lungs crying out against the stiffness as she struggles to breathe. "... D-do you think..." She starts, not sure where she's going. "Do you think— with the panic attack... Maybe it got your guard down? Or...?"

"It wasn't a panic attack." Wally says insistently before pausing. "... I don't know. It doesn't matter though, it won't happen again."

"Wally—"

"Did I hurt you?" He interrupts, and immediately she realizes they're back to their game of questions.

She supposes there isn't a point in lying, especially when he raises his head from his knees and looks at her almost pleadingly. "… A little." She admits, shoving her fist farther inside his pocket in hopes of hiding the bruise she knows he's looking for.

She registers that he breathing is back to normal, his chest no longer heaving and lungs no longer rattling and sounding as if they're about to burst; as she notices this she also becomes aware of the fact that they're done talking and she's rapidly losing her excuse for being here, for being anything other than terribly alone with her ex-boyfriend.

"Well." She says awkwardly, one hand reaching up to run self-consciously through her hair before she realizes the gesture is borrowed from him, her arm swinging stupidly back to her side. "I guess... I guess I should go back to bed too. Unless—" Her voice breaks embarrassingly. "Unless you need anything?"

She shouldn't have added the last part, and almost the second she says it Wally lets out a sigh that's barely mixed with a bitter sounding chuckle, his head burrowing back to his knees miserably. "What?" She blurts out dumbly, not understanding.

"You." Wally sneers, lifting his chin up to shake his head disbelievingly at her. "Asking if I need anything. _Like you care."_

For some reason her cheeks heat angrily, her fists clenching. "Of course I care." She blurts out before she can stop herself. "Why would I bother with all this if I didn't care?"

Instead of answering properly Wally makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat, head lolling until it smacks loudly against his headboard; she feels another flare of annoyance when he closes his eyes, as if he'd rather not look at her. " _What?_ " She snarls. "You have something you want to say to me?"

Wally jerks his head round at her tone, ears now brilliant in the dim light. "Don't stand there pretending like— like you can help, okay?" He stutters, looking furious. "Not when— not when the only thing I need right now is you."

He says it to the ceiling, unable to look at her; as he forces the words out she feels her stomach drop down to somewhere about her ankles, her throat suddenly dry with shock. "... Wally." She croaks out after a moment, sounding exasperated. " _You can't—"_

"I know, okay?" He cuts her off, waving away her rejection and instead slipping down angrily into his bed sheets, his back to her. "I know I'm not supposed to... It's over. _I get it_."

Her stomach seems to have jolted back into her abdomen is making up for lost time by suddenly churning violently, vomit seeming to rise in the back of her throat as she stares at the freckles on his back. She knows this is it— he's giving her an easy way out, a chance to leave without anything else said, but... But just now something is clicking into place.

She licks her lips. "... What was your nightmare about, Wally?" She asks, so quietly she's almost sure he can't hear it. A part of her isn't sure that she really wants to know.

He lets the hushed words hang in the air for several seconds before he rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling and not at her. When he speaks it sounds as if the words are rushing out of him, as if they've been haunting him all night. "... We were on the bridge." He breathes, and without him saying she knows he means the Metropolis bridge, the same one that appears in her own nightmares from time to time. "... You were notching your arrow and— and we were just talking. But then, right when you were about to fire, something..."

Even from here she can see the waxy look crossing his features, and in the glassiness of his expression she realizes that he visited The Exercise again tonight. "... And you were gone. Skin falling off bones and hair falling in loops out of your skull, and I wasn't fast enough to...

"You looked so small, that night on the roof top." He whispers, and now she knows he's no longer talking about the dream anymore. "I've never seen you look like— so vulnerable. I thought you were... And I— _I wasn't fast enough_. If I had just—"

His voice breaks and cuts off with a barely contained sob; at last she releases herself from the doorway, drawn to his pain like a siren, feet lobbing halfway across the room before she can stop them. "Hey." She says firmly, trying to block out the sound of his uneven breathing. "Baywatch—"

" _I just needed to see you tonight_." He says shakily, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. "And I couldn't— I must have stood outside your room for an hour, too freaked out to knock and— and the storm just drove me crazy, it felt like the bridge was collapsing around me and—"

She can sense that he's working himself into a panic again; she only hesitates for a half second before she launches herself across the room, not stopping until she's at his bedside. "Wally—"

"And I know I shouldn't be saying any of this." He blurts out even louder, nearly yelling. "Because you don't feel the same, because you're scared— but I'm scared too, okay? I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to—"

" _Wally_!" She says his name as loudly as she can; against her better judgment she starts yanking at the hands pressing painfully against his eyes, pressing her weight into his bed until she's sitting on the edge of it. "Listen to me for a second, you need to—"

"I—"

She manages to wrestle one of his hands from his face, the wrist bearing her elastic lurching away from his cheeks; ignoring how badly she wants to rip it from his arm she resolutely winds his fingers around her bruised wrist, deliberately pressing them too tight. "You need to calm down, Wally." She commands, watching as the one bloodshot eye she can see focuses on her face. "Relax." She tries to say more kindly, squeezing his hand tightly around her. "That's a pulse. I'm okay, I— It's okay."

Wally's eyes remain wide as he stares at her, pupils beginning to blow out but still looking as if he doesn't really believe she's there— then all at once she can feel his fingers tightening around her wrist, flexing around the bruises he's left until she's sure it would be impossible not to feel her heartbeat, loud and fast, underneath her skin.

"It was a dream, Wally." She says with as much authority as she can considering how dry her throat has suddenly gone, her lips feeling as if they're fumbling over her tongue as his eyes rake down to the only place they're touching. "It wasn't real."

"It felt real." He says in a hushed tone. " _It always feels real_."

And she's not ready for what he does next; not ready for his fingers to loosen their grip, not ready for the shiver than runs through her body as his thumb twitches into an almost unnoticeable circle, caressing the edge of the bruising he's left there.

This time she has enough sense to withdraw her hand, the gentle expression she's been wearing suddenly closing off as quickly and as jarringly as being submerged in icy water; it's painful, watching the way Wally's fingers follow the movement, as if wishing to restrain her, call her back to them. "... Sorry." He mutters, looking away when her fist resumes its hiding in the pocket of the sweater.

"Stop apologizing." She says roughly.

Now she really doesn't know what to do; it's so strange navigating this new territory with Wally, trying to decide how much intimacy is too much or too little. Once again she feels as if she's being gagged, feels as if she's drowning in the silence that follows. How is she supposed to do this— how is she supposed to shut down all these lingering feelings, how is she supposed to be friends with him if she can't even be in the same room with him without simultaneously wanting to throttle him and throw herself at him—

The quiet lasts nearly a minute before Wally breaks it. "Do you like the short hair?" He asks very suddenly.

It's an odd question, so odd that even in her surly state she can't resist turning her head to look at him— his voice sounds very suddenly more human, more Wally-ish than anything else he's uttered tonight. Automatically her eyes narrow, trying to read him, trying to find some meaning in the familiar features that still maintain the waxy, half-dead look he had a few minutes ago.

"I don't know." She says as honestly as she can, feeling wary and unsure about whether or not they're back to their questions game. "... Do you?"

She doesn't know why even asks such a stupid question, and she has to remind herself that she doesn't care about the answer. Instead of responding right away Wally frowns, seeming to look at her for a very long moment— eyes narrowed and studying the static in her hair, the frizzing ends that only look more ridiculous when she blushes under the intensity of his gaze. "I haven't made my mind up." He says after a moment. "Just so different, I guess." There's a long pause in which he frowns, shaking his head before he goes back to staring at his bed sheets. "... You don't really look like you anymore."

It's not meant to be mean, simply honest, but knowing that doesn't stop the painful pang that strikes her somewhere behind her ribs. "Makes sense, I guess." She mutters, glaring at the floor. "I don't really feel like me anymore, either."

Out of the corner of her eye Wally nods, watching her reaction. For a moment his mouth opens before he seems to think better of it; unlike her he seems to be able to resist the temptation to comfort her.

Then he asks something she's not expecting. "… You think this will ever not be weird?"

Another pang runs through her, and she doesn't ask him to clarify. "… I haven't made up my mind yet." She tries to say coyly, instead sounding choked.

"Me either." He admits after a moment. She's not entirely sure what either of them are supposed to do with that, if saying it aloud even helps anything.

( _And when she glances at him he's got the corners of his mouth turned up. It's nothing like the toothy, too-straight grin she's so used to— still, it's enough to send her heart sprinting inside her ribs, enough to make her stomach twist with a kind of wanting so intense that she very nearly crawls back into bed with him, wishing for nothing but the safety of the covers and the feeling of no clothing between them. It's nothing like the freckle blotched smile she so loves, the one that she knows she'll never get over...)_

 _((And if she's being honest, does she really want to?))_

Once again silence falls between them, and for the first time since she broke his heart it feels familiar, comforting, not as if one of them is bracing themselves for an attack. In the quiet she feels her heart ache for him, feels her fingers curling into fists inside her pockets to keep from reaching for him. As much as she won't say it aloud she does miss him, miss the quiet comfort between them. Misses not having to always feel the void with noise.

She misses when it was easier for the two of them to just be.

That was one of the first things she loved about him, before she even knew she was falling in love—distantly she remembers the turning of their heads to watch the sunset, remembers the first silence like this that stretched between them on the last real warm day of the summer. That quiet, this quiet, the emptiness between them when neither of them are running or bickering or fighting to hold each other closer—she supposes there's a kind of serenity to the stillness, to the nothingness, to the fact that neither of them have to say a word to each other to know the other is there.

She remembers that first silence again, the offering of a sweater she had wanted to take. She had loved him, even then, even before they were really friends. And she loves him now, after destroying everything between them.

She blinks when she feels the bed shift beside her; when she turns to look at him he's sitting up properly again, breaking whatever spell she's been under. "… Why?" He asks her, voice hardly louder than a whisper and sounding uncomfortable, as if he's afraid of what he's about to say. "Why did you… bother?"

 _She could have let him suffer at that window if she wanted to._

She swallows, throat tight. She's been asking herself this question all night, worried that whatever lies she's been telling herself won't be enough to satisfy him. "Because we take care of each other, Wally." She sighs, suddenly exhausted as she repeats the words he once said to her in the middle of a fight. "That's what we do."

For some reason he frowns, trying to read her face as she says the words with such a finality; she's back to staring at the floor again, not brave enough to look him in the eye, not brave enough to watch the emotion flickering across his freckled cheeks. "You could have left me. I would have been fine."

"Is that what you would have done if it was me?" She blurts out, immediately regretting it when he flinches at her accusatory tone. "… Don't answer that, just… Never mind."

Wally looks hurt when rises unexpectedly from the edge of his bed. "Okay." He shrugs, naked shoulders rising and falling as he keeps staring at her. "I won't answer. But you know if I did—"

"Don't, Wally." She cuts him off quickly, shaking her head. " _Don't._ I know, okay? You don't have to say it."

He sighs and things are suddenly more awkward between them; whatever peace they found in the darkness is beginning to disappear as morning approaches, any escape from emotions or hurt fading as quickly as the stars no doubt are on the horizon. She doesn't look at him but can tell he's got a sour look on his face. "If you didn't want an answer you shouldn't have asked." He says gruffly, continuing before she can interrupt and insist that she had taken it back. "… You know I'd be there, anyway. Waste of a question."

She blushes, bright red and blotchy and burning on her cheeks. "… You should stop saying stuff like that." She says stiffly, shifting her feet uncomfortably. "It's—I mean… _Wally_." She stutters.

He ignores whatever she's trying to tell him, eyes narrowing at the blush on her cheeks. He hesitates for a second, as if deciding on something. "… Why did you kiss me before?" He asks, sounding almost accusing.

She can see his ears going off as he says it, the tension between them now boiling hot and threatening to snap at any moment. "I don't know." She says quietly.

"Yes you do." He's always been too good at reading through her lies.

The inside of her cheek is still bothered from all her biting, and when her teeth dig into it out of nerves it sends a flash of pain through her, forcing her to focus. "I knew if I did you'd come back to me." She says honestly, although not entirely sure what she means. "… It's worked before."

She's not brave enough to look at the way his brows are suddenly shooting up into his fringe. "… Do you want me to come back to you?" He whispers, sounding breathless.

She supposes it must be the worst way to miss someone—looking at them and not recognizing each other. Trying to find familiar pieces in the shards that stand between you, picking up old memories that were once so happy but now tear reddened lines into the dips of your fingers. She isn't the girl he fell in love with, not anymore. Not with the threat of her father looming closer now than ever. Not when coming back to each other means luring Wally into more danger.

Her eyes sting with tears, and before he's quick enough to spot them she turns her back on him, marching towards the door. "No. I don't." She spits out.

( _And as she walks away she thinks of all the times Wally has come back to her, and all the ways he's managed to infiltrate the stony walls of her heart; she thinks of all the time they put into finding each other, into becoming friends, into falling in love... It all seems like a such a waste now. Soon the two of them will mean nothing to each other... Soon the two of them will find out it's easier to sleep in an empty bed than constantly fight for covers; soon they'll both forget the feelings they once had or learn to dismiss them the way one dismisses a stranger in passing on the street...)_

 _(And it's all so painful, so suddenly real that she feels as if her heart is breaking all over again; how is she supposed to live through losing someone who is as essential to her survival as the blood in her body? How is she supposed to move on when she feels as if she's losing part of herself? How is she supposed to leave the arms that were once her home?)_

 _((Why did she do this to herself?))_

Her mind thunders inside her skull but her feet refuse to stop moving; he doesn't call out for her when she shuts his door behind her, and she decides it will be the last time either of them find each other in the darkness.

* * *

 **AN: Thanks for all the reviews and all the well-wishes for my trip! I'm happy to report that after a much needed break I'm back and writing more than ever.**

 **I have a quick Q &A for several people who have been pestering me in the reviews for a while, BUT if you do not like MILD, ITTY BITTY SPOILERS do not read the un-bolded portion.**

 **.**

 **.**

Q: Will Wally ever find out about Garth attacking Artemis in Athens?

A: Yes! Trust me, in this story there is a time and place for everything!

.

.

 **That's all folks! Please read and review!**


	25. So Long To Ever After

**AN: Enjoy the update!**

* * *

She's not out of Wally's bedroom before she starts ripping his sweat shirt off herself, in her haste leaving a deep, almost bleeding scratch down her forearm. His door isn't even fully shut behind her when she leaves his sweater unceremoniously rumpled on the floor outside it.

 _(And her heart is pounding like she's just been sprinting, like it did the first time he lifted her from the ground without warning and sped off; and she tastes the sand and the heat and Wally, Wally is on her tongue and the walnut flavor is tempting, it's always too tempting_ — _)_

Even with the sweater gone she can still smell him on her, can still taste his lips lingering on hers; the lights have turned on in the hallway as it nears morning, all the mistakes she made in the past hour seeming blaringly obvious now that she's no longer in the dark. What did she have to kiss him for, anyway? And why did she have to go into his bedroom— _It was stupid, why is she always so stupid?_

 _Why is she always so weak when it comes to Wally?_

He's no good for her, he always has been— or rather, she's no good for him. How can she be? She's the girl with the blood stained fingers and the bad attitude, who was taught to hide behind brash words and a sneering voice; she'll never be good enough for him, never be whole enough...

 _But it was so easy. It's always easy, recklessly simple to get lost in him, to lose the tainted part of her and allow it to leak out of her as he touches her, pieces of her falling apart under the influence of his touch, of his lips..._

But that's exactly why it can't happen. A few kisses and some conversation in the dark doesn't mean anything, doesn't change who they are. She's still rotten to the core and he's still—

 _(Perfect, whole, too-good-for-her_ — _)_

Wally. He's still Wally.

But this finding each other in the middle of the night... Even if it wasn't intentional, a mere coincidence that her and Wally were both awoken by nightmares... Whatever it was it didn't make matters any better, she's sure of it. Why did she have to comfort him? Why didn't she leave? She should have turned on her heel the second she saw him... And why did he even need comforting? _"I could feel it... The lightning, running through me... It was like sensory overload..."_

She feels so frustrated, both with Wally and with herself, that for a moment she considers turning around, considers flying back to his room and shouting at him again... But no. No good can come from that either, can it?

Zatanna was right all along— what a stupid thing it was, dating someone on the Team. The thought wells up inside her so bitterly that before she can stop them tears are prickling against her eyelids, weighed down so heavily with her own exhaustion and self-hatred that they start dribbling down her cheeks so hard and fast she can hardly see. _"Don't stand there pretending like you can help. Not when the only thing I need right now is you..."_ Why did he have to say something like that to her? Doesn't he know how... How awful it is to hear something like that, how torturous it is to hear the words come out of his mouth, when it's all she can do not to turn back now, when it's all she can stand to not go running to him, not to hide from the world in the comfort of his arms...

" _Boys!_ " The word bursts out of her mouth just as she turns a corner, now so frustrated and angry that her feet actually still, muscles clenching and fists waving wildly. She's not even finished seething when she hears sounds on the other side of the doorway she's accidentally been lurking by; before she even has time to figure out where she is or who might find her the door is opening.

She deserves a trophy for maintaining eye contact when Connor appears, his muscled body clad in only a thin pair of boxers and his hair mused with sleep. "Why are you yelling?" He scowls.

"I—" She starts, going a deep shade of red when his eyes narrow at the tear tracks on her cheeks, his brows raising; she has the sense to wipe her nose loudly on her arm. "I wasn't yelling."

Connor's expression softens slightly, no doubt listening to her heart thundering in her ribs and wondering what's happening; before he can express any other sentiment M'gann is appearing at his side, yawning and pajama clad. "A-Artemis? What are you doing here?"

She doesn't even know where "here" is, unsure about which one of their bedrooms she's accidentally stumbled upon. As usual she can't find the right words, her head and heart so full of emotion that she's having a hard time thinking of anything other than Wally. Feeling stupid she hears herself mumble something about taking a wrong turn on the way to breakfast, and almost traitorously a tear wells in the corner of her eye, slipping part way down her cheek before she can brush it away.

Connor blinks at her, gaze leaving her face and instead examining her ruffled hair and the lingering redness in her cheeks; before she can think to hide them behind her back she realizes he's spotted the still bleeding scratch on her arm, his eyes narrowing dangerously at the livid bruises on her wrist. Almost unnoticeably she can see him shifting his jaw towards M'gann; it's not the first time she's been sure they're having a psychic conversation without her; sure enough, in an instant M'gann's eyes dart downwards just as she gets the sense to cross her arms, hiding the worst of the damage.

In the few seconds of sticky silence that stretches out between them the other girl seems to become more alert, tasting the emotion in the air and growing concerned. "Artemis?" M'gann says more clearly, squinting at her in the light of the hallway. "What's wrong—?"

"It's—" She starts, voice breaking off as she glances at Connor. Somehow it would feel worse, repeating what's happened in front of him; feeling slightly choked she clears her throat. "...Sorry. Nevermind."

In the half-second she takes to rub her knuckles against her eyes she can sense the two exchanging a bewildered look; when she emerges the other girl takes her delicately by the hand, carefully avoiding putting more pressure on the bruising. "Why are you crying?"

She feels pathetic, her throat tight as she shakes her head. "It's just—" She glances again at Connor, who has taken this moment to tactfully stare at the top of the door frame. Feeling silently thankful she inhales sharply, rushing through the words so quickly she stutters. "It's W-Wally."

She can hardly get through saying his name without falling apart, her chin wobbling before she feels herself dissolving into embarrassing tears; behind her knuckles she can sense the dumbfounded expression on Connor's face but as usual M'gann takes it all in stride, guiding her inside the room and patting her awkwardly between the shoulder blades, trying her best not to sound confused. "It's alright." She offers a little helplessly, one hand fumbling for the door to shut it behind her.

Almost the second the other girl says it she can feel waves of artificial comfort washing over her, a sensation she knows isn't real but can't help but want to disappear in; still shaking she struggles to level out her breathing through her barely contained sobs, inhaling the scent of the bedroom—honey, violets, and something metallic, like copper— and realizing she's somehow found her way into M'gann's bedroom, not Connor's "I'm sorry." She blurts out, pulling back and ceasing the clumsy wiping of her eyes. "It's early, guys, don't let me—"

"Save it." Connor cuts across her. "What's the problem?"

With a wave of embarrassment she's steered towards M'gann's unmade bed, the other girl sitting close beside her and leaving Connor in exile at her desk chair. "God." She mutters, wanting to run away as her cheeks turn a bright crimson. "I'm serious! It's stupid, anyway... I—I'll leave, it doesn't matter—"

There's a click of the lamp and the whole room is illuminated, and she tries her best not to look at the exposed muscle of Connor's chest as she turns to M'gann, focusing hard on the bright pink pattern of her pajama bottoms. "Of course it matters." The martian says seriously, hand dropping from the lamp shade. "What's going on? Did something happen?"

Saying it aloud is about as embarrassing as the current situation; for several seconds she opens and closes her mouth like a trout, only stopping when Connor cuts her off with an annoyed hiss. "Will you spit it out already? I want to go back to sleep."

M'gann shoots him an annoyed look, and she ignores the wave of artificial solace that washes over her to make up for it. "… I just kissed Wally." She blurts out, hands instantly hiding her face.

There's a girly gasp and M'gann sits up straight on the edge of her bed, looking delighted. "Really? But that's good, isn't it?"

"No!" She hisses miserably, feeling like crying again. "It wasn't—I didn't mean to kiss him. It was an accident."

Connor makes a noise in the back of his throat. "How do you accidentally kiss someone?"

"I don't know!" She fires back, beginning to get frustrated; she's not wording this right, all the thoughts and feelings inside her head hindering her from speaking properly. "It just kind of happened."

M'gann looks confused when she wipes at her eyes again, apparently too busy mulling over the situation to reprimand Connor. "But… You kissed him? Doesn't that mean you're getting back together?"

"I don't want to get back together!" She bursts out, cheeks firing again in a blotchy red.

There's another silence in which M'gann looks hurt and Connor seems to bristle, looking annoyed than she's disrupted their sleep with a lot of crying and yelling. "… If you don't want to get back together then why did you kiss him?" He asks, sounding slightly cold.

She sighs again, shaking her head and glaring at her knees. "I don't… It was this stupid storm. I saw Wally by the window and he was just so… Strange. I've never seen him act like that before. I would talk to him and it was like I wasn't even there, like I didn't exist for him."

The desk chair creaks as Connor settles himself more firmly against it, looking at her as if he thinks she's an idiot. "You kissed him to remind him you existed?"

"No!" She says defensively, shoulders hunching. "I just— he came at me, and he started freaking out and I just thought—" She glances down a little stupidly at her bruised wrist, sensing that the other two are looking at it. "I don't know why I did it. I just thought it would help."

There's more quiet at her outburst, and when she glances at M'gann she's a little surprised to see the other girl looking so deep in thought, her brows furrowed and her lip between her teeth. "Wally was acting strange? During the storm?"

There's an awkward pause as the other girl's tone registers in her mind, her eyes narrowing. "... Yeah." Once again she senses rather than sees the look M'gann and Connor exchange, the other girl resuming her lip biting moments later; looking between the two of them she feels as if she's missing something, left out of an internal conversation again. "... What?" She asks quietly, unnerved when they don't immediately answer. " _What?"_

Once again M'gann looks at Connor, something unknown in her expression. "It's just... Connor walked in on him, a few months ago. By the window." An odd pause. "... There was a thunderstorm then too, wasn't there?"

There's hardly a beat of silence before she cranks her neck around to copy M'gann's staring at Connor, her heart back to pounding against her ribs. So she was right, last summer— something had happened during that storm, something had happened to Wally and she hadn't been there to stop it—

 _(It's not her job to stop these things, she's not his girlfriend_ — _)_

As if he can sense the sudden burst of anxiety jumping in her stomach Connor glances at her, sighing; it seems to take him a while to answer, like he's debating exactly how much to share with her. "... Like you said." Connor says quietly, hands folded over his bare plane of muscled stomach and voice hushed in the darkness. "He didn't seem normal. Jumpy. Eyes unfocused. It took him a while to even notice I was there, and when he did… He was quiet at first. But then he couldn't stop talking, mentioning you—" She feels a pang run through her, as if somebody's just submerged her head in ice water.

For some reason Connor stops talking and she shifts on the bed spread, turning towards him. "… And? How did you... Fix him?"

"I didn't." He says bluntly, finally looking at her hard in the face. "I had to leave him like that. Like he was about to—"

"Bolt away at any second." She guesses, finishing his sentence for him; when she glances at him he's frowning.

Beside her M'gann pulls her knees up under her chin, looking troubled. "… He once told me he gets afraid, sometimes, when he runs." She says thoughtfully. "Like if he goes too fast… He'll just be sucked away by it. Disappear."

"Is that possible?" She blurts out, looking between them; she's all too aware that the flicker of fear running through her isn't being hidden from present company. "Could that even happen?"

M'gann and Connor exchange a look, and when the other girl brushes her hair behind her ear she gets the sense that there's something she isn't being told. Before she can demand any answers it's Connor who's speaking, not looking at her. "... He called you his Lighting Rod." He says gruffly. "A few days after you broke up."

She feels the confusion setting on the lines of her face. "His Lightning Rod?" She repeats, the words feeling strange on her tongue; in her mind she imagines a metal rod, flexing towards the sky, and a twang of lightning colliding with it in a loud bang. It doesn't seem quite right. "...What's that?"

Connor shrugs. "No idea." He pauses. "Just thought it would mean something to you."

She's suddenly aware that her mouth is so dry she can hardly swallow, her stomach beginning to swirl violently inside her; it feels as if she's looking out into the darkness, into a great unknown something that she should understand more of. "So what does that mean?" She whispers, voice cracking. "I-I mean..."

She looks helplessly between the two of them. "I don't know, Artemis." M'gann whispers, fingers pressing against her lips to stop herself from biting them. "He's never— even Wally doesn't know the full scope of his powers. It's just that maybe—"

"There's a reason I couldn't calm Wally down." Connor finishes gruffly, watching her. "... And there's a reason you could."

It's too much to think of, so many questions popping into her head that she can hardly pick a direction to follow through with. She's lightheaded, on the verge of vomit; for some reason she can't look at Connor anymore, her shoulders shaking as she turns to face forward.

There's a beat, and despite the suddenly wave of artificial calm flowing over her she can't stop her stomach from churning, back slouching as she braces her elbows on her knees. _Lightning Rod, Wally's Lightning Rod. What does that even mean?_ "… I think it's kind of romantic." M'gann says, trying to cheer her up with a smile.

"It's not supposed to be, Meg." She mutters thickly, the heels of her palms pressing painfully against her eyes to keep herself from crying. "I can't—we're not together anymore. I can't be that for him, whatever it is."

"Well, you are." Connor says severely.

She wants to hit him but decides she can do without the sore hand, instead running her fingers angrily across her scalp and trying her best to level out her breathing. "... How am I supposed to do this?" She whispers finally, embarrassed when her voice breaks with stress; once more Connor and M'gann exchange a look at the abrupt change in her tone. "How are either of us supposed to get over each other if we're still doing shit like this, if I can't stop myself from—from kissing him, the second either of us let our guard down…"

She feels a cool hand on her back. "It'll get easier, Artemis." M'gann says quietly, hand splayed between her shoulder blades. "… It's still new. You'll learn how to get used to it."

"Will I?" She counters, knowing she's whining but unable to stop, still fighting off tears. "How am I supposed to get used to being this—the goddamn Lightning Rod, or whatever he calls it. I can't—I can't be that and be nothing else to him, that's—"

She stops talking when her voice breaks with panic, allowing M'gann to loop an arm around her shoulder and drag her like a child until she's hiding in the hollow of her neck. "I don't know what to tell you." The other girl admits, one hand running along the top of her head and smoothing her short blonde locks against her scalp. "… Maybe you guys just need a little space."

There's a beat before Connor speaks, sounding unsettlingly casual. "Come to Quarac with us."

It takes her a whole five seconds to convince herself she isn't imagining him speaking; when the words and their meaning finally wash over her she lifts from M'gann's neck so violently she feels a jolt of pain spasm through her, the two of them exchanging a confused look. "… What?" She hears herself ask, beyond confused.

Connor spares an annoyed glance at the disbelieving look on her face before he crosses his arms, looking moody. "You said you needed space." He says simply, shrugging stiffly. "There's a lot of space between here and Quarac."

"But, I don't—"

When she swings her head around to stare at M'gann she's surprised again to not see her own shock mirrored there, instead being replaced with a thoughtful look. "Actually, that's not too bad of an idea." The martian admits, biting her lip. "You're finished with school for the summer, right?"

"I—yeah." She blinks, trying to figure out to if they're both being serious or not. "… But—"

She's not sure how to say it; all she knows if that there's a big difference between invading their space in the early hours of the morning and crashing their entire trip. As if she can guess what she's thinking M'gann shrugs, thumbs rubbing reassuring circles into her shoulders. "Why not? We were going to invite the whole Team anyway— kind of a graduation trip for me and Connor—"

"M'gann—"

"Besides," the other girls starts, no longer listening to her objections and instead beginning to babble, "it wouldn't be like you were tagging along with just us two, Garfield and Marie are there— Oh! Hello Megan, you've never met them, have you?" There's an excited edge to her voice. "What's stopping you? It'll just be for June—we were planning on leaving in a few days, and being back by the beginning of July—and you'll love Garfield, you've always been so good with kids."

This last part isn't true but she doesn't point that out, feel awkward. "… I don't want to, like, intrude or anything."

"Like you aren't doing that already." Connor huffs, the corners of his mouth jerking up nonetheless.

* * *

She doesn't accept the offer to accompany M'gann and Connor to Quarac, but she doesn't say no either; instead she makes an excuse to leave the room quickly, not sure what she wants. "Get some sleep." M'gann tells her, one hand on the door as she smiles a bit too kindly at her. "And think about it, okay? You still have a few days before we leave."

And she does—so much so that she can hardly stop. The thought of leaving everything behind for a few weeks is more than tempting… The few times she can bring herself to ask M'gann a few questions the more appealing it sounds—they'd flying there on the Bioship so there'd be no need to pay for a flight. They'd be staying with the unknown Garfield and Marie, who have a spare bedroom and a couch they'd be will to give up.

 _(... They'd be in another country altogether, which would more than save her from awkward encounters like she had with Wally the morning after the storm, in which she had been picking half-heartedly at her cereal and he had paused in the doorway of the kitchen before walking right by her, pretending she didn't even exist—)_

She has to remind herself that there isn't anything here for her. She tells herself that sometimes distance is needed to see things clearly.

 _(She thinks of leaving Wally behind and hates how badly that hurts.)_

The rain from a few nights ago seems endless, the sudden downpour seeming to draw all the heat out of the sand along the beach; even Gotham City seems more smoggy than usual, billowing clouds overtaking the city and staining everything in a familiar toxic looking grey. More out of sheer boredom than anything she hangs around the Cave, stalking through the halls and wishing the weather outside didn't so starkly reflect her mood.

"—I do not understand it either." Kaldur's voice sounds out from behind an unmarked door and she realizes that she's wandered into the most abandoned part of the Cave, the unknown hallways that contain the conference room she once interrogated Roy in. "But if we are to assume that our information is correct..."

Her mind is still so preoccupied with thoughts of Quarac that at first she doesn't register why her feet slow, ears perking at Kaldur's tone; it takes several seconds for her to place the hushed, almost frightened whisper that's barely audible through the oak doors. "But can we assume it's correct?" She hears Dick counter, his voice skeptical. "The Doctor was terrified when the League interviewed her, she was too afraid to talk. Even Batman—"

"I do not see a reason for her to lie." Kaldur interrupts. Against her better judgment she stops a few feet past the doorway, listening hard. She's been so wrapped up in Wally the last while she's hardly bothered with reading mission debriefings or following up in the once curious Doctor Sandsmark and the even more mysterious young Cassie; turning, she creeps as silently as she can towards the doorway. "... The League saved her life, cared for her daughter in her absence. A parent would not forget a debt like that."

The hallway is completely deserted, and it occurs to her that perhaps this is the reason Kaldur and Dick are meeting here to talk rather than the more populated areas of the Cave, which are filled to the brim with activity on such a rainy day. "... Whatever your misgivings," she hears Kaldur continue, his voice now sounding stubborn. "You must admit that her story fits with what Artemis reported of the mission in Athens. Sportsmaster did steal an artifact from the museum—"

"Artemis said herself that she didn't see what he took. What it comes down to—"

Dick abruptly stops talking, and for a moment she thinks she's been discovered in her eavesdropping; before she can even feel guilty Kaldur's speaking, as if he's just raised a hand to quiet his companion. "... What it comes down to is whether or not you trust Artemis' judgment." He says slowly, sounding stern. The words seem to hang in the air for a moment, waiting to be challenged.

"Of course I trust her judgment." Dick instantly says dismissively, voice snappy. There's something else there, something unsaid, but before she can figure out what it is he's continuing, sounding much more fierce in his argument. "The Doctor's lied to the League before. Her daughter, Cassie..."

"The League has been investigating." Kaldur says quickly. "They were very intrigued by the mission report from Athens. I cannot reveal specifics, of course, but..." He hesitates. "She's powerful, incredibly so. Perhaps even unique in her kind."

There's a silence between them, as if they're both mulling over lost details; nearly a minute passes and she nearly walks away before Kaldur is speaking again, no longer stern and instead sounding as if he's lost inside his own head. "The artifact the Doctor found, the one that we agree Sportsmaster took..."

"If it's what I think it is then it's Babylonia." Dick finishes. "It shouldn't have been dug up in Olympia. There's something funny too..." There's the sound of paper sliding across a hard surface. "These pictures were in the museum's archive, I ran them through League databases. Look at the symbols on the outside—" Kaldur makes a low an indistinct noise in the back of his throat that Dick seems to take as an invitation to keep talking. "They're extra terrestrial in origin. No matches organic to earth."

There's another long silence and more sounds of paper sliding over surfaces, as if Kaldur's riffling through the photographs. "Perhaps... I cannot be sure." He mutters. "It does appear... I will have Tula examine it, she is much more knowledgeable in Atlantis' history than I am. Perhaps my King will also oblige, if he is not too preoccupied with young Artur..."

More muttering and indistinct shuffling, although this time the quiet doesn't last long enough for her to lost interest; she can tell Dick seems to be gathering his nerve to ask something, to confirm suspicions she knows he's had for far too long. "... We know the tablet the Light stole in Metropolis tracks EMF readings— which are released during magic, alien, or zeta beam outbursts... And the artifact supposedly was letting off EMF waves, which means it's of magic, alien, or zeta origin..."

"Correct."

"... So what's the point?" Dicks huffs out, sounding frustrated. "I mean, when the tablet first got stolen in Metropolis I thought we were dealing with the Light tracking and eliminating the League— targeting the most powerful, those with magical or alien powers first and then slowly infiltrating zeta beam transportation and attacking us one by one. But this... This is history; it's not profit or a means of manipulation. I just can't see the end game here."

There's a brief moment of quiet and she gets the impression that Kaldur is staring Dick down with his milky eyes, brain whirring behind folded hands. "As I said before, I do not understand it either." Kaldur says steadily, an edge of frustration underneath his smooth tone.

She hears the sounds of chair scraping against tile, as if it's been silently agreed that the meeting is over; she knows it's time to leave before they emerge from the door, but before she can gather her bearings Kaldur's speaking again. "Apologies, I have been meaning to ask— have you any luck with the task I set you?"

"I'm trying Kal. Doesn't exactly help that Wally's been by my side almost constantly ever since him and Artemis split."

This quirks her interest; rather than turn away from the door like she knows she should she leans closer, ears listening hard when Dick continues. "... You know he'd tell her anything I found out— which isn't much. Last time the League caught Sportsmaster with facial recognition technology he was heading to Bialya, although I'd bet my life he's already passed the artifacts onto whoever sent him to collect them in the—"

The voices are getting alarmingly loud on the other side of the door, as if the room's occupants are mere feet from exiting; panicking slightly she looks around for a place to hide, only just managing to leap inside another conference room before Kaldur's opening the door to the one she's been listening in on.

"... You still don't think we should tell her?" Dick's finishing, passing her hiding spot.

"No." Kaldur says plainly, and once again she gets the impression that he doesn't want to be argued with. "You do not know Artemis as well as I do; I am sure if we fed her information in regards to his location she would attempt to capture him, if not kill him."

There's a pause. "...You really think she would kill him?" Dick asks quietly.

She hears footsteps echoing down the hallway, feeling unnerved when Kaldur doesn't answer.

* * *

She doesn't know how long she waits on the other side of the door, her mind racing; when it finally occurs to her to leave Kaldur and Dick's foot steps have long since disappeared, the silence in the hallway pressing almost painfully against all the thoughts whirring inside her skull.

It feels as if she's traveled miles in a simple matter of minutes, the swirl of information almost too overwhelming to dissect— for the first time since her break up with Wally parts of her feel awakened, no longer numbed. _Sportsmaster is in Bialya, Sportsmaster is in Bialya..._

She unaware when she rips blindly out of the conference room, walking aimlessly through the halls; _Sportsmaster is in Bialya, and Dick's tracking him_ — but he doesn't have the stolen artifact. Where did he hide it? Who did he deliver it to?

 _Does that even matter?_

She's hardly noticing where she's going, only vaguely aware of the mechanical gaze of Red Tornado as she wanders back into the more inhabited parts of the Cave. If she's being honest, truly honest, she doesn't give a damn about the mystery of the artifact, doesn't care about the endgame of the Light... For the first time since that night on the roof top her father feels real again, tangible, a thing to be broken, destroyed—

She can hear M'gann and Connor talking on the couch as she passes through the common area, feet pounding loudly against the tile in the kitchen but she doesn't stop to say hello... No, this is important, much too important. She's closer now than she's ever been to—

 _To what?_

Her heels catches slightly as she tramples through the hallway as the zeta tubes come into view; the snarling voice in her head seems to repeat the words again and again, as if trying to drown out the echoing of Kaldur's lack of response to Dick's question. _"You really think she would kill him?"_

Her hand waves automatically through the air in the center of the room, the movement sending the invisible screen she knows is there popping into existence. Her heart seems to thud against the ends of her fingers as she types his name.

Before she has time to brace herself she's staring at her father. She hates that she sucks in a terrified breath.

The weather beaten face seems to observe her as much as she observes him, and for a long moment she stares unblinkingly at the pixels that make up Lawrence Crock; his reflection is as terrifying on the screen as he is in the flesh. The photo has to be from a few years ago— even now as she compares it to the memory of their last encounter she remembers the deepened crows feet around his eyes, the fine lines blossoming around his mouth from the cigarettes he purses between his lips.

She doesn't know what she's looking for; some trace of familiarity, of likeness, maybe. Some imprint of the what he might have been to her, if he weren't the kind of man she was. Maybe she's simply looking for a connection between the photo in front of her and the person she only half-remembers from her childhood; the man who was both terrifying and a source of protection, the one who would make sure dinner was on the table and would run her burnt fingers under faucets, the person who gave her the hated and prized gift of archery...

She blinks, and in the brief moment she's hidden behind her eyelids something changes; when she looks at the photograph again all she can remember is the taste of her own blood in her mouth and the sensation of blonde hair being cut from its roots. All she can feel is the unyielding pain of a javelin against her neck.

 _Would she kill him?_

The Metropolis girl answers before she can mull it over. Lawrence sent Paula to prison and left her broken. He destroyed Jade and chased her away. And whether he meant to or not he molded Artemis and left her to rot in the Gotham apartment. He's the reason her family is no longer a family, the reason no amount of bleach will purge her home of the stench of cigarettes and the old liquor stains...

 _She thinks of her sister again. Jade would kill him, with no hesitation._

 _... But would she kill him? Would Artemis kill him?_

 _(And she's thought this over a thousand times, a thousand different ways. And maybe once she thought she knew the answer but now_ — _)_

With another wave of her hand the image fades, the screen disappearing again as a surge of unfamiliar and feral hatred burns through her. Yes, she's sure the Metropolis Girl wants her creator dead, wants him to suffer while she does it— and she had been so close to doing it, that night on the Athens rooftop...

 _But is Kaldur right? Does Artemis want him dead too?_

The second the question is asked Wally's face flickers to the front of her mind, his absence suddenly more painful than it's been since the freshest days after the break up. She thinks of all the times she stopped herself from doing what she wanted, all the times the distrust and fear her father instilled in her prevented her from falling in love; all the fighting, all the screaming, all the walls her father built that Wally had to rip down before he could love the smallest and most frightened parts of her. If that hadn't been there they would have had more than a few months; they could have had years together... They could have had their whole lives. They could have had forever.

But any kind of forever with Wally isn't an option now, is it? That had ended the moment Wally jerked ahead of her and beat her to the rooftop, the moment Sportsmaster realized what he meant to her. No, she knows her father. She knows that should he ever have a use for her he will bait her with Wally, knows that he will use that one weakness against her. Together or apart Wally's in danger.

 _She wonders what Wally would think of her. Wonders what he would think of the girl standing here, plotting murder._

 _(Is she plotting a murder? Is that Artemis? Or is that the Metropolis girl?)_

 _((Who is she?))_

She blinks again, and this time the image of her father's face burns hard against her eyes, far more persistent than any of the tears she's shed in the last few weeks. But perhaps the time for crying is over. Maybe it's time she stopped mourning the life she could have had and started making something of the life she's stuck with instead.

She wonders what the girl who grew up in the Gotham apartment would do. The person, that girl with the long blonde hair and the steely gaze seems gone now, lost forever. What would she do? Would she kill her father?

 _(She thinks of her own terror but she also thinks of the rent money, how it appeared every month without fail. She thinks of how sometimes she would wake up and the fridge would seem fuller, the apartment tidier, how sometimes a new book would appear on her book shelf...She remembers the loneliness cascading through the other girl's veins. She remembers how desperate and terrified she was when her father disappeared into the night. Her father had meant safety. Her father had meant beatings and screaming and cigarette burns but he had also meant power. And if there's one thing Lawrence taught her, it's that power could protect her.)_

And it's strange, or at least it feels that way when she turns her back on the Cave and walks towards the zeta tubes, thinking only of Paula and the cup of tea she wants when she gets home. It feels as if a flame has been lit inside her stomach, the same kind that Zatanna once put there with a glass full of vodka— although, she supposes, old memories burn with a lot more bite than any liquor.

It's strange, how quickly she grew up. How quickly her mind switched from prom to potential murder. It feels as if every drop of hope Wally dribbled inside her leaked out of the roots of her hair when her father forced her to scalp herself; feels as if her heart is both simultaneously too full and too empty. It strange how quickly all those dreams of forever can be shoved into forgotten corners of her mind, boxed up and never to be opened again.

And now that's she's used to looking at the short haired girl in the mirror she supposes she can admit something to herself: it was pathetic, building her life around Wally. And maybe she did deserve to be burned, to be scalped, to be beaten within an inch of her life on the rooftop. Maybe it was the shock she needed, the wake-up call she's been dreading, a stark reminder that she isn't an ordinary girl capable of ordinary love with a beyond extraordinary boy.

No, she knows now what she should have known from the beginning: you can't make homes out of people. You can't own them, can't renovate them. You can't expect them to comfort your insecurities, can't use them as a getaway from the real world. People aren't homes, and it was wrong to turn Wally into that. It wasn't right to build him up as an unstoppable force against her many demons. No boy can help her outrun all that, not even the fastest one alive.

 _(And she supposes, in a way, that settles things. Makes it easier to let that old life with Wally go. Because no matter how she looks at it, she knows one truth: as long as Lawrence is out there, Wally isn't safe. And of all the blood that's on her hands, she refuses to let a drop of it be his.)_

And Kaldur's wrong; she doesn't know if she would kill her father, but she knows that the idea of letting him slip through her fingers again is intolerable. So perhaps he was right about one thing. And Quarac may not be Bialya but it means a chance, however small, to redeem herself.

Is she brave enough to take it?

 _"You really think she would kill him?"_

A thousand times she's asked herself that question. She wishes someone else would answer it for her.

* * *

"You're not focusing, Artemis." Oliver tells her the next afternoon.

His words seem to jolt her out of her own thoughts, which until a moment ago had been consumed with nothing but her previous night's work in tracking her father, plowing through old phone records and searching old security camera footage, desperate for a hint as to who he's working with in Quarac. Blinking a little stupidly she lowers her bow by a half inch, suddenly realizing she's been firing almost blindingly at her target; she's supposed to be testing the density of the new heads he's placed on her arrows, and when she pulls her eyes into focus she's embarrassed to discover her last three shots have been terrible, nowhere near the crimson dot in the center of the board.

Oliver drops his jaw to survey her, mustache bristling with what she can only assume is a sympathetic smile. "Something on your mind, Sweetie?"

Ignoring his gentle tone she feels her cheeks blotch, one hand pressing her hair out of her face. She hates the length; it's still too short to throw into a pony tail yet long enough to fall constantly onto her forehead, tickling her. "No." She mutters quickly, fumbling for her quiver for another one of the new arrows. "Sorry, here—"

There's a bit too much understanding in the look he sends her, even if it is hidden behind his mask; she doesn't know why he bothers wearing his full uniform, it's just the two of them in the training room, and she hasn't bothered changing out of the sweat soaked tank top and shorts she'd been working out in when he arrived.

Instead of saying anything Oliver watches for a long moment as she notches another arrow against her finger, as if trying deciding how to breech the subject they're looming closer to. "… I've heard you've been having some boy troubles." He says quietly, crossing his arms.

Her stomach clenches as if he's just sent an arrow into her liver, but rather than be betrayed by the flicker of emotion crossing her features she adverts her gaze. " _Oliver."_ She says lowly.

As usual he ignores the warning, torso bending as he leans down to examine her form as she pulls her arrow taught. He must see something in the tightness of the muscles of her shoulders because all at once he straightens, sighing. "... We've all been there, Sweetie. Myself included." The way he says this is strange, and rather than deem this with a comment she sends him a withering look; for some reason he takes this as an invitation to continue. "Comes with the territory. You fight beside these people, emotions run high, close quarters—"

He cuts himself off when she releases her arrow, head turning automatically to follow it as it pierces the scarlet dot in the center, splitting the cork and notching cleanly into the target. "I'm not talking about this with you, okay?" She mutters gruffly, and as if to dismiss him she shoves her bow at him, ignoring the way it fumbles into his hands as she turns to leave. "New arrow heads are great. Can I go?"

"You have to talk about it with someone, Artemis." Even though his face is still friendly something changes in his tone, and at once she gets the sense that she's not supposed to cross him. She winces when he passes her bow back, a little rougher than he should. "It doesn't have to be me. After everything that happened in Athens— Kaldur told me he's arranged extra sessions with Black Canary—"

"I don't want to talk to Black Canary!" She bursts out, cheeks reddening.

When she makes to duck around him again she's not surprised when he blocks her. "You'll do what you're told, young lady." The last part is meant to be a bit of a joke, or at least that's what she supposes when his mustache twitches with what looks like a smile; when nothing happens other than her increased glaring at him Oliver seems to deflate a little bit, looking serious again. "Alright, alright. You're tough, I get it."

"Can I leave now?"

"No." Oliver pauses, looking at her again; she's suddenly very aware that she must look exhausted, under eyes purple with lack of sleep and hair unwashed and uncombed. "... Just let me do something for you, alright? Let's fly the girls out to Hawaii for a week. Or— you're sixteen soon, right? You gonna get your license? How about you and I go car shopping?"

It's very hard not to snort in his face, and she's thankful that this time she manages to get around him. "I don't need anything."

"Come on, Sweetie." He calls after her. "I know they say money can't buy happiness but—"

She hesitates, no longer listening to his babbling as a thought occurs to her; she wonders if Oliver is aware of the League's tracking of Sportsmaster.

Turning back to him, she feels her expression set, scrutinizing him as he talks himself into silence. "… I was thinking of going to Quarac, actually." She says carefully, watching his face closely. "Connor and M'gann are going, they invited me along to meet her—" Her words skip for a half-second as she reads his face, which is rapidly switching from his usual grin to something else, something she can't quite identify. "I don't know. She calls them her family, but they aren't. I don't know."

Oliver must notice the way she's watching him; at once the uneasy expression drops and he seems to force himself to chuckle. "Quarac, huh?" He says, voice sounding measured as he takes a step or two towards her.

As if to buy himself some time he reaches behind her, pulling one of the arrows he gave her from her quiver under the pretense of examining it again. She knows Oliver well enough to know he's doing some quick thinking; she's sure that he knows she would consider him not telling her about the League's investigation of Sportsmaster base treachery, but she also knows Oliver wouldn't be one to betray such highly guarded intel so easily.

The awkward silence stretches out for so long that for a half second she tricks herself into thinking he's still unhappy with the balance of her arrow heads; at least, she thinks so until she catches the way he's studying her through the eyes of his mask. "… Long way from home, isn't it?" He says gruffly.

"… That's kind of the idea." She admits, shrugging. She wonders if he'll try to stop her, if maybe he's been tasked with doing so by the League. "… Apparently her family lives in an animal sanctuary, right along the border to _Bialya_."

Oliver makes an indistinct noise in the back of his throat at her emphasis; she can tell he's still thinking very fast, wondering how much to tell her. She wonders if he realizes this is a test, wonders if he realizes that she's measuring how much to trust him in the future. "Well." He says after a long moment, voice sounding a little strained. "If you need to get away, then get away. That's fine."

"... _Really_." She watches as he gives the arrow one last look before reaching over her shoulder again and replacing it back in her quiver.

It might be her imagination, but in the half-second Oliver's masked eyes look at her she sees a flicker of something there— before she can dissect it he's straightening, looking serious. "Go, Sweetie. Relax, and clear your head..." He trails off strangely, jaw setting; for a long moment he seems to debate what he's about to say. "Listen, while you're there—"

"Yeah?" She says too sharply.

More hesitation. "Whatever else is going on, just remember... The most important thing you can do right now for your Team is getting over that Wally kid, okay?"

Again her stomach clenches, but she stops herself from bursting into speech; whatever explanation she owed Oliver evaporated the second he decided not to tell her about the League's tracking of Sportsmaster. "... Whatever."

* * *

The idea of leaving to Quarac takes hold of her, and even as she curls up on the couch in the Cave with a book in her hands she can hardly bring herself to read it; she knows it's ridiculous, foolish even, to go after Sportsmaster but a part of her can't help but obsess over the possibility of another encounter...

But she also knows it's pure fantasy— it will be next to impossible to illegally cross into Bialya once she's in Quarac and so watched by M'gann and Connor; furthermore, she suspects Oliver has alerted the League of her going there. She's sure they will be watched while they're gone, some junior members of the League no doubt already assigned with making sure she doesn't run off unnoticed. But at least she's got them cornered; no one can forbid her travelling there without revealing a larger plan that she's still sore about being kept from her— either way, she gets to do what she wants: go to Quarac or track Sportsmaster.

... Still. Even if she didn't know her father was there she suspects she would have made the decision to go to Quarac on her own. For some reason she feels an immeasurable pull towards the place, as if it somehow holds answers to questions she hasn't even thought of yet...

She glances up from the book she's pretending to read when she hears laughter across the room, a small smile crossing her face when she sees Kalur and Tula walking hand in hand down the hallway. Ever since her sudden arrival a few days ago the two have been inseparable—blissfully in love and oblivious to anything or anyone else.

And maybe that's it. It's not just the two of them who are wrapped up in their own lives—everything around the Cave seems to have slowed down, the usual trickle of higher ranked missions having been replaced by low level skirmishes that leave them all annoyed and hardly out of breath. Even the usual occupants of the Cave now appear at infrequent times: Zatanna seems to have grown tired of her constant wallowing and unceremoniously disappears into the confines of a summer country club and its endless supply of suntanned boys; when she tells Dick this she's met with a stale looking stare before he disappears too. Raquel only shows up infrequently to make use of the library, always managing to leave before she can bump into Kaldur or Tula. Roy's been absent since the day she met him on the beach.

When she mentions all this to Kaldur he obliges in answering her unasked question. "... Wally will be leaving soon as well. I believe he is going to visit his Aunt Iris."

For the first time in her memory the rocky mountain she calls her home feels so unnervingly empty, so horribly lonely that she can't help but be reminded of the abandoned Gotham apartment she was locked away in as a child; between the two couples and her own awkward run ins with Wally she can hardly stand to leave her bedroom in the mornings.

 _(She doesn't admit it, even to herself, but she wants to be as close to Bialya as she can; even without the lure of her father she wants to stand near the same soil where Wally and her once met for the second time, back to the moment she contemplated teaming up with the unknown boy in desert. And even though she'll still be miles away from that holy ground she can't help but feel like she'll see things more clearly over there, back to the sand that echoes whispers of words he once said to her...)_

... Maybe she should go. Just to clear her head.

She needs to hide from the shame of what her father did to her on the rooftop and needs to grieve the loss of the girl she used to be; above all, she needs to be alone, or at least alone enough. She needs an escape from the ghost of Wally, which seems to follow her like a shadow around the Cave, around her apartment, sitting across from her at the table in her kitchen. She needs sunshine and dry air and roads she's never trodden down. She needs to run away.

 _Artemis is a born runner._

It doesn't even occur to her to tell her mother what's happening until the next morning when she's already packed; Paula happens to roll past her bedroom when she's fastening the zipper on her duffel bag, and before she can even think of a way how to explain the older woman is holding up a hand, looking defeated. "Oliver called last night." She sighs.

"Oh." She says stupidly, not sure what to make of this. Privately she thinks that it's a low blow, him tattling to her mother.

She's expecting Paula to be annoyed about being the last one to know about the trip; instead she shrugs, looking as if she's fully aware she's lost her grip on her daughter. "… Just be safe." She tries to say sternly.

For some reason the words send a twist in her stomach, and in the awkward silence she can hear herself screaming at her mother after returning from Athens, can hear her own crying and the half formed words that burst out of her mouth as she had tried to tell her everything hat have happened; more than ever her father seems present in the apartment, choking the both of them.

 _(And she wants so badly to tell her mother how broken she is_ — _but, she supposes, that isn't exactly a secret. She doesn't know how to put into words how worthless she feels, how lost, how her life feels as if it's crumbling in on itself and how she needs this. She needs this one thing, this one stupid trip, this one pathetic half hope that's more than an excuse to hide in the Metropolis girl and her blood thirst than stay here and watch pieces of her shatter_ — _)_

Before she can even think of how to say this Paula's rolling away, wheels squeaking a goodbye in the darkened hallway.

* * *

With everyone scattered in so many directions she's not expecting a big send off from the Team, but for some reason that's what they get the morning they're supposed to leave; they're greeted at the docking bay by too many people, mentors and Teammates who all want to hug them and give them well wishes before the part ways for the better part of the summer. For some reason she feels claustrophobic when Oliver loops an arm around her, reminding her to enjoy herself while she's gone.

It's a strange feeling, leaving somewhere—she's so used to being the one left behind that she doesn't quite know what to do with the tightness in her throat, the wetness than comes to her eyes when Dick slings an arm around her shoulder and Zatanna plants a teasing kiss on her cheek. It's not just that she'll miss them, all of them— it's like she'll miss the moment, who she is at this point in time. It feels as if she won't be the same when she gets back, that none of them will; like they'll all be different people and once again she'll be left grasping at old memories and forgotten pasts.

Tula nods politely at her when they say goodbye—there's still an unknown coldness there that she can't help—but Kaldur breaks their seemingly permanently hand-hold to embrace her, arms winding around her shoulders. "You sure you can handle things around here without me?" She tries to tease, palm slapping between his shoulder blades before she pulls back.

"We will manage." Kaldur says back, smiling at her—it's one of his rare ones that expose his oval teeth and make it nearly impossible not to do the same back.

"Oh, sure you—" Her clever comment is cut off short when she catches sight of red hair over his shoulder.

Her eyes flash almost habitually to the jarring apple green of Wally's eyes, and for a moment her brain doesn't register the way her expression falls or the sudden twisting in her stomach. In fact, for that one moment she almost expects to feel the familiar jumping sensation at his presence; it's sudden absence reminds her of losing her footing on a staircase, of her waking from dreams convinced she's falling.

( _Reminds her of lips pressed against hers and a thousand reasons why she can't love any part of him. Not anymore.)_

It can hardly last more than a half-second—just long enough for her to memorize the tightness of his jaw, which seems to be twisting around something he won't say, not in front of everyone. Before she can do anything other than close her mouth he's looking away; ducking his head and shoving his hands shoving into his pockets he turns, stalking off towards the Bioship. She knows that look well: he wants her to follow him.

 _(And like always, she can't resist.)_

The exchange is unnoticed by almost everyone around them, M'gann squealing loudly through each goodbye and laughter sounding at Connor's sour expression at all the attention, but Kaldur catches the panic flickering behind her eyes, glancing back just in time to see her quarry disappear behind the reddened metal.

"… You do not have to." He says quickly, his hands tightening on her shoulders as if he's warning her to stay in place. "I can go and fetch him if you wish."

"No, I'll…" She starts, feeling a little helpless when she glances at him; she can tell he knows as well as she does that following Wally is a bad idea. She knows going after him will only make things messier, more complicated— but what is she supposed to do? Leave things unsaid? Pretend, forever, like the thunderstorm never happened?

It takes too long for her to find her voice, throat dry when she swallows, not looking at Kaldur. "I'll deal with it, okay?" She mutters, ducking around him.

She can sense Kaldur's gaze turning to follow her but she doesn't glance back; he may know her better than almost anyone but there are some things, she thinks, he'll never understand. Like how she knows, deep down, that she'll have to face Wally sometime; somehow leaving without saying a proper goodbye seems cruel, especially with so many things feeling unfinished.

 _(They've never done well with unsettled scores and old debts, have they?)_

And she knows without being sure of how she knows it that this time will be the last time she says goodbye to Wally; it's time for her to finally break the promise she made all those weeks ago. The next time they meet, nearly a month from now, they will be like strangers all over again; and she'd rather break his heart fully now than do it later, when she comes back sterile of his scent and kindness.

 _(She feels as if she's walking a death march as she climbs up the ramp, moving quickly so as to avoid any curious eyes that may have turned to follow her as she disappears into the Bioship.)_

She inhales the usual coppery scent when she enters the ship, shoes squeaking against the flooring. Her stomach jumps almost the second she enters the main cabin— even in the half-light his hair is still vivid, easy to spot in the dullness of metallic. He's slouched in his usual chair, behind the seat she would normally occupy; he had told her once that he chose that spot as often as he could because he loved watching her hair in the light, how it shimmered in long platinum lines down her back.

She feels like a fraud, an imposter of the real Artemis as she stands there, hair no longer long nor shiny. She hates the scruff of blonde hair that hardly brushes the tops of her ears.

All the courage it took to follow him seems to evaporate the longer she looks at his back, watching the tightness of his shoulders as he stares at her in the reflection of the glass opposite him. Her fingers tremble as she grips the strap of her gym bag and she seriously considers bolting right back out the way she came. Before she can decide whether or not to run she hears Wally's shoes squeak on the floor as he turns to her; suddenly looking at any part of him is impossible. Pretending to be fascinated with the dirt on the toes of her sneakers she does her best to breathe.

"Hi." He says at last, voice almost too-carefully measured.

She makes a show of glancing upwards and fixing her gaze on a spot somewhere above his left shoulder. Her knees quiver. "Hi." She mutters and, feeling like she's exhausted the most of her bravery, she scampers like a coward towards the back cabin.

 _So much for that._

She feels like an idiot as the door swings closed behind her, not quite blocking out the frustrated sigh that Wally lets out from his chair; she's back to being afraid of him, back to being frightened of all the feelings swirling between them, running like a kicked dog with its tail between its legs...

She's not expecting him to leave it at that and he doesn't; he allows her about ten seconds to panic in the cabin before he follows, appearing just in time to watch her throw her bag on the bottom bunk, claiming it. "You weren't going to say goodbye or anything?" He asks almost accusingly; she's not even looking at him and she can tell his ears are going off.

She wishes she hadn't let go of her bag so quickly; now there's nothing to do with her hands. Doing her best to harden her voice she ignores twisting of her stomach, which feels less like she's going to be sick and more like she's recently swallowed a wriggling python. "Bye." She offers almost indifferently.

The second the words leave her mouth she can tell they're the wrong ones; Wally lets them hang in the air for far too long, their cruelty ringing loudly in her ears and making her hate herself even more. "That's it?" His voice isn't even raised but she still winces as if he's just screamed at her; when she makes the mistake of glancing at him he's got his brows furrowed, jaw tight as he tries to read her expression. "That's all I get?"

Something must show in her eyes because after a moment his spine seems to straighten, his hands clenching inside his pockets as he stands directly in front of the door, frowning. She knows it isn't meant to be predatory, his standing there isn't meant to mean anything it's just where he stopped when he came in— but still, she can't help but feel cornered, trapped under his scrutiny as she squints at her.

She hates when he looks at her like this, jaw dropped and scientist eyes analyzing her like she's one of his experiments— it always makes her feels as if whole parts of her are suddenly transparent, like he can suddenly see more to her than even she knows; just like it did the first time he did it she can feel her heart suddenly pounding inside her ribs, her cheeks bursting into an ugly red. Fixing her uncomfortable hunching she straightens to her full height, careful not to blink. "Goodbye. _Kid_."

As she says it his frown turns into a full out glare, as sour as if she's just started spraying swears at him; suddenly it's as if it's months ago and they're both full of nothing but hatred for each other. She knows that he's fully aware of what the words mean. She knows it's not simply a goodbye, but she can't quite figure out what she wants to say instead. It's not _I love you_ , but it could never be _I hate you_ either. And maybe it's the thousand things she's felt since she first walked away at their window, the words she'll never quite work out how to get out of her throat without them leaving a bitter taste on her tongue.

And somehow, as always, she thinks Wally knows without her saying. He knows how badly she's missed him because he's missed her just the same; every minute, every hour without him has felt endless, and imagining her whole life like that is more terrifying than she can put into words. He knows how she'd wander around out of habit because he's trod that same lonely path too; he's known the pain of seeing something that reminded him of her and realizing, with a crashing weight, that she wasn't there anymore, that those long conversation about nothing are now only memories that will be lost between the two of them. He knows just as well as she does that that kind of realization is like having the air knocked out of your lungs, like having whole pieces of you sliced off and thrown away.

And she knows, as does he, that they've risked their lives for each other. And they both know they would do it again, and again, and as many agains as it would take to keep the other safe. They both know that they might have belonged together, that if things were different and if they had met just in passing on a street or at a high school dance and weren't the type to wear blazing symbols on their chests they could have, maybe, been two parts of a whole. But she can't belong to him, and he can't belong to her because people can't be owned by other people. _You can't make a home out of a person._ And it was wrong for two people so different to try.

And he knows, as well as she, that this time when one of them walks away it will mean goodbye. It will mean an ending to _Wally and Artemis._ Not as people, not on their own. But it will be the end of their belonging together. It will be the end of running back to each other and the start of something else; the start of wistful looks at old photographs and hazy thoughts after one too many drinks. It will be the end of the end.

And maybe the beginning of something else too.

Wally blinks and the moment ends; she turns her back on him under the pretense of fumbling pointlessly with her bag, ignoring it when he lets a loud exhale out of his nose. She waits to hear the sound of his sneakers against the tile and the swing of the door behind him as he leaves.

"I hate goodbyes." He mutters instead. He shoes squeak as he shifts his weight.

 _(He doesn't accuse her of running away from him. He doesn't ask her the thousand angry questions burning inside his head. And maybe that's one of the things she both loves and hates most about him_ — _how even after all this time he never quite does what she's expecting.)_

Rather than send another look his way she makes a bigger deal than she has to about extracting her toothbrush from an inside pocket of her bag. "… Then let's not bother, okay?" She says as meanly as she can, her fingers shaking as she fumbles with the zipper to replace it.

Her heart is pounding so loudly in her ears that she can hardly hear the sound of him approaching; like an idiot she jumps when she turns to find him behind her, a clean foot away but still close enough for her to feel the heat of his body. It strikes her, in the back of her mind, that he's gotten taller without her noticing again. "I hate when people leave." He says quietly, the whispered words ruffling her too short hair and sending a wave of the alluring walnut smell over her; it's very hard not to reach out and touch him, not to lean in and kiss him just for the sake of smearing the almost pained expression from his features. "… Reminds me of when they said they wouldn't."

"… I never said I wouldn't leave." She tries to say back, voice hushed for some reason. She feels as if there's a shipwreck inside her lungs, pieces of metal impaling her and making it impossible to breathe for fear of drowning.

He's standing too close to her.

Wally's hands are clenched in his pockets, as if the thin strip of denim is the only thing holding him back from touching her. "No." He shrugs, and for some reason the corners of his mouth quirk up in a twisted, gut wrenchingly small smile. "I know that... You just promised you'd always come back."

His voice breaks at the mention of the old promise and a part of her seems to come back to reality; blinking a bit too rapidly she slips out from where he's cornered her, striding across the room at random until she can no longer feel his heat licking at her skin. "I am coming back." She mutters, trying to sound annoyed. "July 4th, Baywatch. Mark your calendar."

For a half-second he stares at the spot she just vacated, inhaling heavily. Feeling stupid she crosses her arms, shifting her feet like an idiot. "Not like that." He mumbles, gaze dropping to his shoes.

He doesn't continue, but she hears the words inside her head as if he's just yelled them in her face. _"You promised you'd always come back to me."_

Her ribs seem to compress and she's sure she can feel her own bone marrow piercing her heart. Once again she feels like he's giving her a way to back-track, to take everything that's happened since the 28th of May back, like if she can only find the right words to say none of it will matter anymore. Whatever those words may be they don't come to her, her throat seeming to tighten as if the Metropolis girl herself is choking her. Instead of saying what he needs to hear she says the only word that comes to her mind whenever she's frightened like this.

"… Wally." She breathes.

"It's stupid." He says quickly, sounding as if he has a head cold as he turns back to look at her. "I know it is. I just thought…I feel like if you leave, that's it. I'm out of second chances." His ears seems to turn nearly purple as he pauses to wipe his nose on the back of his hand. "If you go, it's really over for us."

She realizes she's got her fists clenched so tightly around her forearms that she's left reddened marks behind.. "... It's already over for us, Kid. I don't know how many more times I have to say it."

"Is it?" He asks accusingly, and for a moment she sees a flash of the madness she's only ever seen lightning illuminate. "… Because you kissed me, Artemis. I know I didn't imagine it." He says fiercely, beginning to look angry. "I know I didn't imagine that, I—I can't think up something that real."

She's not sure what that's supposed to mean but the way he says it makes her blush. "I-I shouldn't have done that." She stutters, shaking her head. "It was… I didn't mean anything by it." This is a lie and they both know it, but he doesn't bother to correct her. "… You can't… We can't keep doing stuff like this, okay? Kid? We can't keep fighting like we're—"

Wally lets out a low hiss and talks under her. "Oh, _fuck off_ —"

"—Still together." She finishes, eyes narrowing at his swearing. "… We can't okay? We're nothing to each other now. Get used to it."

Something flashes behind his eyes, something hurt and vulnerable, and for a moment he seems to get so frustrated with her that he can't speak, instead shaking his head and glaring hard at the ground. "… You're not nothing to me. You're something." He says after a moment, and even thought the words are sweet he spits them at her as if he wants them to gouge pieces of her flesh away. "And I know I'm something to you too."

"Still." She says insistently, sighing. "It doesn't— I'm not anyone's anything okay?" She mutters, and it feels safer to be annoyed than whatever other emotion is eating her from the inside out. "… I'm nothing."

She doesn't mean to say it the way she does—broken sounding, defeated—but it comes out like that; almost at once Wally's head is jerking up, expression no longer angry but somehow not anything else she can identify. "Don't say that."

For some reason she shakes her head, blinking quickly as if she's about to cry even though no tears are burning at her eyes. "It's fine." She says stiffly. "Just go, okay?"

"Artemis—"

She's wrong—she might actually cry, and she needs him to leave before the last piece of resistance she's trying so hard to cling to crumbles underneath her completely. "I-I don't want to leave like this. Can you just get out of here?" She says quickly, shutting her eyes.

She feels stupid, standing there with her fists clenched at her sides, eyes screwed shut—she can feel her insides warbling, shaking; it takes every bit of strength she has not to throw herself at him, not start crying and demand to be taken care of like a small child. With every squeak of his sneakers she can feel herself getting closer—she needs him to leave, needs him to get out of her life—

 _(And she can't help but think that losing the person you love is the worst kind of drowning; now more than ever the loss of Wally, the loss of first love, seems to stick to her bones, cling to her skin. She thinks of how she used to dive into him, how she used to burrow herself in his goodness and hide from the worst parts of herself in there, how he felt like an endless pool of hope, of happiness. And the loss of someone like that is far worse than having water fill her lungs, more terrible than having parts of her burst under the pressure. It's pouring whole oceans inside of herself and realizing that nothing can fill the emptiness of his absence, no amount of holy water will ever replicate the reckless joy that once was Wally's kind of drowning_ —)

She hears the door shut, and the sound seems to echo a thousand times inside her. When she opens her eyes she realizes she's alone in the little back cabin.

(And she doesn't know why, but she didn't think he would really leave.)

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! Thanks for all the wonderful reviews for the last chapter, a few of them were so kind I was almost in tears.**

 **Please read and review!**


	26. Too Much For Me To Hold

**AN: This chapter contains mild sexuality. Enjoy the update!**

* * *

 _("You have to admit, Beautiful, we made a really good team back there."_

 _Before she can stop herself she's looking back over her shoulder in an attempt to send him a depraving look; true to what she's seen on the news her lack of enthusiasm only seems to encourage him, another charming smile breaking out under the triangles of the Kid Flash mask. "You sure you want to face feral boy alone?" He asks her, teasing._

 _Sand is rapidly filling her boots, making her stumble when she finally faces forward. "I can take care of myself."_

 _She nearly knocks into him when he appears in front of her, sand whirring around them at his speed and another goofy smile adorning his cheeks when she can't help but be surprised. "Yeah, but how do you know I can take care of myself?" He counters, looking pleased when she blushes at the closeness, her feet fumbling to find their footing. "Do you really want to send me on my way only to have me be killed by someone else? Kind of a waste, the whole sparing my life thing, really_ —"

 _For some reason she nearly smiles at his babbling; for a moment she can't look at him, her eyes dropping to where his feet are shifting, mere inches from hers. When she looks up again it takes more effort than it should to set her face into a glare. "... Are you suggesting I kill you now instead?" She asks dryly, eyes blazing through the holes in her mask._

 _Rather than look afraid Kid Flash seems to inflate at the challenge, his grin widening the longer she keeps her eyes on him. "Or, you know. Let me live long enough to get us out of here."_

 _The words hang in the air for several seconds and mentally she weighs her options; glancing away from his raised brows she looks all around them, eyes raking the abandoned skyline and the sloping of empty sand dunes. "... Alright, Kid." She sighs, a ghost of a smile crossing her cheeks as she turns back to him. The nickname tastes sweet on her tongue, smooth like honey and sounding almost drizzled rolling off her lips. "Which way are you thinking?"_

 _The unknown boy cracks an endearing grin that makes her stomach twist before he raises a fist to his chin, looking teasing as he marches in a full circle around her, pretending to take in their surroundings with fascination. For some reason she can't bring herself to look at him as he does this, having a hard time fighting back the smile on her cheeks even before he stops behind her and places a gloved hand on her shoulder, the other pointing out_ _to the emptiness in front of her._

 _"How about that way?" He hums into her ear._

 _The words make her shiver for a moment before she gets the sense to jerk her neck away from the warmth of his breath, skin blazing underneath his fingers. "Any particular reason why?"_

 _"No." He says easily, shifting until his elbow is resting on her shoulder and he's back to standing beside her, the two of them staring into the pink of the fading sun together as if they've known each other for years. "... You have any better ideas?"_

 _Unconsciously her gaze shifts towards the masked face that only minutes ago reveled its secret of freckles and pale skin, eyes raking the boyish jaw and the blooming muscles signalling nearing manhood. She still can't place his familiarity, or her reasoning behind not sticking an arrow into his eye; despite herself she can still feel the lingering throbbing of pain that had burst so violently at the front of her mind, can still feel the hot and anxious warning from her subconscious that had told her to stop. But h_ _er instinct has yet to steer her wrong, and she supposes she has to trust it_ — _she's meant to be with this boy, they were meant to find each other in the desert._

 _The boy in question catches her gaze, not quite smiling as his eyes flicker between hers. Vaguely she feels his arm shifting, pausing only to rest hesitantly between her shoulder blades. "... Beautiful?"_

 _One of his fingers twitch, dangerously close to the scar her father carved there; habitually she shrugs him off. "Come on." She says fiercely, shaking her head. "Let's go.")_

She jerks out of a half sleep, neck aching from tilting at such an odd angle. Her legs hurt from sitting in her seat for so long.

The desert in her dreams is no longer real to her as she blinks, thinking she can hear the tail end of a mumbled conversation finishing; when she looks around at the two of them she's not surprised to find Connor already looking at her—he must be able to hear her heart beat, no doubt can sense the thumping of wakefulness. "You talk in your sleep." He tells her.

She scowls, pretty sure he's lying but not brave enough to call him on it; instead she studies his heavy brows and well chiseled chin, speaking dryly. "... Did I say anything interesting?"

There's an awkward beat of silence. "No." M'gann says for the both of them. "Look out your window, we're almost there."

Her head turns automatically to look out the window. Her chest aches when she sees sand dunes.

* * *

The ground is spongy when her feet finally step onto it, weaving her way through a field of sweet grass she doesn't recognize. The feeling is jarring, unsettling, as if her sister is lurking just out of sight in the green wisps, about to strike. She hears unknown voices and for a moment she convinces herself that her father is about to come burling at her.

Before she can even brace herself M'gann rams past her, two swatches of reddened hair running straight at them; all at once Marie and Garfield bound towards them with matching smiles on their faces, shouting hello.

Connor shoulders past her, impatient with the way her muscles have frozen, waiting on a threat that isn't coming. "What's your problem?" He asks gruffly, not looking at her but no doubt hearing the horrified pounding in her chest.

 _(The sweet grass smells like Jade, the sand reminds her of Wally, and her father could lie only a few miles from here. She becomes vaguely aware that she's entered her own personal hell.)_

 _Keep it together._

 _Don't be a baby._

Swallowing down the instinct to run— towards the wildness of the Bialyan border or the sterility of the Bioship, she's not sure— she loosens her muscles, soldiering on.

* * *

Marie has to be in her early thirties, her cheeks littered with freckles and eyes crinkled with the ghosts of a thousand lopsided grins that have come before. Wally wasn't kidding when he told her—M'gann is Marie in miniature, the two sharing the same auburn hair and stature; seeing the two women embrace warmly feels odd, as if she's seeing double.

She's not one for children and she supposes it must show when Garfield turns to her expectantly, green eyes eerily bright and excited after greeting both Connor and M'gann with an overwhelming amount of enthusiasm— for some reason when he looks at her with such delight she feels as if she's about to be pounced on by an overexcited dog. Her prediction comes true startlingly quick; while his mother had simply nodded when they were introduced Garfield practically throws himself at her, a mess of scrawny limbs and bony elbows that wrap around her waist so tightly it's all she can do not to squirm at the closeness.

 _(Nobody has touched her_ — _really touched her_ — _in a while.)_

"Who's this?" He asks them all, cheek still pressed flush against her stomach before he abruptly cranes his neck back to look her in the eye, his chin digging into her abdomen. "What's your name?"

She doesn't like this about children; she always feels as if there's a better answer to their questions than she can give, no matter how simple they are. She's thankful when Marie takes him by the shoulders, steering him backwards until he's forced to let go. "… I'm Artemis." She mumbles, sounding unsure, as if she doesn't know the answer herself.

"Do you have superpowers too?"

" _Garfield_." Marie clicks her tongue, scolding. "Sorry. We're still working on the whole manners thing."

"What?" The little boy huffs, tiny hands flailing outward. "It doesn't matter if she does or if she doesn't, I'm just asking!"

She's relieved when M'gann decides to scoop the little boy out of his mother's arms, fingers rapping his sides until he's squirming in ticklishness. "What's new? Huh?" She coos, grinning when he blows a raspberry.

Apparently nothing much in the eyes of the nine-year old, and confirmed by M'gann and Connor's familiarity with their surroundings as they walk around the property. Nothing but the sprawling bungalow and the barn, more animals than she can count and a wire fence that looks as if it's always in disrepair. Unconsciously her head cranes around, taking in a sparse forest and rocks spotting the landscape in the distance. There's nothing else for miles, no real landmarks for her to use if she needed to find her way back...

"Artemis." Connor calls for her sharply, and with a jolt she realizes she's stopped walking, fallen behind the rest of the group again.

Feeling sheepish she turns her back on the desert. "Sorry."

Maybe that's why Marie and Garfield seem so excited to have them, and don't seem at all bothered by the extra mouths they have to feed; it must be lonely, just the two of them, the only visitors a bunch of animals with nothing to say. She tries not to over think it as M'gann passes her plates to set the table for dinner, instead focusing on her feminine jabbering in an overlong explanation as to how she's been since the last time she saw Marie.

"What's your name again?" Garfield asks a little jarringly a while later, looking especially tiny in his seat around the kitchen table, his little arms trembling as he passes her an overloaded bowl of mashed potatoes.

She glances at M'gann, who smiles encouragingly. "Artemis." She says shortly, relieving Garfield of the bowl.

"Artemis. Artemis." Garfield repeats, humming the word vaguely as he spears an overlarge piece of broccoli on the end of his fork. For a moment he considers the vegetable as he glances at her, eyes calculating.

She's not entirely sure what to make of all this staring, and instead turns to Marie and gestures to the water jug on the table, giving her son up as a bad job. "Can you—"

"Artemis!" Garfield exclaims loudly, cutting off her request for a drink. "Wait, you're not— _oh my gosh!"_

In an instant Garfield's leapt from his seat and sprinted out of the kitchen, little feet pounding down the hallway; her cheeks reddening Marie rises out of her seat too, yelling after her son. "Gar, you're supposed to _excuse_ yourself before you—"

But it's too late for her scolding— in an instant he's returned, flinging himself back into his seat and slapping a piece of paper onto the table beside her. "Mom— Mom, this is Artemis!"

"I know that, Gar—"

Instead of answering Garfield waves off his mother and it takes only a glance at the piece of paper to know why— it looks like a print off of an American newspaper, a tabloid of some sort, the ink smeared from the ferociousness of being ripped from the computer. Even in black and white she can recognize herself, can spot the familiar features of the rest of her teammates, and the outline of the Hall of Justice.

 _(Her hair was so long.)_

She squints, picking out a few blurred words on the page; _New Years Eve. Brave young heroes. S.T.A.R Labs technology.._. It all feels like it happened forever ago; back in the first few weeks of the New Year when their time was so preoccupied with debriefings and running between the Cave and The Hall of Justice. The photo here catches one of those rare moments on their way in and out of the latter building, uniform clad and refusing to acknowledge the cameras flashing around them. With a twang she sees her mouth open, mid conversation with Wally.

"That's you, isn't it?" Garfield asks her excitedly. "I mean, obviously you cut your hair— but it's you, right?"

Across the table Marie looks caught between embarrassment and curiosity. "Garfield Logan, you can't just as a superhero about their secret identity—"

"But it's not even a secret!" Garfield whines, still grinning and hardly quailed by his mother's protests. " _Her real name is her superhero name!_ It's like, asking Brad Pitt if he's actually Brad Pitt..."

She doesn't want to look at the photograph anymore, doesn't want to listen to the little boy's jabbering; instead she forces herself to flatten her expression, taking her potatoes a little more savagely than she should. "... Yeah, that's me."

She can tell M'gann senses the flare up of emotion in the back of her throat, but she's much more tactful than Connor, who looks at the photograph and snorts. "I thought the Team was supposed to be covert." He mutters, looking sour.

Instead of being upset at how disgruntled they all are Garfield punches the air, looking excited. "This is so cool— you're like, the coolest archer. Weren't you trained by Green Arrow? Like Speedy was?"

For some reason the mention of Roy makes her mouth grow bitter, the way it used to when Wally would compare the two of them. "That's right." She says as coolly as she can. "... Green Arrow trained me. No powers."

She reminds herself to try to smile and listens intently to Marie as she laughs, trying to break the tension. "Hear that Gar? No powers." She chuckles. "So there's still some hope for you."

* * *

By the time they finish dessert she decides she still isn't sure she made the right decision, tagging along with Connor and M'gann—although she will admit that it's nice here, with the wide open space unencumbered by buildings; with Garfield and Marie, who are interested in her but not in the overbearing, too-caring way the Team has been since she broke it off with Wally. Still something about being here doesn't quite feel right...

Things seem slower here. She just can't decide if that's good or bad.

The air here is salted, warm in her lungs as she sits on the front porch that evening, watching the sun disappear into the pink cotton sky. Without thinking about it her head keeps turning towards the sand dunes, towards the dessert plain and the heat of Bialya—she can't help it. Even though it's too far to see she can sense it, the swirl of feelings that seems to reside there.

She pauses in the thought, listening. Through the open window she can hear Marie and M'gann chatting. She's sure if she went off now she would be noticed.

... But maybe she really shouldn't have come here. Before arriving a few hours ago she had been sure the place would have answers for her, some sort of closure; she had thought being here, being close to Sportsmaster would... Would what? Make her feel useful? Make her feel important? Make her feel the aching something that's been absent from the hollow space inside her chest ever since she walked away from Wally?

The painted front step is peeling, old brown paint sticking under her nails as she curls her hands around the wood. Now more than ever she feels useless— she feels like a child again, charging ahead before she can think of the consequences. What did she think she was going to do? Sprint off into the wilderness? Abandon Connor and M'gann? Somehow find her father? Face him? Is she even ready for that?

 _(No. She'll never be ready.)_

... No. She had chased after her father without a second glance backward, impervious to all the destruction she was leaving behind. Her mother alone and defenseless at home— what if Jade comes calling again? And Oliver... He's probably worried sick. And Wally...

… It really is over with him, and yet it doesn't feel like it is. She had thought that when all the tears and the brokenness were over she would feel better, not like… This. Not numb, not like a whole part of her were missing, as if she'd lost a leg or a hand in battle. She feels haunted, head turning at the sound of the wind rolling on the dried out grass, half convinced Wally is there, his head resting on her shoulder and lips whispering in her ear. Is this what it's like for everyone when things between two people end? Is everyone haunted by ghosts of those they used to love but can't anymore? Do they see their faces in crowds like she does, hear their voice in the creaking of the stairs or their laughter in the back of their mind?

Is she finally going insane like Jade?

 _(Wally blinks when she pulls back from the kiss, the two of them ignoring Zatanna's jeers from the shore. Almost immediately he grins mischievously at her, voice teasing as the water laps at their calves. "You said yes." He pauses, as if waiting for the weight of his words to wash over her. "You said yes to Prom."_

 _"Shut up." She tells him, for some reason both embarrassed and pleased as she shoulders around him, resuming their walking through the water._

 _"You said yes to Pro-om." He repeats, voice now slightly sing-song as he follows her, cackling. "Which means you also said yes to taking photos with me. And dancing with me when slow songs come on. And_ —"

 _He must expect the half-hearted punch she throws behind her because he easily steps around it, eyes glinting the way they always do when he can sense she's starting to get riled up. "Guess what babe. If I get crowned Prom King_ —"

 _"_ — _Which you won't because you are completely disgusting_ —"

"— _You get to be Prom Qu_ —"

 _The words are cut off when she finally catches him about the shoulder, shoving him as hard as she can into the water; Wally emerges after a second, drenched from head to toe and sputtering. "You're crazy!" He shouts after her as she stomps away, but she can sense the smile on his face as he scrambles to chase after her. "Certifiably nuts, Babe!")_

Yeah, she's definitely going insane.

She realizes her head has turned back to look at the sand, a frustrated sigh leaving her lips— this time she doesn't look away though. Every memory with Wally seems sharper than reality now, in this place... She inhales the Quarac air and braces herself for what comes with it: the heat, the lack of humidity; she doubts anything she tries will ever erase the memory of waking up to Wally in the desert. The thirst in the back of her throat and a thigh wedged between her knees, an unfamiliar voice muttering sweet nothings at her and running a finger under her lips. Her reflection in his glasses, the fear and the tentative way she had trusted him, how it felt when he swept her off her feet and shielded her eyes from the violence of the desert wind...

It makes her heart ache with a kind of pain she's sure there isn't a name for.

What would have happened if they had never found M'gann? What if she had simply run off with the boy in the desert? What if they could have lived in the imaginary reality forever, the one without the snide remarks and the hard feelings; what if there exists another world where her and Wally are alone and happy and not divided, not broken apart because of the burdens of her reality—

Her throat goes tight and she blinks quickly, tearing her eyes away from the dunes again. She supposes there isn't a point in wondering.

"You're thinking about him, aren't you?" She turns to look over her shoulder when M'gann speaks; she hadn't noticed an end to the conversation inside. Wiping her cheek hastily she's thankful when the other girl pretends not to notice, hand clutching around the door knob as she looks at her with the slightest bit of pity. "… Wally, I mean."

She shakes her head, ignoring the sour taste in her mouth as she faces forward, continuing her sulking on the Logan's front steps. "No."

"Do you miss him?"

This question bothers her so much she can feel the tenseness gathering in her shoulders; involuntarily she gives a twitch that she tries to pass off as a shrug. "No."

The front door knocks against the frame and she's half convinced that M'gann's gone back inside until the other girl is sitting beside her, legs folding demurely and creasing her skirt. "You don't have to lie to me, okay?" The other girl says with a strange air of politeness. "I mean, you can if you want. But there isn't a point."

She scowls at her feet, not seeing the dried dust caking into the creases of her sneakers. When she doesn't say anything M'gann continues, her arm cool as it brushes against hers. "… I can feel it, you know." She says gently, as if this is new information. "Not that I'm trying to." The other girl adds quickly when she sends her a scathing look. "… Most of the time I try to block it out but… At night it creeps up on me. Like a fever or something."

She can feel the wrinkle over her nose popping up but she can't quite smooth it; instead of looking at M'gann she stares directly into the setting sun, as if hoping to blame it for the scrunching of her features and the wobbling of her chin. "… Sorry." She tries to say, the words refusing to get past her teeth beyond a small squeaking noise in the back of her throat.

M'gann understands as always, one of her green tinged arms wrapping around her and pulling her close, fingers pressing her hair off her forehead. It takes too long for her teeth to unclench and for the real apology to slip out of her mouth.

She's not crying—she's run out of tears long ago. But it feels as if a part of her is; that something inside herself that had been clinging to the false memory of the Bialyan desert, the same something that had been digging her nails into the denial she buried in the sand that was scalding her fingers with heat. Her eyes pull themselves back to the sand dunes and her lungs pull in another breath, as if hoping to find a part of Wally inside her.

They sit like that for a while, M'gann's arm around her and her head tucked into her shoulder; by the time they pull apart she's sticky with sweat from the heat and her cheeks are flushed in pink blotches that leak up her temples.

Instead of leaving like she wants her to M'gann looks at her, not understanding the sheepish way she goes back to staring at her sneakers. "… You love him, don't you?" She asks suddenly.

She swallows. She's never said the words out loud, not to herself or to Wally or anyone else. But something about the desert makes her feel like out here the words are safe. Hidden.

"Yeah." She says thickly, blinking at her laces and nodding. "I do. I really do."

She doesn't expect M'gann to understand and isn't surprised to see the confusion in the corners of her eyes. "Then why…?"

For some reason her mouth twists into a bitter smile, the muscles aching and feeling strange as she does so. "Because it's not enough, Meg." She says simply. "Love doesn't fix everything."

There's a disbelieving pause. "... What's more powerful than love?"

"A lot of things." She hears herself mutter, not wanting to see the naïve look on the other girl's face. "Things I don't know the name of."

They sit in silence for nearly twenty minutes, the sky turning from pink to a blazing red before the other girl excuses herself. She doesn't expect M'gann to understand, doesn't expect anyone to. Maybe this is the kind of thing it's only okay to admit to yourself.

She thinks of Wally, where he is in the moment, what he's doing— it must be nearly dawn at home. She imagines him restless in bed, imagines the way his muscles seemed to twitch out of sleep, demanding, as always, to move. She wonders if he's dreaming of her. She wonders if he's rolled onto his side and felt the empty bed, looking for her.

She swallows. She shouldn't be wondering these things anymore.

It's so warm here; even with the sun disappearing it's still hot, hotter by far than summer in Happy Harbor. Sweat seems to well behind her knees, in the folds between her fingers.

... Summer always seems so hopeful in its possibilities. Before everything that happened... _Happened_ , she had been looking forward to it. She had thought it would be her most exciting summer; she had imagined getting ice cream with Wally and afternoons spent lounging on the beach. She had thought of cool evenings spent curled up on the couch and how they would turn into warmer ones, confined under one of their bed sheets. She had thought it would be memorable.

She had thought she would be one of those girls she had heard in the hallways when she first arrived at Gotham Academy, the ones who bragged about boys they met at the beach and late nights with their backs pressed against the flat wood of docks. She had thought she would have her own stories, her own things to brag about, should anyone want to listen.

... It doesn't matter, she supposes, her mind settling itself to the task at hand. It doesn't matter if she can't brag about it on the first day of school, can't whisper it behind her hand before class starts. This will be the summer she gets over Wally. And that alone will make it memorable.

She rises from the front step, craving the feeling of the dirt here on her skin; kicking off her shoes she walks until she can feel the particles of sand sticking between her toes, pooling in her hands when she crouches and flexes her fingers in the dirt.

It's okay. It's okay if she's not the girl Wally dreams about. Or the one he dances with at Prom. Because maybe in some ways what they had... It was enough. What they had was enough to show her what kind of life she was supposed to live, where she was supposed to be— and where she's supposed to be isn't with Wally. It isn't with anyone.

It's okay. And that's all she wants to be: the girl who he sometimes thinks about five years from now when he's exhausted from working on his assignments for his fancy college courses, the one that his memory only half recalls in his tiredness. She'll be the girl he thinks of when he starts drinking coffee because his new girlfriend drinks it, and maybe he'll remember how he once hated the taste of it on her lips when he kissed her. Or maybe one day he'll have a cup of tea and remember where the habit came from— and maybe think, just for a moment, about the girl with the steely eyes and the platinum hair— before he continues on with his day and onto better things than her.

Maybe she can do this.

She stands up straight, smacking her hands together until the sand unsticks from her skin.

 _(Until no part of Wally is there to cling to.)_

She inhales and for the first time she doesn't taste Wally there.

She lets him go, lets the memories she's clinging to run away from her as fast and as unyielding as Wally did on the 28th of May; and it hits her, suddenly, how it feels like the end of everything, not the beginning. It's over. Hour by hour, the days that have passed— it's been a process, a grueling one, that's not complete but almost. It's unlike anything else she's felt, a physical sensation, like how she imagines it feels to let go of a kite. The string slips through her fingers, except the string is unfurling from her heart.

The feelings leave, and she has only more of the numbness.

 _(And everything she's ever let go of has had claw marks on it—Paula, Jade, Lawrence and now Wally. But it's time, time for her to start forgetting about the past, forgetting about who she used to be when she was selfish, when she thought she could redeem herself and her filth and somehow fall in love too. It's time she forget the childish idealism she's been operating under for the past few months, time she forget the feeling of Wally's hand in hers. It's time she moved on, once and for all.)_

The sun disappears, and she turns her back on Bialya and whatever it might have promised her for the last time.

* * *

The day after they arrive Garfield insists on giving the three of them a full tour of the sanctuary, despite the fact that little has changed since M'gann and Connor's last visit. The other two remain patient and pretend to be excited over the rebuilt barn and she does her best to be interested rather than focus on the expanse of numbness inhabiting the place where her heart used to be.

The Logan's property is actually much larger than she first thought; when they had landed she had judged the place to be only a few acres, enough for a sprawling bungalow and a few animals, but not even half-way through the tour she's told otherwise.

"We can thank all that _Hello Megan_ royalty money." Marie admits sheepishly, sharing a secret sort of smile with M'gann. "And the generosity of my parents when they passed on. The fenced in area is just where we tend to the animals, take care of them if they're sick; we own farther than you can see on the horizon... Not that the Bialyan soldiers respect much in the way of property rights."

"You don't smile much." Garfield tells her, interrupting his mother; automatically she forces her mouth to stop quirking at the sight of Connor's misstep into a pile of oryx dung. "You must be really tough."

M'gann ruffles the little boy's hair, sending her a too-kind smile. "You don't know the half of it."

The days pass and despite herself she starts to become fascinated by Garfield, who is childish in the best way possible—she hasn't spent much time with kids, and although she does often bumble through their conversations she does enjoy them. It's just nice, being around someone so untouched by the darker parts of the world; for every sullen comment that comes out of her mouth he seems to have a cheerful answer for it, even her dullest silences being broken by another one of his questions. She realizes within a few hours of their arrival that he's long since had an obsession with the Justice League, every inch of his bedroom walls plastered with photos of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman.

She jumps the first time she hears a delighted chortle come out of his mouth, an exuberant and high pitched giggle that seems to reverberate somewhere in her stomach. When Garfield laughs every part of him quakes with shaking giggles, breathing impossible as he clutches his sides or her arm— it's a noise full of reckless joy, unhindered happiness, that seems to be the only thing that cuts through the numbness inside her, even if for the smallest second. It's amazing to her, how happy a single person can be; she doesn't understand how everything ignites laughter from him, be it the way she's taken to blowing her too-short hair out of her eyes or unconscious way Connor whistles along to the foreign bird songs that burst out of the desert each morning and night. In only a few days time he begins to feel familiar in his boyishness.

"He kind of reminds me of that other kid on your team." Marie throws out carelessly one night as they all sit on the front porch. "The fast one. Kid Flash?"

For some reason Connor's eyes meets hers first and nobody asks why she goes to bed so early.

* * *

When Garfield tells her that he knows every animal by name she doesn't believe him, but she realizes quickly that it's true—it's hard to hold a conversation with him for all the interruptions, what with him either calling out a name or being chirped at by animals that recognize him.

M'gann is off chatting with Marie when Garfield introduces her and Connor to the oryx herd currently occupying their barn. "We've had them about a year and a half." He tells them, hands raising and rustling against the heads of the several horned creatures as they move to greet him. "You remember them, don't you?"

Connor shifts awkwardly. "Yes." He says shortly. She has the feeling the animals make him nervous.

She doesn't blame him—each oryx is at least a hundred pounds, slightly larger than an antelope with foot long horns that come to a deadly curved point. Even she feels uncomfortable as dozens of the beasts turn towards them, brutish hooves stomping hard on the ground and all intent on receiving a petting from Garfield.

"That's Amara and Khari, mother and daughter—and Jelani, Zula, and Talib. Oryx's used to be almost extinct here, I think Mom and I have the largest domestic herd. They're breeding faster than we can keep up though... There's supposed to be another reserve opening in Mexico that we might be able to import to— that's Emika and Nuru—"

"How do you know all their names?" She asks, astounded as more of the animals work their way forward, wanting their snouts rubbed. "They all look the same to me."

She steps back when Nuru turns towards her, curious at her tone no doubt, nostrils and lips flaring as he smells her; Garfield only laughs when she knocks into Connor, her cheeks flaring when the older boy grabs her elbows and steadies her, looking annoyed. "Once you get to know them you can." Garfield says teasingly, fingers rubbing behind Nuru's ears. "They're like people. If you see them in a crowd you don't really see them, you know?"

The oryx makes a low grunting noise in the back of his throat when Garfield stops petting him; for a long moment she stares at the endless black eyes and the strips of white down the creature's nose, trying to find something familiar in the depths. "Well don't just stand there." Garfield says after a moment, looking expectant. "Nuru loves getting his ears scratched."

She hesitates before extending a hand, and Garfield looks delighted when Nuru whines and dribbles saliva on her forearm.

* * *

 _(Her eyes open slowly in the half light, blinking. She feels warm fingers on her back._

 _She's in no rush to be awake and shuts her eyes again, hardly registering her nakedness or the sheets pooling at her waist._

 _Wally hums beside her, fingers running up the slope of her spine and attempting to press wakefulness into her joints. Traitorously her muscles twitch under him, neck lolling backwards and a low groan sounding out of her mouth as he strokes her; down her shoulders, down her waist, down her hips_ —

 _"Good morning." He whispers into her ear just as his hand cups her rear, squeezing tightly in a way that sends her stomach instantly twisting. His other hand pulls her hair from where it's covering the side of her face, looping it back behind her ear._

 _She can already feel the want pooling in the low part of her stomach, the sensation only doubling when he rolls closer, pressing tentative kisses into her neck. The elastic of her pony tail digs into her head as she arcs her back, rolling until her breasts are no longer pressing into the mattress. "Morning." She whispers back, voice cracking when she feels the length of him pressing into her, already hard._

 _Wally breathes another kiss into the milkiness of the skin on her neck, and she moans when she feels him squeeze her again, fingers shifting to find the wetness between her legs...)_

Her skin darkens the first week they're there, the baby hairs on her arms splitting into the palest platinum— when she catches her reflection in the bathroom she double takes, convinced for a half moment that she sees Jade and her Vietnamese painted skin staring back.

When the almost white scruff on the top of her head still refuses to fit into a pony tail she hisses, slamming the door shut behind her.

* * *

The days pass and before she knows it they've been at the Logan's for two weeks.

Even after they finish the initial tours and talking it isn't boring; their mornings are spent helping Garfield and Marie with the animals, filling feeding troughs and lifting crates of supplies. By the time the sun rises properly they're all famished and Marie and M'gann make several attempts at cooking that always end with slightly charred pancakes and fresh berries that burst with flavor in her mouth.

And she tries her best to smile, to laugh when Garfield makes jokes. The whole thing feels incredibly forced and fake.

The afternoons are their own, almost always spent out of the house while Marie does her paper work. The three of them go on hikes along barely trodden paths or follow the highway until they reach the thin strip of civilization that consists of a gas station, a supply store, and a dingy restaurant where no one speaks English.

Garfield takes a shining to her—probably, she assumes, because he has to. With Marie busy with work and M'gann and Connor occasionally busy with... _Each other,_ it leaves a lot of time with just her and the little boy. He asks her plenty of questions about her life that she isn't really sure how to answer—

 _("Do your parents knows you're a superhero? Do you have any siblings? Are they superheroes too?")_

 _("... Do you have a super-boyfriend?" He blurts out this last one very quickly and promptly blushes, scampering away before she can figure out how to reply.)_

— Still, for the most part she supposes it could be a lot worse. Garfield talks enough for the two of them.

He's on one of his bouts of questions at lunch time one day, this time preoccupied with her archery. "—Do you have to be strong to be an archer?" He blurts out over sandwiches.

She's forced to swallow the mouthful she has, raising her brows. "Depends on the style and size of your bow."

"But you have to be able to aim good?"

"—Aim _well_ , Gar." Marie interrupts.

She feels the corners of her mouth quirk up. "I think it helps." She says dryly, taking another bite.

The little boy nods, allowing enough silence for M'gann to ask for another glass of water before he continues. "But you can learn how to aim, can't you?"

"A lot of it's muscle memory." She says reasonably, shrugging. "Knowing your weapon, how the arrows are going to fly. But yeah, I guess you could, in theory. It's something a lot of people are just born knowing how to do though."

"Oh." There's a beat in which Garfield peels the crust of his bread off, thinking hard. "... Can you teach me how?"

She blinks, a little taken aback. But it's impossible to say no to that exact shade of green eyes, the ones that remind her so terribly of Wally's.

She nearly laughs after lunch, when they both stand opposite the stack of soda cans she's scattered along the fence—Garfield's much too small for the bow Oliver's built her, tiny arms nowhere near strong enough to pull the strings taught. "Here, Gar." She chuckles affectionately, crouching behind him.

Garfield listens intently when she tells him how to set the arrow on his finger, how real archers balance themselves by placing their back wrist along the line of their jaw. "But you're going to have to do it differently." She tries to say kindly, placing her fingers underneath his on the string and helping him. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. All superheroes have to adapt to their circumstances."

She allows him to aim, which turns out to be a mistake; when the arrow is released he misses her row of cans altogether and instead sends it straight into the trunk of a nearby tree. "Garfield!" She hears Marie hiss over M'gann's cheering from the front porch.

This time she does laugh when the little boy turns bright pink about the apples of his cheeks, pretending not to see the look of surprise Connor sends her—she can't remember the last time she laughed herself, it must be strange for anyone else to hear. Ignoring this she marches over to the tree. "Nice shot." She tells Garfield, one hand raising and hardly trying to remove the pointed tip from the wood—between her strength and his aim only the very end of the green feathered tip is showing, far too deep to be retrieved.

"Sorry." Garfield mutters sheepishly.

"Don't be sorry." She scoffs, reaching up to snap off the end. "I have dozens of these back home. Wouldn't mind if I lost a couple here. In fact—" She passes the feathered end to him, smiling properly for the first time in weeks. "Here. Souvenir."

Garfield grins at the back end of the arrow, and it takes her a second or two to place the twisting the words have put in her stomach.

* * *

Some days Marie drives into the little stretch of buildings along the highway to get supplies and on one of these occasions she accompanies her. Marie seems thankful for the company, and even more thankful for the help she gets in filling the water tanker.

"Between us and the animals we go through a lot of water." Marie tells her, leaning out the window of her truck. "Am I getting close yet?"

In answer she gestures with her fingers. "Still have a ways."

She's not sure how Marie usually does this on her own: she's learned filling the tanker is quite a production that requires hoisting it onto a trailer attached to her vehicle, towing it into town, then somehow positioning the trailer and the jutting end of the truck close enough for the hose to reach. Standing behind it now she feels as if she doesn't have a clue as to what she's doing, and she's simply giving directions.

She does admire Marie, she thinks to herself as she watches the older woman clamber out of the truck, sweat glistening on her forehead as she gives her instructions as to how to attach the hose and open the water valve. It must be hard, being out here alone, taking care of so many. She wonders if the older woman ever gets lonely.

They've never really been alone, just the two of them, and once the water is sloshing into the tanker they run out of things to talk about; in the silence she can practically hear the heat waving up from the gravel road.

After a few minutes the tanker isn't even a quarter of the way full, and the quiet gets unbearable. Finally Marie wipes the sweat from her face, apparently getting bored of watching her scuff her sneakers in the dirt. "So." She starts, hands bracing on her hips. "… Am I ever going to hear what you're running away from?"

The question takes her by surprise, and she sends a rock twanging out against the truck's tire by accident. "… What?"

Marie laughs at the stunned expression on her face. "Come on. Nobody comes all the way out to the desert for no reason. Not unless they're trying to get away from something."

She can feel sweat clinging to her scalp, the too-short ends of her hair sticking to her skull. She's not sure what to say and instead shoves her hands in her shorts pockets.

Marie chuckles and looks at her for a long moment before dropping her gaze, growing serious as she rests her elbows on the bed of her truck, one finger picking at the chipping red paint. "Sorry." She says suddenly, sounding like she means it. "… I didn't mean to pry. You just… Remind me of me, a bit. You have the same look in your eyes."

She can feel the sweat sticking her tee shirt between her shoulder blades. "… Did you come out here to run away?"

Marie straightens. "Sure." She shrugs.

"What from?"

It feels like too personal of a question but she supposes Marie just asked her the same thing; she watches as the older woman removes the clip from her hair, letting her russet waves fall about her shoulders. "Lots of things." She says. "I was in the dumps after _Hello Megan_ ended—had a lot of money too, which wasn't that great for me. I got into the drug scene and blew out my early twenties so high I couldn't tell up from down."

It's all so startlingly honest that she doesn't quite know what to make of it; her surprise must show on her face, because when Marie glances at her she laughs. "God. I keep forgetting how young you are—you seem a lot older than you are, you know."

"I'm fifteen." She reminds her, leaning on the truck too. "Sixteen in July."

"Well, you seem older than M'gann, that's for sure." She muses. "Don't tell her or Garfield any of this, by the way. Connor will be okay, of course, that kid's practically made of steel. But the other two… Well, they're both still my babies."

When she says this last part she catches herself glancing at her, eyes narrowed. _They're both still my babies_. So M'gann hadn't been exaggerating—Marie really does think of her as a daughter. "… So you ran away from all the drugs?" She prompts.

Marie shakes her head. "… I wish. Drugs would have been easy to leave behind. No… My parents died. Dad had a heart attack and didn't recover and Mom went right after—she just refused to take care of herself, and I was such a mess that I... They weren't even that old. Mid-sixties, both of them." Something in her voice falters and it seems to take her a few seconds to figure out what to say next, the only noise between them the gurgling of water.

"… I went downhill after that." Marie finally says roughly. "It was too much money—Dad owned a drilling business and had everything tied up in oil, my inheritance was enough to make sure I never worked a day in my life again. And soon it wasn't just the drugs—I treated myself like garbage. I couldn't stand being sober. I screwed around—girls, guys, it didn't matter. I just couldn't stand being alone.

"And then, of course, I got pregnant." She sighs, fingers twitching. It's an old gesture that she recognizes from another lifetime—she knows the movement too well, can tell that subconsciously Marie Logan is craving a cigarette that probably hasn't touched her lips in years. "And I forced myself to quit everything. Dropped the drugs, dropped my friends. Tried to drop the money too but it just kept coming in—royalty checks from DVD box sets or money automatically put into my trust fund from some old deal my Dad made but I couldn't get out of."

There's more silence and she clears her throat to remind Marie that she's there. "Doesn't sound like things turned out too badly." She tries to say kindly.

"Of course not. I had Garfield, best part of the whole thing... And that's life, isn't it? The awful parts are what make the good things so worthwhile..." The older woman trails off for a moment, shifting her feet in the dirt before she remembers she was telling a story.

"But I couldn't remember who Garfield belonged to. Who out of that flurry of people might have... I couldn't even be brave enough to try to track down the father, and— and I was scared shitless. My parents were dead, I was alone and struggling to be sober, scared I would screw up and social services would come... I kept on getting worried that some guy would show up and try to take him away, try to bully the two of us out of money, and I was too stupid to have a reason to say no because I was such a wreck. So I just packed up everything I owned. Bought the largest plot of land I could as far away as I could get. And I ran away into the desert." She says almost bitterly, trying to smile. "… Doesn't stop some things from following you, though. You can't get rid of your mistakes by moving from one place to another.""

This last part makes her frown, and she thinks again of how excited Marie and Garfield seemed to see them, how happy they were to have guests. She wonders how the girl who was afraid of being alone is fairing in the emptiness of the desert.

Marie shrugs again, turning to look back at her. "Well, I spilled. Your turn."

The easiness with which it's said makes her chuckle, eyes scanning the empty horizon and not registering how strange it is to hear laughter on her lips. One again she feels as if anything she says out here will be lost, as if the words will leave her mouth and blow away, forgotten in the wind. "… You're right." She admits after a moment. "I'm running."

"Now we're getting somewhere." Marie grins. "What from? A guy? Or… a girl?"

She blushes. "A guy." She confirms, pressing her elbows harder into the edge of the truck. "... Wally."

Marie lets out one note of laughter. " _Wally?_ How old was this guy? Fifty?"

"My age." She clarifies, smiling slightly. "A year older."

There's a pause, as if Marie is waiting for more information. "Well, what was he like? Awful?"

"No." She says quickly, shaking her head but not knowing where she's going as the words trail off. There aren't sentences kind enough to describe how she feels about the boy with the apple eyes. "... He was great. The kind of boy you bring home to meet your mother." She pauses again, thinking. "The kind of guy I think my father would have liked, if things were different."

 _(Wally West was the kind of boy who you build a future with. He's the one she once_ — _in the hidden, more secret parts of her mind_ — _saw being it. He was the one_ — _the one person who was her home, the one she saw coming home to, the one she saw building a proper_ — _four walls, a ceiling, a big couch with a dog sleeping on it_ — _home with. He was warm, always, and soft in the right places and the best kind of hard in others. He was kind; even when he was being mean he was being kind. He was caring, and loving, so full of the kind of love she's never known that she couldn't stand it, she had to ruin things_ — _)_

Marie seems to sense there's something she isn't being told, and for a long time there's nothing but the sound of water thundering into the tanker. "... Did he break your heart?"

She hesitates, debating between lying and the truth. It's hard to see through all the numbness inside her, and even when she utters an answer she's not sure which one she's going with. "I don't think so." The answer sounds so uncertain that she reconsiders. "He might have. I don't know. He hurt me enough."

"Hurt you enough?" Marie repeats, sounding confused. "Don't tell me someone was stupid enough to say no to you."

She wants to disappear behind her folded arms, cheeks blotching. "No… I don't know. I was the one who broke it off."

"Why did you break it off?"

She can feel herself getting ashamed, beginning to wonder how much is safe to tell Marie without saying too much. "… I'm not a great person." She admits, trying to remain vague. "And my family isn't exactly that great either. It just seemed… Better. To call it before things got worse and something bad happened." Marie makes an impatient noise in the back of her throat but doesn't say anything, waiting for her to continue. "… It's stupid." She admits shaking her head so hard her blonde hair flops in her eyes. "I'm just having a hard time getting over it. We both are. I know I shouldn't have come here but—staying at home wasn't an option. I was going crazy there."

The older woman shakes her head, auburn hair tossing down her back. "... Can I be honest with you?" She shrugs in response, not caring, and Marie smiles. "It's like I tell Garfield: one thing you realize when you get older is that the world is very... Big. Bigger than any one person, no matter how wonderful that one person may be... And sometimes the world likes to stomp on our heads to remind us that we're minuscule. Sometimes being wonderful doesn't mean that much, when you're looking at the rest of the world."

Marie re-clips her hair, and with its renewed done-ness she registers the change between a parent addressing a child and a woman addressing a peer. "You know, sometimes when you're close to someone... It's hard to see who they really are. You only see the wonderful, not its meaning in the rest of the world." The older woman pauses again, sending her a blazing look, scrutinizing in the heat of the day. "You love this boy?"

She can't bring herself to say the words like she did to M'gann, and instead makes a funny twitching motion with her head.

The older woman sighs, leaning back to check the tanker. It's almost full. "... I think at the certain point the only thing you can do is let things be. Live with the decisions you've made, let pieces fall into place. If he loves you, he'll find his way back. And if you love him, you'll follow your way back to him too. Just live your life right now, okay? Kiss a couple other boys, flirt with strangers, hug your friends... Be an idiot, while you're still young enough for it to be cute."

The last part isn't worded that well and she snorts out a laugh; Marie cracks a smile of her own, the tip of her nose reddening. "Sorry. Love's never been my thing— neither has advice. But if it makes any difference I don't think you're a bad person—M'gann feels the same too, and Garfield hasn't had so much fun in a while. And if you ever need a place to run to you're welcome here." She says kindly.

"Thanks." She hears herself say. For the first time in weeks she smiles, genuinely.

There's a pause as Marie switches off the water valve, and her brows seem to knit together for a moment. "Unscrew the hose." She tells her, and hardly another second of quiet passes before the older woman sighs, leaning against the bed of the truck again. "… Although I have to warn you." She says quietly, as if afraid of being heard. "Running might seem easy at first, but it does get tiring. You might be too young to understand it now... But sooner or later everyone has to slow down. And sometimes what's chasing after you catches up."

Her eyes narrow as she passes the hose back to Marie. She wonders if the older woman knows more about who she's running from than she's letting on.

* * *

"How old are you?" Marie asks her again when they're back on the road.

The sound of the gravel grinding underneath the truck tires is so loud that the two of them almost have to shout to be heard. "Fifteen." She answers.

Marie nods, hands gripping the wheel. It's slow going coming back now that the tanker is so full. "You have a driver's license?" She asks suddenly.

"Learner's permit." She answers. It had been one of the only things she had bothered with when she turned fourteen—she remembers studying for weeks and going down to the registry to take the written test, determined, despite not having a car and nobody to teach her, to get a tiny card with her name on it in her wallet.

 _(Something to identify her with if her body was found in a gutter.)_

"You should get one." Marie tells her, smiling over at her. "If you're so keen on running, I mean. Might make things a little easier, once those feet of yours get tired."

She knows it's supposed to be a bit of a joke but the idea takes hold of her, and by the end of the afternoon she's prowling the estate searching for Connor and planning her attack.

"What do you want for your birthday?" She blurts out when she finds him.

She's not surprised when he turns to look at her as if she's crazy, the glass of water he's raising suspended halfway to his mouth. There's several long seconds of silence in which the only sound in the living room is the blaring of the evening news— _"Live from the impeachment hearing of Rumaan Harjati—"_

"I already had a birthday." He says stoically, impossible to read as always.

Her eyes narrow as he turns back to the television, fumbling with the buttons until it's impossible to focus on anything other than Cat Grant, still babbling in a shrill voice about Quarac's president. "No you didn't." She argues, sitting down on the chair opposite. "You were freed from Cadmus on the fourth of July, right?"

Connor scowls. "That was the date of my liberation. My birthday's in March."

This catches her off guard, and after a second or two she remembers the annoyed look on his face as M'gann had forced them to sing around a well frosted cake. That particular party had been unpleasant and broke up quickly.

Ignoring this she waves her hand. "Well, whatever then." She huffs, annoyed.

Connor makes to turn back to the television but seems to notice the way she's still looking expectantly at him, her teeth gnawing on the inside of her cheek impatiently. _"What?"_

"My birthday's on July 20th."

"So?"

She leans back into her chair, crossing her arms over her chest as if bracing herself for impact. "So, ask me what I want for my birthday, genius."

Connor glares at her for a long moment before he sighs, practically growling as he switches the television off as if he can sense this is going to take a while. "What do you want for your birthday, Artemis?"

She leans forward, pressing her elbows to her knees and trying not to grin too wickedly at him. "I want you to teach me how to drive."

* * *

It takes a full day of pestering before Connor finally gives in; she knows it's more to get her to be quiet, but she can't shake her excitement—Marie for her part thinks keeping busy will be good for her, and the next evening after supper she tosses her the keys to her old truck, telling her to be careful.

She's out of her depth—the last time she was in a car was months ago in Athens and she had nearly gotten herself and the rest of the Team killed in the process; it takes several days to stop hearing screaming in the back of her mind whenever she sits behind the wheel. Despite the automatic transmission she's repeatedly confused by the buttons and knobs, accidentally setting off the windshield wipers when she means to use a turn signal or pressing down on the brake when she means to hit the gas. She'll be the first to admit that's she's a nervous, jumpy driver; it also doesn't help her anxiety when she discovers that Connor's an impatient teacher.

"The angle you're coming in at isn't right." He tells her angrily when he's showing her how to parallel park between the fence and two old water barrel's Marie's placed there. "You're going to be too far away from the curb."

She nearly loses it when he reaches across her to adjust the wheel, yanking it out of her hands— vividly she remembers the sound of crunching metal and bodies being shredded under the impact, the uncontrollably rolling jostling her body, knocking her head around on her shoulders... "Will you relax?" She barks, swatting his hands away and feeling as if she's just slapped her palm against cement. "God, not all of us came from the test tube knowing how to do everything perfectly."

He opens his mouth to say something back but at once he closes it, looking strained; she's sure the maniac thumping of her heart isn't hidden from his ears.

Each evening they practice until one of them, usually her, gets annoyed and stomps off muttering curses; finally Marie gets tired of all the swearing and Garfield is brought in as a mediator to remind them to watch their tongues.

As much as she starts enjoying life on the reserve she can't shake the strange clenching in her stomach that's been lurking there since their arrival; there's a nervousness, the sensation that she's forgotten something. She checks her bag multiple times, trying to find the missing thing, and each time comes up empty handed. When she tries to put the feeling into words she can't describe it to M'gann, and when Connor rolls his eyes and tells her to get over it she can't.

* * *

It gets hotter, and soon one of their favorite things to do is disappear off into the sparse woods she had spotted half a mile away from the property—on one of their first days there Garfield had led them inside it, down a weaving path of brambles and willowy trees until the sun became eclipsed by the shade of a large cliff, a billowing waterfall splashing over the end of it and creating a warm pool at its feet.

"Wow." She had said without thinking the first time she had seen it, the air around them humid and almost cold despite the heat.

Garfield had grinned at her, already racing towards the water. "Cool, isn't it?" He laughed. "Mom likes to drive to the top when she needs to think. It comes from one of the only rivers around—that's how we get so many animals near the property. Not much to drink around here."

It's so hot now that almost daily the three of them make the trek towards the small pond of water, occasionally joined by Marie when she isn't working or driving into town. Each time they come it's a relief to peel off her damp socks and shirt and wade into the water in only her shorts and sports bra, as if she's finally breaking out of a fever that's set itself deep inside her bones. The water isn't deep, and despite not really knowing how to swim she manages, the tips of her toes skimming the water bed in the deepest part. It takes several trips there before she finally works up the nerve to fully submerging herself in the water—after nearly drowning so many times in the last year it takes a few attempts before she can really talk herself into it—

 _(And before she can stop it she feels an unfamiliar swinging sensation in her stomach, her lungs constricting as if flattened, and the muddy water under the Metropolis bridge flashes before her eyes.)_

 _(Wally. She needs to find Wally, make sure he's still alive and_ — _)_

She inhales, screwing her eyes shut, and forces herself under.

It's a strange sensation, the pressure of the water weighing down on her ears and cutting out all noise, her too short hair billowing out around her and tricking her into thinking it's long again. _Wally's gone._ She reminds herself, bubbles spewing out her nose at the force of the thought. _He's not yours anymore. Don't be a baby._

She floats, weightless, as if all the numbness inside her has consumed her and is holding her, suspended in the water. She isn't brave enough to open her eyes but she senses movement in the water, as if all around there are little fish and tiny crabs suspicious of her, wondering why she's invaded their home.

 _She had thought she was doing better. Ever since the conversation with Marie... She's felt almost happy. Half-normal again. She can't keep remembering these flashes of him, she has to let go, she can't keep losing herself to all these memories..._

It's peaceful, time almost meaningless beyond the slow ache building in her lungs. Before she can test their strength she feels the pond weeds tangle between her legs and she rushes to the surface before anything can snare her.

When she emerges, lips sputtering and one of her hands pushing her hair out of her eyes, the first thing she sees is bloody orange blossoms. "For you." She hears Connor say sweetly, plucking the flower from a branch and extending it towards M'gann.

Her stomach clenches as she thinks only of white lilies. She wishes she had drowned herself when she had the chance.

 _Keep it together._

It's Garfield's laughter that jolts her out of the memory. "That's poisonous sumac." He chortles, coming between him and a blushing M'gann. "Come on, we have to get back and wash your hands—you'll be breaking out in hives if we don't."

There's more laughter, the sound of Garfield asking if she'd like to come back too. She submerges herself in the water so she doesn't have to hear it.

* * *

So that's what it is—loneliness. She doesn't know what she expected, tagging along on Connor and M'gann's trip. They're supposed to be there together, having fun without her, sneaking off together and enjoying their time in love. She's not exactly wanted.

 _(Or maybe it's just that the whole weight of what she's lost is hitting her_ — _she made a vow to herself, didn't she... No more love. Not with Wally. Not with anyone, ever again...)_

 _(Is she naive enough to miss it? Is she really that weak?)_

After that she spends a lot more time alone with Garfield, trying to keep her mind busy and keep the two of them out of Connor and M'gann's hair. She feels a bit like an idiot, not realizing this sooner. But she had asked M'gann and she had been fine with it—still, it probably wasn't right for her to tag along.

 _Selfish._

The days pass and she tries to ignore the sensation creeping up on her, pretending that she isn't still being haunted by dreams of red hair and smirking lips. Pretending that she isn't going to come home to more nothingness with Wally where there was at one time so much.

 _(Pretending she doesn't wake one night to find M'gann's bed empty in the spare bedroom they share. Pretending not to notice her and Connor wrapped up on the couch in the morning, necks sore from sleeping there all night. Pretending one evening after everyone else is asleep not to hear the giggling coming from the bathroom. Pretending not to hear the sound of the shower running and moans being barely contained.)_

She had thought she was getting better. Had thought she was moving on. But she can feel it, memories of Wally, the longing for him, for that kind of closeness… She can feel it sticking to the ends of her hair, seeping into her pores. She ran all the way to Quarac to escape it, and she's beginning to wonder if that's even possible. She can sense herself thinking in circles and tries to stop, getting out of a chair in the living room for the sake of moving.

She does a double take in when she enters the kitchen, squinting at the familiar russet hair glimmering in the early morning light shining through the window above the sink. "We must have made a real mess at breakfast if you're already doing the dishes. Need any help?"

Strangely, Marie doesn't answer her; instead she lets out a dreamy sounding hum, up to her elbows in soapy water and not looking bothered by it. "Marie?" She says her name, slightly confused. "Hello?"

Marie doesn't react until she's only a foot beside her; when the older woman looks at her she's got brilliant pink blush coating her cheeks, eyes glassy as if she were drunk. "Oh, Artemis." She mumbles, looking down suddenly at the sink as if she's surprised to find herself there. "Hi— Sorry, I was..."

Her brows raise when the other woman doesn't finish; she's never see her like this before. "Need any help?" She repeats, trying to smile. "With the dishes?"

Marie goes pinker still, pulling her hands from the water and reaching for a tea towel hanging over the oven rack. "That would be great, actually—" She sounds unfocused, almost frazzled. "I'm supposed to be meeting—someone—soon, I don't want to be late. You can finish up yourself, right?"

She blinks, still confused. "Yeah—I mean, sure, I can." Marie checks her reflection on the microwave and presses her hair back behind her ears. It strikes her as incredibly out of character; Marie's a practical woman, she's never seen her primp before. "… Who are you meeting?"

Marie blushes again, licking her thumb and scrubbing at some dirt on her cheek. "No one, just a friend up in town." The older woman looks almost girlish, and she catches herself adopting a teasing grin.

"Does this friend happen to be extremely good looking?"

Marie pretends to scowl and doesn't answer the question. "I'll be back later, around dinner time." She says sternly, grabbing her truck keys off the counter. "It's going to be hot again today, if you're planning on going to the waterfall you should go early."

"Sure." She says vaguely, sinking her hands into the dish water.

In typical fashion everyone avoids the kitchen while there's work to do, seeming to all come in at once the second she places the last glass in the drying rack. Garfield's on her at once, arms flying around her middle and head fitting under her ribs. "And what do you want to do today?" She herself say in a slightly winded voice.

His reply is immediate and predictable. "Driving lessons!"

She catches herself grinning as Connor slouches in behind M'gann, flinging himself down and already looking annoyed at the idea; the last few times they had gone out she had let Garfield sit in her lap rather than in the back seat, his bony hands covering hers and feet banging against her calves. She has to admit he's picking it up far quicker than she did.

Instead of being surly like she knows he wants to Connor shrugs, tamed slightly by the look M'gann sends him. "We could. Although I don't think there's much else to learn."

Garfield continues to look excited and she hates being the one to disappoint him. "Maybe later tonight, Gar. Your mom just took the truck into town for a bit."

"Into town?" M'gann asks, brows raising as she picks up one of the clean glasses and fills it with water from the sink. "I thought she just went yesterday? Did she forget something?"

She shrugs, running a hand through her hair. In the three weeks they've been here it's grown almost an inch, now tickling against her jaw. "No idea. She said she was meeting a friend."

"A friend?" Garfield snorts, stealing M'gann's glass when she sets it on the counter and taking a swig. "That's weird. There aren't a ton of local people there, mostly truckers and people going between the borders. Did she say who?"

Again she shrugs. "No. Although she did say it was supposed to be hot today, she said we should get a move on if we're going to get to the waterfall."

Garfield makes an excited noise and starts jabbering about his swim trunks and in the cross fire between glancing at him and the others she catches the look on M'gann's face as Connor braces an elbow on the table; maybe it's just that she knows M'gann so well, or maybe it's just because she herself has worn that look on a few occasions back home. Either way, she decides to throw the couple a bone.

"Tell you what." She interrupts Garfield. "You and me will head out early and beat the heat, and M'gann and Connor will pay me back for doing the dishes by putting them away and making us a nice lunch. Sound good?"

Garfield squeals and she tries not to make eye contact with the other two.

* * *

"I can't believe you guys are going home in a few days." Garfield says grouchily nearly an hour later. Marie wasn't kidding about it being hot today; they're only about hallway there and she can feel the sun beginning to burn the bridge of her nose, long waves of heat warbling off the ground around them.

For the umpteenth time she presses her hair off her forehead, thinking longingly of her pony tail and a breeze on the back of her neck."Don't tell me you're going to miss me, Gar." She teases, looking down at him.

Childishly Garfield throws his arms out in frustration, reminding her of something she can't place a finger on. "Of course I'm going to miss you!" He huffs. "It's going to be so boring with just me and Mom around here again."

"It won't be that bad." She rolls her eyes, one sneaker kicking out and catching on a rock, sending it skipping further down the familiar path. The sparse woods are beginning to balloon up around them.

"I know." He whines, stretching out the words as if she's just scolded him. "I just can't believe it's almost over. I can't remember the last time I had so much fun."

She shifts her bag on her shoulders—it's light, only containing a towel and a few bottles of water, but her shoulders are so burnt from the last few days that no matter how her straps sit they bother her, the canvas digging into the tie of her swim suit top and sticking to the sweat pooling through the back of her tee shirt. "Me either." She admits after a moment.

A bird flies above them and twiddles out a song; without hesitation Garfield whistles back the way Connor's taught him, the tune imperfect but close enough to peak the creatures interest. It's true, she supposes, watching the bird rustle down onto the lower branches and whistle again. She's felt lighter and a happier in the last few weeks than she has in a while... Still, it doesn't change the fact that it was selfish of her to tag along with M'gann and Connor. It doesn't change that she invented the possibility of the encounter with Lawrence to hide behind; doesn't change that she left a wreck of people behind: Paula defenseless, Oliver worried, and Wally—

 _(It doesn't change that all her mistakes... They're all counting down the seconds until she gets back and owns up to her awfulness.)_

Garfield looks up from the bird, smile faltering when he catches the unhappy look on her face. "What's up?"

"Nothing." She mutters quickly, shrugging and continuing to walk. "… If it makes you feel any better, I'm not excited to go home either."

Garfield catches up to her—she's not going too fast for his sake, his little legs no match for her long ones. "That doesn't make me feel any better about anything." He tells her. "What's wrong with home?"

She wants to tell him the whole story, every awful thing that's ever been tossed on her shoulders and made her feel worthless—her mother being thrown in prison, Jade abandoning her, her father giving up on her. Every foul thing her sister has ever spit at her, how Lawrence can be miles away and still terrify her so much that she's afraid to be normal. How she was stupid enough to make Wally fall in love with her and how she'd rather die a thousand times over than see the broken expression on his face when she had ended it, when she left him for the last time—how she was too much of a coward to stay behind and deal with the shattered remains of her life, how she hates herself and doesn't think she's ever going to deserve to be as happy as she tricked herself into being the last few weeks—

 _(Worthless. Pathetic. Selfish.)_

She bites her tongue very hard to keep from saying this, reminding herself that nine years old is too young to hear about some things. Instead of speaking she swallows, trying to shrug easily and ignore the sun burn on her shoulders. "Nothing. Here is just better."

Garfield looks doubtful. "Why?"

She's expecting the question and manages to smile teasingly, one hand reaching out to ruffle his hair in a way she knows from M'gann that he hates. "Because you're here, obviously." She says, snorting when he ducks out from under her fingers and pretends to look annoyed.

"Well then maybe I can come there!" He counters, beginning to look excited the way he always does when an idea really takes hold of him. "Maybe Mom and I can come in a month or two—of course, we'd have to find someone to take care of the animals… But why not?" He bursts out, not noticing when she looks a little skeptical. "It'll be so cool—you can introduce me to the rest of the Team, we can hang out, and I can tag along on missions and stuff—"

She stares into the green eyes, bright and shining like emeralds, and finds it very hard to disagree. "Maybe not so much that last part." She says kindly. "We'll talk when you finally get the hang of shooting my bow straight."

They're getting close to the waterfall now, the sun high and past the heat of the day; Garfield's just about to argue with her when there's a shout behind them, and M'gann and Connor start racing towards them.

"That didn't take you two long." She hears herself say when they finally get within a few yards, pretending not to notice their flushed cheeks and mused hair.

"You two are slow walkers." Connor says plainly.

"Or maybe we're just fast cooks." M'gann counters with a sweet smile, gesturing to the basket in her arms. She decides not to think too much on what that could possibly be an innuendo for.

Garfield continues blabbering at them about his plans to visit them back in America, and while none of them can find the heart to tell him that it probably won't work out they do have a good time answering his questions about home; Garfield doesn't distinguish between important and unimportant information, and seems to find as much excitement in hearing about past missions to Yellowstone National Park as he does in M'gann recalling her favorite classes in high school. After a while she grows tired of walking and longs simply to be there, and as her feet begin to ache she slips back to walk in silence with Connor.

It must be almost half past two by the time they round the final bend towards the clearing they all know so well; the second they get close to it she can smell the humidity in the air, the unknown sweet scent that seems to linger in the grass here hitting them all hard in the face. "I always wonder what that smell is." M'gann sighs almost lazily, inhaling. "It's almost like honey suckle, but I don't think those grow here. You'll have to be my guide, Gar, whatever that plant is it has to grow around—"

M'gann cuts herself off with a gasp, freezing as the waterfall comes into view. Even from here there's no mistaking the peeling red paint of Marie's truck, flipped upside down and half-submerged in water.

She blinks, spotting blue toned flesh and lifeless russet hair skimming the water's surface.

 _(Each time it seems to happen slowly; either in the actual memory or her dreams about it, it always happens in the same methodical manner. Her heart beat stops and her mother seems suspended, simultaneously in the air and on the ground, her face blank except the beginnings of the puckering about her brows._

 _She's ten years old; tiny and unimportant in her black suit that looks better on Jade._

 _Her mother locks eyes with her as bullets shred through her body._

 _Things speed up when she hears the gunshots, splintering into Paula's body the way her pulse splinters against her ear drums. Shoulder, neck, hip, spine; years could pass and she will always remember the locations, feel the pain as if she's the one who's been shot. Muscles contract and release, and her mother_ — _always brave, she was always so brave_ — _doesn't scream. Paula Crock crumples and the pavement is colored a special shade of Huntress red.)_

* * *

Garfield screams.

It's the worst scream she's ever heard in her life—not just because it's high pitched and snarling and leaves ringing in her ears; it's because she's uttered that same scream herself, felt that noise echo inside her bones when she realized her mother was gone, gone, gone. All at once Garfield and her are the same, the howling inside her head so loud she can feel parts of her brain bursting, aching, throbbing; can smell imaginary blood in the air and she's a child, she's ten years old again—

 _(And they're both too young, too fragile. Too innocent to contain that kind of grief.)_

 _(Focus.)_

She sees his tiny freckled body charge forward and she moves without thinking, the Metropolis girl awaking inside her and snapping into action with such ferocity she might as well be saving the ten year old girl in the black suit— because there are some things you are too young to see, and your mother's dead body is one of them. She doesn't even think about her aching feet, the scalding of her shoulders; she just throws herself in front of him, arms clasping tight around his middle and refusing to budge.

 _(She looks to the right as Garfield screams in her ear. M'gann's face is frozen in a look of horror.)_

 _(She can only save one of them. She can't_ — _)_

 _(("And I..." Wally whispers inside he_ _r head. "I wasn't fast enough_ — _"))_

"Connor, go." She snarls at him in the most commanding voice she can muster—there will be time for feelings later, time to mourn when it is her place to. She won't allow herself to think of anything outside of the little boy screaming her arms, won't allow herself to shut down, not again, not when Garfield is clawing at her, trying desperately to reach his mother and not caring that he's breaking the skin on her arms, drawing blood, yanking her hair from her scalp—

" _Connor!_ " She repeats, and the shocked expression on the older boy's face melts into seriousness as he rushes towards the water.

Several feet behind her M'gann's knees give out, the crisp white of her shorts crumpling into the dirt. Her eyes are so wide she's afraid she'll be able to see the reflection of the drowned truck behind her if she stares too long. "M'gann?" She whispers, hardly able to hear herself over Garfield's wild howling.

The other girl doesn't look as if she hears her. She registers the sound of a heavy object being pulled from the water and she yanks Garfield down into the safety of her neck, determined to hide his dead mother from him.

* * *

 **AN: And another chapter up! Please read and review.**


	27. Burn Me Up

**AN: Apologies for the late update; there's been a lot going on and this has sat in my outbox for far too long. Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Like it always does when she falls apart time seems to simultaneously burst into speed and slow down; she feels as if the whole world is spinning, no longer under her feet but instead around her, consuming her from the outside in. For a long time it feels as if the anxious buzzing has escaped her head, the frightening whirring of thoughts leaking out her ears and twisting everything in sight into a flurry of color, of emotion, of sound. The only thing that feels real is the rapid pounding of her pulse, thrumming angrily against her skin and seeming to echo in the spaces between her bones.

 _Breathe._

 _Focus._

 _("In and out." Wally tells her, ghostly breath warming her neck. She senses chapped lips brushing against her ears and feels her skin burst into goose pimples. "Breathe, Artemis. In and out with me." She knows it isn't real but still feels too-warm fingers dragging her wrist to the column of his neck, where his pulse is pounding under his jaw. "It's okay. Listen to my heart beat, okay? Breathe with me. In and out. In and out together."_

Garfield's fingers switch from scratching at the side of her face to clawing at her sunburnt shoulders; the pain is so startling and intense that it forces her eyes open, her senses dragging random pieces of her surroundings into focus. Her heart is exploding, her head faint from not breathing, the sensation of the ground gone even though she knows there is dirt beneath her knees and a little boy screaming in her arms—

It takes nearly a minute, but slowly some things start to jump out at her, more solid as she sees them emerge from the blur of color: the strange greenish-blue hue of Marie's skin when Connor lays her on the sand, her horrifying likeness to M'gann; the contrast of congealed blood and the trees, of red metal and dirt; the sound of tears dribbling down cheeks and the feeling of tiny limbs struggling to fight her off...

She doesn't want to see anymore.

And even though she knows she is too old and too strong to want such things she suddenly can't help but crave a different kind of blurriness; for the first time in a long time she longs for that lost moment in the Bialyan desert, the first time she could ever remember wanting to run away from her whole existence. More strongly than she has since the last time she saw him she _wants Wally;_ wants him here to take her away, wants him here to hold her, to tell her she won't have to deal with this— because even at fifteen and sixteen they can still be children if they want to, they can still run away from the wreck of a life they were guaranteed the moment they first placed symbols on their chests—

 _("I can't do this." She wants to shout the words until they drown out Garfield, until they burst ear drums, until it's loud enough to somehow call Wally to her side. She can't do this. She gives up. She wants to go home, she wants a cup of tea and for someone else to deal with her demons, her ghosts, with the brokenness that's inside her. "I can't do this." She repeats, saying the words over and over inside her head until the meaning is tattooed on her ligaments. "I can't do this.")_

 _("Yeah, you can." Wally whispers. They are playing chess and she wants to give up, bored and losing badly. The day is overcast, clouds reflecting off the water when she looks out their window. "Don't be stupid. You can do it.")_

The dirt returns under her feet when she starts breathing again. She's vaguely aware of the locked nature of her limbs, how panic has made them like a bone and wire cage.

 _("In and out." Wally tells her, but this time she doesn't long to feel him, doesn't allow his ghost to touch her. "In and out together.")_

She breathes again, the air in her lungs stirring phlegm. Although she wants to throw up she will not. It is not her time to panic.

The world spins, wildly and uncontrollably, and no matter how loudly Garfield screams and sobs Marie Logan remains dead.

* * *

 _(She can't do this.)_

She's not equipped for grief, doesn't know how to comfort; she feels as helpless as she did when she was ten years old, watching her own mother's battered shell be bloodied and hauled away from her that horrible Gotham night. Except this time there is no back alley to escape down, no Jade to follow when she wants to disappear into the darkness. Instead she is forced to bear the load like a soldier, sterile and disinfected.

 _(She can't do this.)_

Even the inside of her head feels blurry; she can feel trauma setting in, burrowing under her skin and waiting for her to feel it. Although she can sense part of her retreating into the shadowy depths of her mind she knows she can't indulge it, can't submit to the too-human emotions of grief and pain when there are decisions to make and no one else to make them. Distantly she registers herself asking some sort of question, looking on helplessly when M'gann trembles and Connor listens for a pulse all of them know isn't there.

 _(She can't do this.)_

Garfield's shrieking seems to become a part of her, as in-sync to her existence as her own heart beat— she feels it thrumming through her veins as she lifts him in her arms, feels its pain in the way his little hands fight her when she removes him from the shore of his mother's watery grave. The screaming pounds through her feet and into the sand as she starts the trek back to the sanctuary, which now feels more like hell than anything else.

"Mom!" The little boy yells, sounding more childlike and shattered than ever before as she squirms in her arms. "Mom!"

 _("... Mom?" She had whispered; Jade had shoved by her, already gone, as Paula's blood dribbled over the uneven pavement and into a sewage drain.)_

She feels as if she's slipping down a nightmarish rabbit hole, being buried under the weight of age-old grief; Garfield snarls and claws at her, nails digging at the corners of her eyes and drawing blood down her neck. He screams for his mother, screams for M'gann, screams at her to let go of him. She does her best to tuck his head under her neck, trying not to gasp out in pain when he bites into her like a wild animal.

She knows she will have to be the one to tell him; she knows it is worse, far worse, to be a child and never have these things explained to you. Sometimes you need to hear the truth of it before your mind can process what your grief already knows.

 _(She can't do this.)_

Her muscles are tired but she keeps walking, knowing the moment is coming. When she finally speaks she registers that she's bitten a swollen line into the inside of her cheek. "... She can't hear you, Gar." She says quietly, the words burning the backs of her teeth when they come out, like acid in her stomach being spit onto the ground. "... She's gone, okay? She's dead."

Garfield goes limp, his last scream dying as quickly as if she'd just slit his throat. Although he doesn't say anything more she feels tears staining her collar bone.

* * *

The next few hours pass in an almost dream-like fashion, time spurring on in its strange way. The League is called, as are the dusty patrol cars of the local law enforcement. By the time the sun disappears behind the horizon Marie's body is placed in a plastic bag and shoved firmly out of sight.

She tries her best to stay out of the way, instead hovering awkwardly between door frames and trying her best to block out snatches of conversations; she can't stand to listen to the sound of M'gann's sobs into Connor's shirt, or look at the blank expression on Garfield's young face as he stares, waxy and unseeing, at empty stretches of paint on the wall. People try to ask them questions that don't make sense and force her to repeat her last conversation with Marie so many times she's sure she'll never forget it.

 _"I'm supposed to be meeting_ — _someone_ — _soon... Just a friend up in town..."_

Hours later she sits alone, long after the local sheriff and the League have disappeared into the darkness, hating that the quiet doesn't offer any relief. In the silence she can feel the sterility inside her beginning to stain, can feel all her coldness unthawing as panic sets in; the quiet of the night seems to only be broken by the sound of the oryxs shifting in the barn, a soft thrum of animal noises, wondering where their dinner has gone to, oblivious to the fact that their care taker is dead, unknowing that at this very moment there's arrangements being made to bury her five feet underground...

She closes her eyes, head automatically leaning back to press against the wall of the barn; on the other side she can hear more soft noises, no doubt her sitting just outside has been noticed by the hungry animals inside. The ground here is strangely warm after a hot day, seeming to thaw her limbs in a way that she doesn't feel; dirt and sand cling to the sweat on the backs of her knees as she pushes her legs into the ground, quietly wishing to be buried alive.

 _(She can't do this.)_

She presses her fists against the tops of her thighs, the dirt on her hands leaving imprints above her knees as her nails curl into her skin. Even though he isn't here, even though he's been silent for hours now she can still hear Garfield's screaming; she doubts she'll ever fully erase the memory. It will be one of those things that stay with her months, even years after.

How many of those things does she have now?

Too many. Far too many, for fifteen short years.

 _And at the age of nine, now Garfield has one too._

She can feel the emotion rising in her throat and automatically her hand moves through the dirt to find the pocket of her jeans, clenching tightly at the denim and feeling the familiar outline of her cellphone; when she takes it out she's not surprised to see the blaring _No Signal_ flashing across the screen the same way it has been since they first arrived. It's stupid, wanting to talk to someone— she doesn't know who she would call, even if she could.

... That's a lie, of course. More than once her thumb has ticked through her contacts, taking inventory. Kaldur, maybe— although she's sure he's already aware of what's happened. Dick, or Zatanna, too...

Her stomach squirms; she knows who she almost wants to call. As she thinks it she scrolls absently, pausing for a half second.

 _Baywatch_ flashes once before her eyes, so bright in the darkness that she squints. Scowling, closes the contact list. She wonders if Wally would even answer.

No, she knows who she would call if she could, who she wants to talk to more than anyone— perhaps it's just taken the trauma of the night, perhaps its some old childhood instinct she's half forgotten. The barn feels too hard on her back and overwhelmingly she thinks of her own mother, of the stiffness of her wheelchair on the few occasions she's hugged her, and suddenly she wants to talk to her so badly she could burst. A mother would know what to say, how to comfort Garfield— and better yet, would know how to comfort her.

 _(She can't do this.)_

She shoves her phone back in her pocket, curling her knees into her chest; despite the warmth of the air and the dirt she still feels cold, frozen in some places... Would Paula even know what to say? How can she? Things have been so... Broken, since Lawrence got out. The silence in the apartment has been so loud, the absent look in her mother's eyes more pronounced... They've hardly talked since Oliver came and tried to clear the air. Granted, things haven't exactly been great, ever— even before her father was out there was something between them, a five year old ulcer that seemed to grow in the years prison kept them apart. From here, oceans away, it almost seems irreparable— and how can it be? How can anyone pretend that five years of _nothing_ isn't a big deal?

... But Paula's always tried, at least until Lawrence was a threat again. That's the truth, isn't it? Her mother had tried her best to tear down barriers, to cover up the cigarette burns in the carpet, to fill the empty walls... She's the one who's been putting up boundaries, the one who sneaks around and hides things... Why is it like that, anyway? Is it guilt, for becoming what she did in her mother's absence? Or is it resentment, for being left in the first place?

 _(Or is just that she's her father's daughter, and Paula can never save her from that?)_

She winces at the bile rising in her throat, pushing her platinum hair behind her ears— in the few weeks they've been here it's grown a lot, now just long enough to tuck back off her face. She can feel her mind overflowing with buzzing, the sinister girl inside her beginning to claw at her insides.

 _(It takes a certain kind of screwed up person to only realize they love their mother when someone else's mom is dead.)_

There's the sound of voices several yards to her right, a mix of words unfamiliar to her ears and broken English ones; she doesn't have the energy to move, to reveal herself or hide from her quarry around the other side of the barn. She hears boots crunching in the dirt and the sound of fingers being run along wooden planks before the speaker bursts into something she can understand.

Talking, and then some sparse English. "... Is that what _they_ are saying?"

More unintelligible words and shuffling before another voice sounds out, lower than the first. "... Justice League. _Americans._ It is impossible to be sure of the real story."

"But Marie Logan only had one child—"

"Two. You have seen her daughter. The resemblance is... Uncanny."

Behind the buzzing in her mind she can feel herself growing more alert, muscles tensing where she's sitting; her fingers seem to clench into the dirt as the two officers argue in their native Quarac tongue for a moment, no doubt trying to figure out who her and Connor are and why the death of a local has prompted Justice League intervention. After a while the two voices mutter into silence before starting again in their strange English, apparently having reached no conclusions otherwise. "... There was no suicide note."

"The woman had been living here for years. She knew our roads. Nobody simply drives off a cliff—"

She can hear the two officers switch back into their Quarac tongue, arguing again as they walk off into the night; at once she can feel anger boiling about her temples, her fingernails cutting though the dirt and pressing painfully into her palms. _Marie Logan? Commit suicide?_

The thought alone is insulting, so much so that she's seized by the wild impulse to get to her feet and run after the Quarac officers, cursing; although her knowledge of the older woman is limited she knows that Marie would never take her own life. She had too much to live for— she loved Garfield, lived for the animals at the sanctuary, had adorec M'gann— then suddenly her stomach twists and she feels her fingers relax, pressing deeper into the dirt beneath her.

 _She remembers the story of the lonely girl who had hidden in the desert and hates that a flicker of doubt bursts to the front of her mind._

... Marie Logan had been lonely, she had said it herself; as she thinks it she leans forward, legs curling in and chin resting on her knees. And she had been terrified that Garfield's real father would track them down and demand something of them... But in running away to hide in the desert she had effectively chained herself here... She can see how it looks to the police: single mother, all the pressure... _But she would never kill herself_. Marie Logan wouldn't do that—

An oryx mulls out a low grunt when she jerks her head up, knocking her skull loudly against the aged wood. Marie had been meeting someone in town, that's the last thing she had said before she had disappeared that morning— and Garfield had said that there weren't a ton of local people she would be meeting, so the visitor would have to be an outsider—

She inhales sharply, breathing in the scent of sand and sweet grass that does nothing to calm her. It's a coincidence, surely— but in the few seconds it weaves between the buzzing in her mind the thought seems to fit in an almost blood curdling fashion, all her other senses and logic so scrambled by exhaustion and panic that they won't allow it otherwise... Because no matter how she pieces it together—

 _No. No. No_ —

She screws her eyes shut, feeling a small part inside her fall apart.

 _What if Sportsmaster killed Marie?_

What if that's who the older woman had been meeting in the city— a rugged stranger who was no doubt as good at manipulating her as he had been his daughter, whose charms had managed to conceal the fact that he was a murderer. Who else could it be? He was close by enough— just in Bialya, it would be easy to attack someone this close to the border and then make an escape—

The thought wells inside her as she screws her eyes shut, the insurmountable pressure of grief and misery seeming to build hard against her temples. _But why though?_ The voice inside her head that often speaks in Wally's voice seems to perk up with interest, challenging her. _Why would Sportsmaster kill Marie_ _?_ She feels as if she's missing part of the puzzle, something hovering just beyond the extension of her peripheral vision. _What reason would he, or the Light for that matter, have for killing an innocent woman?_

Was Marie linked to them in some way?

And suddenly, before she can quite catch up to it, the buzzing in her head seems to pulse, slapping so hard against her skull that one of her hands flies up to press against her forehead, anxiety and panic welling up out of her and bursting forward with thought. Was it simply because Lawrence knew she was here, knew she had grown attached to the woman... _Had he killed her as some sort of signal? To remind her of his power? To remind her that he was hunting her, to tell her that he's coming for her, that he'll kill anyone he needs to before he gets to her—_

She can feel her mind racing, her heart pounding manically in her veins— _This is her fault. This is all her fault._

She can feel her limbs seizing up, her breath faltering; the panic she's been forcing at bay all day seems to surge inside her, licking her insides like fire and burning her from the inside out. _This is all her fault. Marie is dead and Garfield is motherless and M'gann is crying and this is all her fault_ —

Lawrence is coming, she's sure of it, hunting her like he once hunted Jade. She needs to leave; she's putting everyone in danger— And she can't be bothered with packing, can't return to the house; she's got to go it alone now, she had to leave immediately. There will be no goodbyes, no explanations— _This is all her fault. All her fault. Stupid, worthless, pathetic_ —

She needs to leave, needs to get out of here before her father comes and kills them all; the urgency is there, hard and painfully sharp in her mind, but for some reason the impulse isn't translating to her limbs. Instead of getting up she can feel all her muscles tightening, panic setting in the longer she sits there, hands shaking as they find their way to her hair, tugging pieces out of scalp and trying to force herself to focus...

She can feel imaginary hands choking her, pressing down on her throat and cutting off oxygen, a small squeaking noise firing out of her trembling lips. _She needs to run. She needs to leave, because if she stays she will get everyone killed_ — _she will get everyone killed because she is awful and worthless and not wanted and she needs to leave but she also needs to breathe_ —

The clawing hands seems to rise up the back of her neck, twanging through her spine and cracking open her skull; overlong fingers seem to scrape over her scalp and cut open the skin of her forehead, nails scratching at her eyes and deepening the marks Garfield has left there—

 _Focus._ She tells herself, repeating the word again and again. She can barely hear herself over the buzzing in her mind, angry bees threatening to hollow her out, threatening to replace the phlegm in her lungs with their stingers. _Focus. Don't be a baby._

 _Stop it._ She tells herself more forcefully. The clawed hands tighten their hold and any other words she can think to say disappear into the darkness.

 _(Stupid._

 _Worthless._

 _Pathetic._

 _Better off dead.)_

* * *

Her nails cut into her scalp and her knuckles snap when her hands shake. She keeps her eyes closed, screwed tight; she's convinced that if she opens them the Metropolis girl will claw her eyes out or the bees will force them out of her skull. Somewhere, she hears boots crunching in the dirt.

 _("In and out." Wally tells her, sounding more desperate this time; she's too panicked to listen, her hands trembling too much to feel his pulse. "Artemis, come on, breathe. You can't not breathe, come on!"_

 _She wants very badly to listen to him but the buzzing is too loud, her head too heavy on her shoulders. The Metropolis girl yanks on her hair and scratches at her cheeks. "I can't do this." She tries to tell him. "I can't do this.")_

"I can't do this." She hears herself say out loud, as if oceans away the real Wally will hear. She trembles with shivers that aren't from the cold.

"... Are you okay?"

The words make her snap her eyes open, and for one wild moment she convinces herself she's about to see Wally; she's disappointed when the blurriness of her vision fades and brings only Connor into focus.

"... What?" She gets out, not feeling the word leave her mouth.

In response the older boy shifts from where he's crouching in the dirt in front of her, brows furrowing when she scrubs her hands over her face, half-convinced she's imagining him. "Are you okay?" He repeats, jaw dropping to survey her better.

She's suddenly very aware of her trembling, of the tightness of her limbs; feeling embarrassed she drops her hands from her face, sure her hair is sticking up at odd angles on the top of her head. "F-fine." She gets out. She doesn't trust herself to say any more just yet.

 _(And even more, she doesn't trust him; sure, they're Teammates. But if she had to pick anyone to find her like this she's sure M'gann, or even little Garfield, would be a better substitute_ — _)_

Connor doesn't look convinced, eyes narrowing; he's several feet from her and looking wary, as if he's found an injured animal on the side of a highway. She wishes he would leave her alone. "... I could hear your heart." He tells her frankly, in the same almost monotone voice he always uses when he talks to her. She wonders how long they've been alone in the dark together. "I was counting the beats. 125 a minute."

Her mouth suddenly salivates, and when she tries to swallow she nearly chokes. "...So?"

"... That's how fast it goes when a person has a tachycardia. A heart attack."

She wants very badly to silence his questions, to go back to her panic and its loneliness; it takes too much effort to unlock her limbs, muscles aching when she gets to her feet. "I'm fine." She tries to say steadily, ignoring the violent pounding still in her chest as she places a hand against the barn for balance. "I'm good, just... I'm fine."

It's a terrible lie but Connor doesn't contradict her, instead standing and watching for a moment as she tries to force herself to walk away; she still feels lost inside her own head, body too anxious and pumped with adrenaline to move as quickly as she wants to. "Where are you going?" He says, voice loud in the darkness.

She nearly twinges her ankle when she tries to keep going, knees shaking violently; she knows herself, knows that when her anxiety gets like this she's often too weak to move— still, she forces herself another step or two before she glances back at him. "A walk." She says lamely. "... Need to clear my head.

As always his face is impossible to read, although she's sure he knows that there's more going on than she's telling him; perhaps he even overheard the conversation between the two Quarac officers and drew his own line of conclusions from it. If any of this is right it doesn't show on his face— for a long moment he simply stares at her in that eerie way of his, looking expectant as she firmly avoids his eye.

"... W-well." She says when nothing more exciting happens than Connor crossing his arms; she never quite knows how to talk to him, and more to hide her shaking hands than anything she shoves them in her pockets. "... See you, then."

She gets as far as half turning before he finally speaks, throwing out a sentence in his usual choppy manner that seems to slice through the stillness of the evening. "I'm supposed to keep an eye on you." He says softly; the quiet around them makes his words sound as loud as if he'd just yelled them in her ear.

She pauses, and for a moment she feels more of the unnatural chill wash over her as the words imprint in her mind; at once her feet still, her rolled ankle aching slightly as she shifts back to face him. "... You're supposed to keep an eye on me?" She repeats, this time managing to keep her voice steady. "Who asked you to do that?"

Connor seems to realize that he's misspoken and for a moment she's rewarded with a shiftiness behind his eyes, his thick throat bobbing as he struggles to talk his way around it. "Does it matter?" He says plainly. "You're not supposed to go off alone."

He's got enough of her attention that she turns back towards him fully, hands clenching inside her pockets. "Who asked you to watch me?" She repeats, scowling.

Although she still feels weak she can feel the other girl steadying her, shoving aside lingering panic and forcing her to focus as she stares him down, trying to read him. "Why are you going, anyway?" He fires back, and she hates that her mouth opens and closes, biting back a response. "You can't leave us."

There's the faintest bit of emotion behind the words that catches her off guard. "You can't tell me where I can and can't go."

The words are supposed to be sneered and instead sound faint, too soft and broken; for a long moment her and Connor size each other up, the muscles in her back tightening as she draws herself up to her whole height, muscles throbbing along to the quickened pace of her heartbeat. He must get the sense that she's waiting for more of a fight because at once he exhales, looking troubled when she turns away again. "... Garfield already lost his Mom." He says severely. "He doesn't need to lose someone else too."

She hears herself make a disbelieving noise, and for some reason she can feel tears stinging at the backs of her eyes. "... I'm not good at this stuff, Con." She whispers, throwing the nickname out at random the way Oliver does when she needs some convincing. "I'll just end up making things worse."

 _This is all her fault_ — _but she can't tell him_ —

"So? Not like I'm any better." He fires back, sounding as stubborn and brash as always. For a second there's quiet before he speaks again, voice much softer but still demanding. "... Look, I heard them as well as you did."

For some reason this bothers her, and before she can stop herself she's turning back to face him, glaring so hard the wrinkle pops up above her nose. "And?" She snarls, hands clenching into fists. "You don't believe it, do you?

In the half-light she can see him wince, a painful looking shrug sounding from his shoulders before he looks away, staring moodily at the ground. "... Maybe."

The word sounds disgusting coming out of his mouth, and at once she can feel renewed anger throbbing through her. "Marie Logan would have never killed herself." She hurls out, voice deadly. "She wouldn't have done that to Garfield. Or M'gann."

 _Or us._

"That's what they think it is." He says, voice almost emotionless as it always is. "Suicide."

She wants to throttle him, wanting to shout a thousand things— but she's not brave enough to mention her father, and with nothing else to do her face curls into a feral snarl. "Fuck you." She throws at him.

Connor looks at her, long and hard, and she wonders if he's ever had anyone swear at him the way she's just done, if he even understands the meaning of the words she's been hurling at him since their driver training started. There's an angry silence, and despite how much she hates him in the moment she can't bring herself to sprint away into the desert like she wants to. "… No point fighting about it." He says after a while, sounding frustrated. "... She was in the water for a while before we found her. They'll never be able to figure out what really happened."

She exhales, breath firing hard out of her mouth as she grits her teeth. _They'll never be able to figure out what really happened._ So she'll never know, really, if she's responsible for this. Even though she knows it's the truth she hates him for telling her, wishing she could un-hear everything, wishing he left her alone and panicking on the ground. " _Fuck."_ She hears herself swear under her breath, before repeating it louder. "Fuck!" Her nose wrinkles and she feels one of her palms slip loose from her pockets, flinging upwards and clenching into the ends of her hair in a way that makes the too-short ends stick up wildly from her scalp.

There's more silence when she turns her back on him, mind whirring and thoughts moving too fast for her to process; she can feel sweat breaking out across her forehead, hardly hearing Connor when speaks. "… Are you going to cry?" He asks her, sounding uncomfortable.

"No." She says between her teeth. She wishes she were alone.

 _Connor's right; she can't leave now. Not when it's just him and M'gann here with Garfield_ —

 _But, she supposes, she's been alone for nearly an hour now... If her father was going to come, surely it would have already happened._

She can sense him watching her as she tries to force herself to breathe, one hand rubbing down from her hair and scrubbing angrily at her cheeks. She gets the impression that he's not entirely sure what to make of her. "... Are you still going to leave?" He asks her after nearly a minute, voice much softer than it had been before.

The question makes her stomach squirm, and she finds she can't answer it beyond her hand dropping from her face and returning to her pocket. As if he can sense her indecisiveness Connor keeps talking, his tone gruff and unsure of his words. "Because you shouldn't." She hears the sound of feet shifting in the dirt.

"Why not?"

"Because they need you." He says in that simple way of his.

* * *

She's not sure how he manages it, but something in Connor's quiet and brash nature makes her follow him back inside. Without saying anything he moves past her, following the sobbing until he finds M'gann, and it occurs to her that she's just been banished from their shared bedroom for the night.

The house feels horribly empty, the rooms more hollow, and although she tries it's impossible to get comfortable in the too-big hollow Connor's spent the last few weeks carving in the couch cushions. Sleep finds her, once—

 _("_ — _don't leave." She hears herself whisper, half-woken out of sleep. She's not entirely sure she's really speaking._

 _Wally goes still beside her, the arm he had been sliding out from underneath her tensing beneath her cheek. She can feel him, naked and sweat slicked, a mess of freckles and skin clinging to her. Her bedroom is quiet._

 _"Babe?" He whispers back. She can tell he thinks she's dreaming, talking in her sleep. She wonders if maybe she is._

 _"Don't leave." She repeats, voice still half muffled as she rolls towards him, blonde hair streaming out behind her and sticking to the ends of his fingers. She keeps her eyes closed as she presses her face into his bare chest, lips brushing the scar Metropolis imprinted over his heart. She can feel herself growing sore, the point between her legs still sensitive from when he had first moved inside her hours ago._

 _His fingers hesitate when they touch her, half worried he'll wake her out of the vulnerability of sleep as they find the familiar dip of her spine. "I won't." He whispers into her hair, and for the first time she feels small in his arms._

 _"Good." She breathes, and before unconsciousness sweeps her under again she feels emotion welling in her throat, keeping time with the patterns he swirls into her skin. "... Everyone always leaves me..._ _"_

 _"I'm not going anywhere."_

 _"... Okay.")_

— but she wakes almost immediately, left with nothing but muddled half images and a strange loneliness she can't place. No matter the temperature or the number of blankets she piles on top of herself she can't seem to stay warm.

The noise from her and M'gann's bedroom doesn't compare to the silence from Garfield's, which seems so loud and heavy her eardrums might as well be splitting open. At half past three she rises from the uncomfortable makeshift bed in the sitting room and forces her chilled toes to creep across the floorboards. She doesn't knock before she enters, wanting to make sure he's alright.

In the daylight she knows the bedroom well; the walls are a cheerful blue, although you wouldn't know it for all the news clippings and posters on it— all snap shots of the Justice League in action. The shelves make up for their lack of books with elaborate animal models and plastic toys, several having been shoved unceremoniously aside to make room for gifts from M'gann, or souvenirs from their visit; without even looking for it she can make out her arrow occupying one of these places of honor.

In the darkness, however, the bedroom seems almost grotesque; the haunting early morning light seeming to distort every shadow, the shapes of shelves and toy boxes seeming almost sinister. For a half moment she doesn't enter, feeling almost childish in her fear— then she spots a pair of emerald eyes glinting at her in the darkness.

"You're awake." She hears herself croak out, voice crackling and hardly managing a notch above a whisper.

Garfield doesn't answer, instead looming at her silently like an owl from a tree, blanket yanked up to his chin the way Marie used to tuck it before she said goodnight. She wonders who has done it for him, or if perhaps he did it himself. For some reason the thought of Garfield tucking himself in makes her throat tighten, and she rushes on with words before he can catch her crying. "Do you mind if I come in?"

More silence. She's never heard him be so quiet before.

She stands in his doorway for nearly a minute, knees trembling with the strange chill that's been following her for hours. She's almost afraid of advancing further, as if she's approaching the bedside of an infectious hospital patient rather than the bedroom of a tiny, grieving child; it takes longer than it should for her to gather the courage to click the door shut behind her and make her way across the room in the darkness.

 _(She can't do this.)_

If Garfield blinks at all she misses it; his eyes seems to be pulled open, fixed in a bug-eyed and horrified grimace ever since he stopped screaming. His stare seems to follow her, penetrate her, unseeing yet seeing through her as she pads nervously over the hardwood, the glassiness of the early morning light bouncing off it and blinding her. In the few short hours without his mother he's gained the hollowed look of a soldier emerging bloodied from war, or a sailor hurling water out of drowned lungs— as if he's surviving, but only just.

His bed gives an almighty creak beneath her when she sits on the edge of the mattress but neither of them indulge it, his ghostly stare unwavering from her face; it's not just his eyes— his skin seems to have grown waxy, translucent under his freckles, a thin sheen of sweat coating his face and making the uneven ends of his fringe stick to his forehead. For a moment his mouth opens, as if about to ask her why he is being forced to feel so much pain, before his lips seal shut again.

There are many ways a person can die and still be alive; a thousand ways someone can scream and yell and shout their pain. In the silence that stretches between them and in the unwavering stare Garfield fixes on her she thinks she feels them all. Picking at her. Peeling her skin from her bones.

It feels useless to tell him that tomorrow is another day, or that there will be many more days to come. She knows that from now on that when Garfield looks back on his life he will count the days, as she did— the days before the loss of a loved one and the days after. She knows that is one thing people outside of grief do not understand; you don't just lose the person at that point in time. You lose their presence in every aspect of your life. Your future is muted forever.

 _(She lost Paula, she lost Jade. And although they sometimes return, it never feels as if they are truly back.)_

But Garfield lost his mother. And nothing will change that in doing so he lost the carefree boy with the freckles too.

It feels like hours pass before she drops his gaze, hand seeking his in the darkness. When she touches his skin she's unnerved to feel how hot it is.

* * *

Garfield's fever does not break.

She strips back his blankets and removes the shirt sticking to his chest with sweat, throws open the window to tempt a non-existence breeze. She forces dribbles of water down his throat and rubs ice cubes on his skin, and still each time she touches her palm to his forehead he seems to grow hotter.

Only once does the little boy speak, his throat sounding raw and splintered when the others are drawn to the bedroom by the sound of her frantic movements. "Meg." He gets out through cracked lips, his waxen stare fixing on his blood-sister when she appears, eyes blood shot, in the doorway.

 _(The word, small as it is, seems to burn in the other girl like fire, and for the first time since Marie was pulled from the water M'gann wipes her tears.)_

None of them know what to do; the fever isn't high enough to be lethal by any means but it's enough to get them worried. All morning they switch between cold and heat, alternatively trying to force it out through sweat or chills, nothing they do creating the slightest impact.

Garfield's skin seems to cling to his bones, as if the body encasing him is shrinking, boiling from the inside out; by ten in the morning the vomiting starts, strange yellow fluid the consistently of custard pooling in the back of his throat and choking him. By eleven the glassy stare disappears behind his waxen lids as he goes unconscious, and they aren't stupid enough to pretend like they shouldn't go to a hospital anymore.

* * *

The chair in the waiting room makes her back ache.

"... You want tea?"

She looks up above her stiffly interlocked limbs to glance at Connor; while she's been sitting stock still for the last few hours he's been alternating between pacing and attempting to get past the plastic doors that M'gann and Garfield have disappeared behind accompanied by a dozen doctors. For a moment she stares at the purplish half moons below his eyes before her gaze drops to the pathetic looking styrofoam cup in his hand.

She decides it's a peace offering, perhaps to make amends for their fighting earlier, and she reaches for it. "Thanks."

It's some shitty blend the hospital's put out beside the free coffee, not even in the same league as the kind of tea she has at home— rather than the citrus and cinnamon flavors she's used to she's slapped with the scent of herbs when she inhales; mint and some other crisp, almost sour taste lingering when she cradles the cup below her chin, fingers soaking up the warmth. "Sit." She tells him, and as if he were waiting for the invitation he settles into the chair next to her, arms folding.

He allows her a moment to sip her tea before he uncharacteristically breaks the silence, talking low and fast. "They still don't know what's happening. The Doctors have never seen anything like it."

She feels herself nodding although she's not sure why. "No sign of infection? Or anything?"

"Nothing. I caught a look at him when M'gann came out to talk— he was so pale I could see the green of his veins under his skin."

For some reason the image makes her stomach flip, and when she sips her tea again the fluid seems to works its way down her throat slowly, as if determined to stay and sour her mouth forever. "... How's M'gann?" She forces herself to ask.

The older boy hesitates. "... She wants us to leave." He says quietly, scowling at the wall opposite.

She doesn't turn her head towards him, knowing there's nothing hidden there to read; rather she feels her eyes widen as she stares a the murky grey of her tea. "... What?"

Connor shifts, and out of the corner of her eye she can see his eyes narrowing, glaring at nothing. "M'gann. She wants us to go home." He pauses. "She's worried about an inquiry from the government, worried they'll catch on to Justice League intervention, worried they'll figure out who we are— their president was just impeached, you saw on the news. They're more vulnerable to Bialyan intervention than ever... And there's Garfield too. Last time we were here..."

She doesn't need him to explain, she knows the story; the last time the Team was here M'gann saved Garfield's life with a blood transfusion, the first time Martian and human blood had ever been mixed. "... What does she think is happening?" She asks gruffly. "That her blood has been poisoning him all this time or something?"

"I don't know." He says softly, and she believes him— whatever M'gann is really thinking seems to be hidden from the both of them. "... She's already contacted the League. We're getting on a flight tomorrow."

The words make her feel sick to her stomach and at once she feels anger whirring inside her. "Tomorrow? You can't be— we can't leave Garfield alone. You said it yourself, the kid's just lost his mom, Connor, we can't leave him alone in a hospital—"

"We aren't leaving him alone." He cuts her off sharply, now glaring so hard at the wall that angry lines are appearing around his too-tired eyes. "M'gann's staying."

* * *

The air in Gotham feels only vaguely warm when she arrives. She thinks of the heat in the Quarac desert and stares at the goose pimples on her bare arm, unfeeling.

Her sneakers catch on the uneven steps as they always do, the light in the hallways dingy as she climbs her way up to her apartment; whole parts of her feel as if they're in the process of falling off, weighed down so heavily by her exhaustion. She hasn't slept in well over two days; the closest she's come to it is the twenty minutes of dozing Connor had allowed her on his shoulder in the hospital before he had grown restless and gone back to his pacing.

The strap of her gym bag seems oddly heavy, carving a reddened swatch into her skin as she shifts its weight. Her eyes feel irritated, blotchy, and each time she closes them she can see M'gann's face as they said goodbye...

 _("We can stay." She says with as much conviction as she can muster in her exhaustion, leaning forward in the uncomfortable hospital chair until her elbows her resting on her knees. "I'm serious, M'gann. We want to help."_

 _The other girl's eyes follow her fingers as they gesture to Connor one seat over; he's been even more stoic than usual since his last attempt to infiltrate Garfield's hospital room, and even she can taste the lingering bitterness of a fight in the air. It doesn't help matters when he remains more stubborn than usual, bulky arms crossing as he scowls at a point on the ceiling. "It's fine." M'gann finally says unconvincingly. "I have it under control."_

 _Connor huffs but doesn't say anything, leaving her to reach out until her hands are looping through familiar green fingers. "But_ — _"_

 _"It's okay." M'gann cuts her off, pulling herself out of her grasp. "You guys need to go home. And Garfield needs his sister.")_

It had been a mistake to leave, to say goodbye. She has the same feeling she did before they even started the trip— like when they finally see each other again everything will be different. No longer constant. Changed.

Her key clicks in the door and with a twist it opens.

The apartment smells the same, the lingering scent of stale cigarettes and something floral, like tea leaves, wafting forward and caressing her about the cheeks. With a gruff exhale out of her nose she marches onward.

She's not sure why it strikes her as hard as it does when she crosses the threshold into the living room, her bag slipping from her shoulder— perhaps it's the darkness, the way all human senses are sharpened in the dim light. She's expecting a silent apartment, expecting to have to weave her way through the fixed locations of tables and chair legs. She expects emptiness, loneliness. Nothing.

She stops short when she hears the television blaring an commercial, eyes squinting as she adjusts to the blaring colors of the flashing telephone number; in the shifting of the light she can clearly see Paula.

Her mother is sitting in her chair, head lolling on her shoulders and elbows braced on their usual rests above the wheels; below the loudness of the announcer's voice she can hear the softness of her breathing, the gentle hum that indicates sleep. She doesn't sit upright when she approaches, or look round when she crosses across the stained carpet and crouches beside her. One of the older's woman's fingers twitches in her lap, curled around a cup of cold tea.

It shouldn't make her throat as tight as it does, shouldn't inspire any emotion, but she can't help but be touched by the normalcy of it. She knows Paula isn't intentionally waiting up for her to get home, but still— she might as well be a girl returning for her first date, instead of one returning from death and loss. A part of her wants to dismiss it as habit— Paula's simply fallen asleep in front of the television, as she always does; ever since her father escaped prison she's taken to sleeping on the couch rather than in their marital bedroom.

... But another part of her, the part that she's been hiding, a smaller part that's full of softness that Wally put there... That part of her wants to believe that Paula knew, somehow, that she would be home tonight. It knew that she would come home. And it knew that when she arrived, no matter how much she didn't want to admit it, she would need some comforting.

 _(She thinks of Garfield, who is alone and motherless, and wonders why on earth she would ever want to lock the older woman out.)_

And maybe it's time she trusted that smaller part of her, the part her father didn't quite manage to break; maybe it's time she stopped being bitter and cold and stopped trying to let resentment come between the two of them. Because as much as she belongs to Lawrence she belongs to Paula— she's her daughter as much as his and it's time she stopped being afraid of that. Because if there is anyone who understands her father, if there is anyone who understands what it's like to live with his burden... Well, it's her mother.

She follows that smaller part of her onto her knees before Paula, and before she has time to be afraid of the strange affection inside her she leans forward, linking her arms around her shoulders.

Paula jerks into wakefulness and she feels the coldness of the old tea spill down her front, but she doesn't retract from the embrace; there's a half-second when the older woman tenses with well-tested instincts before she places the familiarity of her skin, the platinum of her hair as it settles beneath her chin. " _Artemis?_ Darling, what are you—"

"Hi, Mom." She croaks out, nearly crying when her mother's arms circle around her shoulders, wanting to hide in her warmth and the protection of her pointed nails on her back.

"Darling—"

She cuts her mother off again, not wanting to explain or be questioned. "I came home early." She says firmly, turning her head until her forehead is pressing into the older woman's neck. "Because I missed you."

If she can tell she's lying Paula doesn't say anything, instead pressing her hand more firmly into the center of her back. Something in the weight of it makes her sure the older woman knows something is wrong.

And although it springs up between them as it always does all she can think of is how much she hates silence with Paula; she's so tired of swallowing all the bitterness and hurt between them and pretending everything is better left unsaid. Because it isn't better off that way— instead the words turn inwards and poison her and make her into the foul creature she is, the girl her father would want her to be and she's so tired of that, of waking up and looking in the mirror and seeing the worst parts of her there instead of anything else.

But maybe this is where she is right now. She's spent so much time hating, criticizing, being disappointed and miserable with the person she is. She's spent her whole life digging herself deep and deeper into a hole of regret and guilt and distance between her and the people she loves most— _her mother, her friends, Wally_ — and now the hole is so deep that the idea of climbing out seems impossible, almost threatening. But maybe this is the start of that scary change she wants so desperately to make, the first steps towards the person she knows she can be. And perhaps that darker part of her keeps trying to remind her that she's worthless and clawing hands are trying to drag her deeper, but maybe one day she'll get better at ignoring that voice, or at least quieting it enough so she can prove herself wrong.

Paula suggests a fresh cup of tea, and she's surprised at how easily she agrees.

* * *

At first the days with Paula pass as bumpily as they ever do; several times her mother asks her how Quarac was, or tries to get her to tell her the real reason she came home so early. Both times she tries to answer properly and can't, her lungs suddenly empty and her fingers shaking.

One of her favorite things about Paula is that she's a fast learner, and realizes quickly that she's never going to get the full story out of her.

She finds peace in the way they sit around the dining table in the kitchen, speaking only occasionally about the easy things: the weather— which is the hottest Gotham has ever been— the Team— who haven't called her yet, what with being so busy with their own summers. Although she suspects it's only a matter of time before this changes— and the prospect of returning to Gotham academy in September.

"Do I have to go back?" She hears herself whine one afternoon, leaning forward in her chair until her head is resting on her elbows. "I tried Mom, I went for you. But I hate it—"

"You'll go and that's final." Paula says sharply, wheeling around the kitchen. "You're almost sixteen, Artemis. Time to start thinking about college applications, attendance at Gotham Academy will look great on your transcript."

She scoffs, absentmindedly dog-earing the corner of this morning's newspaper, still folded on the table. "College? Do you even hear yourself?" She says a little too meanly. "You work at a grocery store. Where are we supposed to get the money for college?"

There's a long silence, the kind she hates. When Paula finally wheels moodily out of the kitchen she can't help but feel awful, not sure why the words bubbled out of her in the first place.

It feels as if she sleeps constantly; napping at all hours of the day, falling asleep early and getting up late. She sleeps dreamlessly, soundly, more like a rock in her bed than a girl and still she wakes feeling unceasingly exhausted.

Her heart feels heavy in her ribs, so broken and weighed down by life, by the cruelty this summer has put her though. She thinks of Wally—who feels like a stranger— of Marie, of her Mother. She thinks of Garfield— and M'gann, who is alone and doing her best. Of Connor, who she hasn't spoken to since they landed in America a few days ago.

It seems like another lifetime altogether since she's been happy; even now the days in Quarac with Garfield don't feel like they actually happened— like she was watching a well scripted movie rather than live her own life. Nothing feels real, nothing except her own exhaustion.

Her own exhaustion at what? Of having to grow up so suddenly? Of trying to keep her walls up all the time? Of making the mistake of letting her guard down only to have her heart shattered again and again? She feels as if she's trying and failing to mend the broken pieces, filled every crack with cement until she's both horribly whole and hollow at once.

"... I'm sorry." She says to her wall on her third evening home; she can sense Paula hovering in her bedroom doorway, her wheels sending the hardwood squeaking. The wall looks back at her, willing her keep talking despite the fact that all she wants to do is burrow more surely under her covers and go back to sleep. She rolls onto her back, feeling her bed creak beneath her as she stares at the ceiling, and reminds herself that she's supposed to be trying to be a better daughter. "I didn't mean to be... You work hard, Mom. I know that."

The floorboards squeak, as if Paula's fiddling nervously with her wheels. "... And so do you." She says vaguely before clearing her throat. "... Oliver called last night. Thought I would like to hear the official report... For what happened in Quarac."

The ceiling feels as if it's about to fall in and she closes her eyes, rolling back onto her side. "Oh."

And maybe it's progress, the fact that when she hears her floorboards squeak she doesn't hide beneath the covers. And maybe it's good, that when she feels fingers pressing against her shoulders she doesn't flinch away. Maybe this means she's doing better.

Paula offers no words of comfort, doesn't try to put her arms around her like she so desperately wanted just a few days ago. The horrible silence consumes them both again, and when Paula rolls out of the room she wonders if maybe things are more broken between them than she thought.

* * *

Paula rises early the next morning and disappears the second it occurs to her to get out of bed; by the time she's even poked her head out of her bedroom door her mother is slamming the front one behind her, yelling something about an early morning shift at the grocery store.

She's sure it's a lie, but she supposes there's not much a point in arguing with an empty apartment.

Her phone buzzes while she's picking at breakfast, and when she reads the words on the screen she actually freezes, mouth stilling around the mushy remnants of half-chewed cereal.

 _SMS Text Message: Received at 8:21 am_

 _From: SB_

 _Wake up. Coming over_

She stares at the message for nearly a minute, still half asleep and not quite processing what this is supposed to mean; when she finally messages him back her words are rushed, thumbs clicking over keys and misspelling her words.

 _SMS Text Message: Sent at 8:26 am_

 _To: SB_

 _what od you mean coming over_

Ten seconds don't even pass before her phone is buzzing again, vibrating loudly on her table.

 _SMS Text Message: Received at 8:26 am_

 _From: SB_

 _Here_

As if one cue she can hear the dull alarm going off by the doorway, signaling that someone on the ground floor is trying to buzz their way in.

* * *

Connor doesn't come into her apartment; for some reason he wrinkles his nose when she opens the door and refuses to cross the threshold, instead waiting out in the hall. By the time she makes her way out to meet him he's looking more surly than usual, as if annoyed by how much time it took her to brush her teeth and run a comb through her hair.

"What are you doing here?" She asks him as she locks the door behind her, turning to him as she thumbs her way through her shorts pockets; she can feel a bill and some change there, pressing against the top of her thigh.

In response Connor shrugs, allowing her to take the lead as they approach the stairs. "Got bored." He says in his usual short manner. "... Everyone at the Cave is driving me crazy."

"Oh." She says dumbly, glancing at him and as usual not getting a read. "... They, uh, heard. About Marie?"

Again Connor shrugs, and she assumes that means yes; she doesn't press him, not much in the mood to talk about it either. For a moment she thinks they're about to slip into one of their usual silences before he suddenly looks at her, side eyed and critical. "Do you smoke?"

As usual her feet slip on the uneven stairs, and she feels stupid when she has to catch her balance on the railing. "What? No."

"Does your mom?"

It occurs to her that he must have smelt the lingering tobacco scent when she opened the door, probably nearly overwhelming to his acute senses; she can feel her cheeks blotch as she continues down the stairs, fingers automatically tucking her hair behind her ears. "No... My Dad used to. And Cheshire too, although only to make Mom mad. It's practically baked into the carpet there."

Connor considers this as they round the last set of stairs. "Didn't realize you still lived in the same place." He says simply. "Figured you would have wanted to move."

The muggy Gotham air hits her in the face as she opens the door on the ground floor; she's not sure what to say to this and decides to change the subject. "How did you even know where I lived?"

"Wally."

For some reason this sends a pang through her that seems to force her heart to occupy a spot close to her knees; rather than indulge that feeling she turns to him, facing him as they step out onto the baking hot sidewalk. "Why are you here, Connor?" She asks again, raising one hand to block out the sun as she squints at him.

He shrugs again, moving tactfully until he's blocking the worst of the light; when she can finally see his face again she's not surprised to see him looking moody, almost pensive. "I told you." He says impatiently, half scowling. "I'm bored. And everyone at the Cave is... How they always are."

She's not sure what this is supposed to mean and feels her brows raising. "... So?"

"So... Do you wanna hang out?" The words are rushed, as if he's embarrassed by asking although no trace of blush crosses his cheeks. "Driver training? ...Or you could just... Be there."

The words are so unexpected that for a long moment she stares at him, squinting suspiciously up at him. Although they've been teammates for the better part of the year she's had next to nothing to do with him for most of that time; she's never really known how to talk to him one on one, a strange awkwardness in the air that neither of them were competent enough to shake. And even though they've lived in close quarters for the better part of a summer neither of them have ever spent much time alone together— the exception being when he was teaching her to drive, and more often than not that had ended in a lot of screaming and swearing.

Connor shifts his weight; she's taking a bit too long to answer. They don't really get along, it's true enough— in fact, the only time she's felt remotely like they were friends was when he had told her to come to the Cave more often. But...

But that doesn't change the fact that they were the ones to pick up the pieces when everything else fell apart in Quarac; and even more, he was the one who found her when she was panicking, and he was the one who managed to talk her back inside when he was on the verge of running away.

 _Maybe some things you can't go through without coming out the other side a little closer._

"I need to go to the library." She tells him instead of saying yes.

* * *

Habitually she holds her breath when they enter the zeta tubes, the dull vibration of nothingness flooding through her as it always does; dimly she's aware of the Gotham sirens going quiet. Beside her, Connor fades.

There's the strange half-second that seems to contain only absence: a lack of anything under her feet, a lack of oxygen, a lack of any sensation except for the realization that there is nothing. She feels as if she's mid-jump on a trampoline, stuck in that heart-beat length moment before she falls, when all she's aware of is her stomach leaping up into her throat—

Whatever she's feeling disappears before she can really process it and is replaced by the dull numbing sensation of her molecules reconstructing; dimly her feet register tile beneath them and beside her she feels Connor begin to step forward into existence. Somewhere above her she hears the familiar disembodied voice announce their arrival.

It feels strange, being a wary of home. She doesn't know why she hesitates, why she stays still when Connor steps past her. "What?" He asks her, pausing and looking back.

She can't explain it; it just feels as if something here has changed, like if she were to really look around everything would be different, unrecognizable. Instead of answering she shakes her head, as if to clear it, before she takes a step forward.

"You're back!"

The second she moves there's a distinct uproar of noise, as if a herd of elephants has been set loose in the Cave; she has enough time to exchange a startled look with Connor before she's being cuffed about the ears by an unexpected pair of arms, her own words of surprise being promptly cut off by a mouthful of onyx hair.

"You're back!" Zatanna wails again, pulling her back by the shoulders; there's another loud shout and she can see Dick running over from the kitchen, presumably marking the path the other girl's just sprinted through. Zatanna keeps jabbering, pulling her into another hug. "You have no idea how _bored_ I've been—"

"Let her breathe, Zee." Dick says with a grin, slowing to a walk as he gets closer.

Zatanna ignores this, still talking loudly and impervious to her gagging as she spits out the other girl's hair. She didn't know she would be missed so much. "I have so much to tell you— _Oh, god, look at your hair!—_ You have to come to the club with me this weekend, there's this guy there, Kaleb, and his friend Owen— Artemis, oh my god, you would _love_ him—"

She's thankful when Dick cuts her off with a small nudge, forcing the other girl to release her. "Enough about the country club." He says almost peevishly, sunglasses glinting as he turns to grin at her. "About time you got back. I thought you were going to be gone forever."

"Felt like I was." She admits, pressing her hair self consciously behind her ears. "How—" She cuts herself off, blinking stupidly as Dick leans in to throw an arm around her shoulders. "Did you get taller?"

Now that her vision isn't being obscured by Zatanna it's obvious how much he's grown in just a few weeks; true enough, as she says it he pulls himself up to his full height, at least an inch or two taller than she is. "Growth spurt." He says proudly, jutting out his chin as he releases her. "Although this is nothing— you should see Wally. He's almost taller than Kaldur now, that stupid fast metabolism—"

She feels herself try to swallow, knees suddenly a bit weak; she hardly hears Zatanna as she starts talking again, the sound of her own heartbeat achingly loud in her ears. "... Well, who cares about that." The other girl says quickly, as if she can read the pained expression she's just managing to hide. "Tell us about Quarac. How was it? I mean... You know. Before everything."

Abruptly her stomach tightens, aware of the sympathetic looks that are suddenly crossing their faces; beside her Connor glances at her, and strangely he seems to understand better than anyone else "Later." He says shortly. "Artemis and I are going to the library. Then for a drive."

This statement is one of the oddest that's ever come out of his mouth, and Dick and Zatanna can't be bothered to hide their surprise; when she ducks her head and shuffles after Connor she can see the two of them exchange a look, clearly bemused by this sudden turn of events. "... Oh-kay." Zatanna says dryly, stretching the word out. "... What about a movie later? Or a welcome back dinner?"

Connor makes a funny twitching movement with his head that she copies. "... Maybe." She mutters. It doesn't take a genius to tell that she really means _'No.'_

* * *

"... Does that always happen?" Connor asks her sometime later.

Absently she glances up from the pages she's pursuing, balancing her book a little precariously on her forearm as she looks at him. "What?"

Connor shifts his weight from where he's sitting on the library floor, shrugging but not dropping the half-curious expression on his face. "Your heart speeding up." He says simply. "When Wally's mentioned."

She feels her cheeks blushing an unpleasant crimson and quickly returns to her book, shutting it and reaching for another marked _Sand County Almanac_ on the shelf. "Uh." She mumbles stupidly, glancing once at the hard cover's title before ramming it back into place. "I don't know."

"It happened again just now."

She grimaces, suddenly very aware of the fact that her pulse is pounding against her skin in her embarrassment; rather than indulge him she passes him the book still in her arms, watching as he adds it to the pile growing beside him on the floor. "I guess it does, then." She mutters, going back to pursuing the shelf.

Connor won't let it sit, or at the least doesn't understand why she doesn't want to talk about it; for a moment he simply straightens the book pile before abruptly getting to his feet. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why does your heart rate increase?"

She's beginning to feel annoyed; although her first instinct is to intimidate him into silence she gets the distinct impression that Connor— at nearly six feet and two hundred pounds— doesn't find her that scary. Resisting the urge to throw a book at him she sighs, fingers hesitating in their skimming of the shelf, pausing on a rather beaten looking volume called _Bloodties_ _._ "Because... I don't know. Doesn't your heart beat go nuts when M'gann enters a room?"

There's a half-second of silence where he considers this. "Yeah."

"So..." She trails off, waving her hand in slight annoyance when he continues to look confused. "It means emotion, Connor. _Feelings."_ She can feel herself blushing again and rather than look him in the eye she pulls the book off the shelf and rams it at him, her knuckles aching when they collide with his chest.

She can sense him looking at her. "... Feelings." He repeats, taking the book from her grasp.

"Feelings." She confirms.

When she glances at him he looks more confused as ever, azure eyes scanning her face as if trying to find an answer there. Although he isn't saying it out loud she can tell he still doesn't understand.

She sighs, her head lolling back on her shoulders as she stares at frustration at the ceiling; of all the goddamn things Cadmus could have put in his head she wishes they would have spent a little more time in this department. "What?" She hisses, one hand scrubbing along her forehead and pushing her hair off her boiling cheeks.

"M'gann said you were coming with us to Quarac so you could get over Wally." He clarifies, and once again her heart does a back flip in response to the familiar name; traitorously her cheeks blush again. "So you wouldn't have any more feelings. What was the point in coming if they didn't go away?"

She opens her mouth, fully intending to offer an explanation that, suddenly, doesn't come. He has a point, she supposes; that had been the point in tagging along to Quarac. That had been her mission: to get over Wally. And she had thought she had done it, for a little while at least; that first night in the desert she had sworn to herself that she had left him go, that she was done with him forever, but...

 _But then, of course, Marie had died. And being weak like she was she longed for her favorite source of comfort._

Her mouth closes and she forces herself to clear her throat, a low hiss of breath firing out of her nose; this isn't any of his business anyway. They may be friends now but that doesn't mean he's entitled to anything close to an explanation. "... Connor..." She starts, not sure where she's going. Absently she grabs another book from the shelf.

Something on his face shifts as she says it, and she knows at once he's no longer paying attention to her; instead his jaw is dropping, eyes leaving hers as if he's listening to something just out of her range. "... What?" She asks dumbly.

In answer Connor shakes his head, bending to retrieve the pile of books she's accumulated on the floor; distantly she can hear the door to the library opening and closing. "What?" She repeats, watching as she straightens and walks around her, heading to the end of the isle; without thinking she starts to follow him into the main strip between the shelves. "If you have something to say then just say it, Con—"

"There you are."

Her feet seem to trip over each other and she's only saved from falling by walking abruptly into Connor; for a moment she simply wobbles on her own feet, staring directly between the older boy's shoulder blades. She seriously considers making a break for the exit.

Ten whole seconds pass in which she doesn't move, relying on Connor's broad shoulders to hide her; finally the boy in question makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat and drags her forward.

"H-hi." She hears herself squeak when she's finally forced into view. Her hair flops stupidly about her crimson cheeks.

 _God._

 _(She can't do this.)_

He looks more handsome yet so much more different than she remembers; the very air in the library seems to grow solid, unbreathable as she looks at him. Dick hadn't been lying about how much he's grown in the past month; even from several feet away she can tell he's a full head taller than her now, the wiry limbs she used to be held in suddenly almost thick with new muscle, the sleeves of his t-shirt fitting tightly around his biceps. Something about his face has changed too; his jaw has grown more angular, the freckles that used to coat his cheeks seem somewhat faded, blotted out by sun burn and covered in new constellations that she's never seen before, never touched.

When he sees her his lips part. For the first time in a month, Wally West smiles at her.

She inhales the scent of walnuts, and wonders if it's possible to die from wanting to touch another person so badly.

That's all it takes; as always the crooked lips that frame his straight teeth reel her in, pulling emotion out of her that for so long has been pushed aside. At once this person in front of her no longer feels like a stranger, and whole parts of him seem to jump out at in her their familiarity: the windswept way his ginger hair grows, the vibrant apple green of his eyes that crinkle in delight the longer she looks at him; even the bitten edges of his finger nails scream of the boy she once knew— the boy who, quite suddenly, has become a man.

And here it is: all the emotion she's been trying to tuck away is suddenly threatening to burst out of her, an atomic bomb to affection and heart break and a thousand feelings at once. His smile widens and she can't stop staring at the way his eyes crinkle, the lines in his unfamiliar yet familiar face like the wrinkles on the margins of her favorite books.

 _(And suddenly she wants to devour every page of him.)_

And despite her shaking knees and her twisting stomach and the whirring of her mind suddenly the only thing she can think of is the steps leading up to her apartment; all she can think of is that she's lived in the same place for fifteen years and each time her feet touch those stairs she trips. And with a frightening jolt she wonders if it's the same way with people, if everyone has another person they think of when they wake, before they fall asleep; she wonders if she will live another fifteen years and still trip over him the way she's always tripping on those uneven stairs—

 _(And she wonders if that's supposed to be as terrifying as it feels right now.)_

Wally blinks exactly once as she stares at him, looking as if he's recently been clubbed about the head with a baseball bat. "Hi." He breathes back, voice breaking and prompting him into clearing his throat. "... Dick said that— he said you'd both be here."

She wants to go back to hiding behind Connor, her hand trembling slightly as she pushes her hair back behind her ears; for his part the other boy glances between the two of them, looking confused when her and Wally keep staring at each other. "And?" He says gruffly.

Wally glances once, a little shiftily, as if only just remembering that Connor's there. "And— uh—" He fumbles, voice breaking and the end of the non-sentence finishing in an awkward chuckle, his hand going to his neck with an almost comforting amount of predictability.

There's a moment of awkward silence before Connor rolls his eyes, looking annoyed with both of them. "Whatever." He mutters, taking the book from her hands and adding it to the stack in his arms. "Come find me after. Driving lessons." He tells her, not listening to her stuttering as he stomps his way out of the library.

She's so embarrassed she can't even move, refusing to look at Wally and instead spending her energy blushing at the carpet as the sound of Connor's footsteps fade away; neither of them speak for nearly a minute, not until long after the door has clattered closed, loudly signalling that it's just the two of them.

"Uh." Wally starts again, and when she glances up she catches his hand falling from his neck. He seems to lose whatever he was about to say when she looks at him, his ears going off in a startling red. "... Hey."

She wishes she had something to do with her hands. "Hi." She repeats, settling for folding her arms and slouching stupidly over them.

The corners of Wally's mouth twitch, his head ducking as he glances at his feet. "I just— Dick said you were back. And I just wanted to say—"

"Hey." She finishes for him. She can feel her eyes crinkling, as if willing to tempt a smile, but one doesn't come.

"Yeah." He confirms, nodding. This time he actually does grin, and at once her stomach twists, seeming to flip upwards and curl around her heart.

There's more awkward silence in which Wally keeps looking at her and she shifts her weight between her feet; like always she feels translucent under his gaze, completely naked, as if all her secrets and feelings are splayed in front of him and ready to be flipped through. This isn't one of the silences between them that she loves, the ones where they could just _be_ ; all it feels like now is two people who were once inseparable now struggling to make small talk, and knowing that fact makes her more upset than it should.

Wally inhales and exhales loudly, still staring. Slouching more she scowls, wishing he would look away. "... What?" She finally bursts out, blushing.

Wally's ears go off again and he seems to get the message; at once he's shaking his head, still grinning as he looks at the ceiling. "Sorry. I didn't— You just look different. _Good,_ different."

She feels her stomach twist again, her eyes glancing down self-consciously; her toes wiggle stupidly in her sandals, tanned knees quivering and exposed in her shorts, tee shirt sitting a little lopsidedly on her shoulders. She can't imagine what exactly looks good about her right now, especially after being thrown together so haphazardly this morning. Feeling strangely nervous she straightens her spine, looking up at him again. "... Thanks." She says almost warily. Her mouth decides it's the time to be honest. "You look different too. _Good,_ different." A beat, short enough for her embarrassment not to set in. "Taller."

Wally beams and she feels like an idiot, already wishing she hadn't said the last part. "Thanks. Mom's going crazy; in the last month or so she's bought me more clothes than she has my whole life. My jeans from spring are two inches too short now." He grins, one finger rubbing at his nose; she realizes it's as burnt as it was before she left, now with the addition of dry, peeling skin that no doubt itches. "Dad's mad about all the money of course, but I think he's kind of happy too— Mom's family isn't that tall, I know he was hoping I would get my height from him."

She doesn't quite know what to say to this and settles for a forced half-smile. "That's great." She mumbles, not sure where to go from here.

Wally nods again, apple eyes refusing to leave her again; even from several feet away she can feel him memorizing details of her face. "... Your hair has grown a lot. Gotten blonder too." He says, and she stops her hand from reaching up to smooth it behind her ears again. "Looks good on you."

She can't bring herself to thank him for the compliment and instead mimics the jerky shrug she's recently taken to borrowing from Connor, unfolding her arms and shoving her hands in her pockets. He's still looking at her too much. "... Right. Well..."

She trails off, uncomfortable; at once Wally's ears go off again, some of the crimson leaking down and coloring the tops of her cheeks. "Not like that." He says quickly, holding up a hand as if afraid she's going to run away in anger. "Not like— I just— it's good to see you. That's all I meant."

"No, I know." She mumbles, sandals catching on the carpet when she scuffs her heel nervously. "... It's good to see you too... Wally."

She doesn't know why she says his name like that— slow, deliberate, as if wanting to taste it coming off her tongue; for some reason hearing his name come out of her mouth seems to calm him, some of his blush receding up his cheeks as his expression grows more serious. "... How are you doing?" He asks her.

She can tell by his tone that he knows about what happened in Quarac, even if he isn't saying it; it's strange, how the person in front of her is so unrecognizable but his mind is all too familiar. Instead of answering right away she shrugs, glancing once at the carpet before she finds his eyes. "I..." She starts before stopping; as always it's very hard to lie when he looks at her like that, and immediately her mouth changes course. "... Okay. Not, I mean..." Her voice breaks and she's forced to clear her throat, embarrassed. "Alright."

It's a stupid answer, not really an answer at all, but Wally seems to soak up her words, nodding when she finally finishes. "... Kinda figured." He says kindly, the corner of his mouth twitching up; she knows he's trying to be charming and understanding but for some reason the little half smile makes her feel like he pities her.

He makes to take a step forward and seems to think better of it, stopping when he sees the look on her face. "... Listen." He starts again, hand returning to his neck. "That's kind of why I... I just wanted you to know, you know? If you need someone to talk to—"

"—Wally." She cuts him off, her voice low as she shakes her head at the carpet. "Come on—"

"Not like that." He says quickly, and this time the words come out more defensive than the last. "Not like— I'm just trying to be nice. I mean, we're teammates still, right? ... We're friends."

Although he says the last part he sounds as if he doesn't believe it; for some reason the words seem to hang in the air for too long, and she doesn't do anything to collect them. He's back to staring at her, waiting for her to look up from the carpet. "... Artemis?"

Her knees knock together, and she becomes aware of the fact that she's got a death grip around the change in her pocket, the coins cutting into her skin. "... Thanks." She forces herself to say. There are other words, more dangerous ones, trying to get past her lips, and resolutely she bites the inside of her cheek, staying quiet.

Wally exhales, finally looking away; he's blushing again, a bright red coloring the tops of his ears. "... Okay. Well— I guess I'll see you around."

"Yeah." She mumbles to her toes. "Sure."

She forces herself to stay rooted on the spot but it does nothing to quail the emotion erupting inside her; she wants so badly to run at him, to call him back, to do something to make her feel like he's still the boy she fell in love with. She can feel it bubbling up inside her, pounding along to his footsteps as he turns on his heel and leaves, threatening to overflow from her eyes and burst from her pores, on the verge of coming out of her in waves of words—

"Wait." She whispers as she jerks her gaze up, the word exploding out of her before she can stop it.

It's too late for him to hear her, and the only response she gets is the sound of the library door clattering shut behind him.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up and running! Again, sorry for the late update. I've had a lot of my plate the last few weeks and unfortunately one thing I have in common with Artemis is that we both tend to disappear when things get a bit overwhelming. More regular posting will resume once I get my act together.**

 **On another note, thanks to everyone who sent me messages wondering where I was** — **it's pretty rare that I have readers legitimately worried about me, and I have to say the care was appreciated. You guys are the best!**

 **Please Read and Review!**


	28. Broken Promised Land

**AN: Aaand another chapter. I have a few Q &A's to take care of, but I'll save that for the end. Enjoy!**

* * *

There's a second, a long one, where all she can hear is the sound of the library door clicking back into place; the noise seems to flow through her, latching under her skin and filling the spaces between her bones with some emotion she can't identify.

 _(And she can feel it, pulsing in the blush still on her cheeks; like a limb awaking from sleep, or nerves frozen from winter air being suddenly warmed... For the first time since Marie's death the coldness inside her retracts, curling deeper inside of her, hiding from the heat seeing Wally has suddenly put there_ — _)_

She inhales without thinking about it, mouth opening and wanting to taste the scent of walnuts still lingering in the air; she's greeted with only the staleness of old books.

And something, a more feral and desperate part of her, seems to flare up; in the loneliness in front of her she can't stop the coldness from returning, consuming her, sweeping her under like the freezing current of the ocean. She shivers, only half registering the sensation of her hair coming untucked from behind her ears.

 _(She should second guess the impulse, but she doesn't; Wally (as she once knew him) means warmth and comfort and she can't do this anymore— she can't live with this coldness, this ice, the nothingness that's been hollowing her out for so long_ _—_ )

She should know better by now _—_ nothing good can come from this.

 _(... But...)_

Her bones crack when she moves, running after him before she can freeze to death.

The library doors crash around her as she tears through them, shoess slipping on her feet and digging into her heels as she struggles to keep her balance. "Wait!" She calls out, this time much louder than she means to, her voice catching in a flurry of movement and wildness as she spits her hair out of her mouth.

Wally glances back in time to watch her skid to a stop, the bottom of her sandal catching under her foot and sending her stumbling; in the twenty second head start he's gotten he's only made it about halfway down the hall, as if he's been dragging his feet and indecisive about where to go. When he looks back over his shoulder she can see the surprise flashing about his eyes, ears still a faint shade of pink. "What—?"

He stops short, still looking startled as she struggles to kick her shoes right on her feet; even from down the hallway she can see his eyes flicker to where her chest is heaving in frantic breaths, breasts rising and falling as she tries to drink in his scent. It occurs to her that with her mused hair and reddened cheeks she must look like a lunatic.

She stares at Wally and he stares at her, and once again it feels as if nothing exists in the world except the two of them. And for a long moment she takes in the startled expression on his face, the angles that are unfamiliar and familiar all at once, and when his mouth quirks up in that bemused and crooked half-smile actual lightning seems to strike through her, lighting up the truth she's been unable to admit even to herself...

The night she lost him she lost something inside herself—or, perhaps, several things.

And although she can never love him again, she needs him. To talk to her, to be her friend. To bring back that part she lost to him.

She needs him.

 _(She needs him to help her feel something, anything, other than frozen.)_

"... Artemis?" He finally says, looking more puzzled than ever.

She's always loved the way he says her name; he's never shortened it, made it less than it was. Although by his lips she's been _Blondie_ and _Harpy_ and _Babe_ and _Beautiful_ she always loves being just _Artemis_ best— and it's about the only time she can ever remember liking the bizarre name her parents gave her. "Just—" She starts, voice breaking. "Just wait, for a second, alright?"

She's expecting him to look confused again; instead he blinks at her almost thoughtfully, simultaneously muddled and curious at the strange girl standing in front of him"... Okay." He says slowly.

She does her best to breathe evenly. "Okay."

She's beginning to feel very stupid, the words she wants to say whirling inside her so quickly she can hardly catch hold of a thought to focus on: she wants to tell him so badly about Marie's death, how they found her; she wants him to listen as she cries and acts childish and whispers her darkest secrets about her father, about how little Garfield is now alone and sick and it can only be her fault; she wants to be held and told that things will get better, that one day Paula will not look at her and see Lawrence underneath her skin; she wants, more than anything, to hear him whisper that despite all these terrible things that she is a good person, even though she knows she's not...

These things boil inside her but do not bubble out; more than once her lips open, trying to speak, only to fumble over her tongue and close again.

It should not be this difficult, facing the new Wally. But it is. Oh, God, it is.

True to his word, Wally waits— his hands in his pockets and his now-broad shoulders rolled, looking politely expectant. Nearly a minute passes before she forces her mouth to work, a jumble of words slipping out before she has time to make sure they're the right ones. "... You said— if I needed to talk." She mumbles out badly, wincing when her voice comes out almost warbled, uneven.

Wally's brows raise, the arcs beginning to blend into his fringe. "Oh." There's a very short silence in which she can practically see his thoughts clanging behind his eyes, wondering what's changed in the past few minutes that would force her to run after him. "Right. Yeah."

It's not an invitation, not really, but suddenly his face is changing— she can see the faint lines of tenderness beginning to blossom around his eyes, his brows furrowing slightly; before her stomach can even stop twisting he's taking a step closer to her, head ducking as if to better see her face.

Once again her thoughts torpedo inside her, wanting to burst out but not managing to; it feels as if everything she's been burying in the worst part of her mind is suddenly fighting for escape, words and fears and emotions all hammering at the contours of her bones, threatening to explode out of her skull. It shouldn't be so difficult to talk to him; for months now he's been the keeper of her secrets, the only one who's been able to see through her and figure her out. But standing here now, trying to confess something to a stranger— or at least, someone who looks like one...

 _It's Wally._ She tells herself over and over again. _It's Wally. It's Wally._

Her mouth starts working before her thoughts catch up. "... When Marie died..." She says before she can stop herself.

 _... When Marie died it might have been her fault..._

His eyes narrow as she trails off, his concern sharpening into something more adult than she's ever seen; at once he's taking another step forward, jaw dropping to survey her in that x-ray fashion he always does. "What?" He prompts her, nodding in encouragement. "... What is it?"

He frowns at her and she blinks back, unfocused and nervous and not sure if she can still trust him with her secrets even though she desperately wants to; she can sense his frustration beginning to build, gaze flickering over her face as if for the first time his apple eyes can't see through her exterior. She can feel her hands twisting in front of her stomach, and as if sensing something is much bigger than she's letting on he takes another step forward.

 _She can't do this._

For some reason voicing her fears out loud would make them more real, more damning; when things are just inside her head they're contained, sterile, only hurting her. Once it's out there, it's out of her control.

 _(Everyone would blame her. She would be off the Team. M'gann would hate her_ — _)_

 _(That's not true, that's not true_ — _)_

The silence stretches on and Wally's face seems to grow darker, somehow becoming more fierce and handsome. "... Artemis?"

 _(His walnut scented breath splashes across her face; suddenly her knees are quaking and she's drowning from the inside out and her mind is too busy for her to breath in. She wishes so badly that he was just a boy again_ — _she wants his old muscles and the reassuring jutting of his bones against hers; she wants to be able to press herself into him and feel his heart without the layers of paneled muscle. She wants to be held by someone who isn't a stranger.)_

 _((And she wants to kiss him, that boy she once knew. She wants to kiss him more than anything she's ever wanted in her whole life.))_

"I—" She starts, cutting herself off before trying again. "I just—"

Wally reaches up to rub at the sunburn on his nose again, and this time she's can't stand to look at the his freckles or his height or the new angles of the serious look he's wearing as he survey her; trying to keep it together she drops her gaze, wondering vaguely if his mouth would still taste the same—

Her heart stops beating in her chest, eyes blowing into focus.

Wally continues scratching his nose, the wrist still wearing her elastic bobbing between them.

And suddenly her very blood is freezing and anger is spreading through her like venom, any lingering affection for Wally West evaporating and being replaced by snarling hatred; every reason for not loving him, for not trusting him, is ripping into her skin like bullets— and some burl by her and scare her (like the effect he has on her, how weak she is for this boy— this man—) and others seem to tear into her like the one that once lodged into her thigh. How dare he still wear her elastic, how dare he still taunt her with that night, that last conversation, that last kiss—

 _How dare he stand in front of her, wearing the souvenir of the worst night of her life, as if he were the only one hurt by it._

The words die in her throat, instead being replaced with bile; at once she can feel her face growing sour, twisting into a scowl so full of fury that the wrinkle she inherited from her mother pops up over her nose. Almost immediately Wally's brows raise at the change, looking bewildered. "What—" He starts, and she has enough time to watch him glance bemusedly at his wrist before she turns on her heel.

"Never mind." She snarls, her limbs frozen and stiff from her own coldness. _"It doesn't matter."_

* * *

Her heart seems to flood boiling anger through her icy veins, a clashing of hot and cold so disorienting she can hardly focus on anything; by the time she stomps her way into accidentally finding Connor in the hanger of the Cave she feels as if something has exploded inside her, an earth shattering thundering in her eardrums that simultaneously sends her shivering and sweating with fury, every fiber of her still thinking of Wally.

It's very hard not to start swearing or tell him bitingly what's just happened; if Connor notices her heart beat he doesn't acknowledge it, probably just assuming she's tittering like an idiot over Wally again. He hardly glances up at her when she comes to a stuttering halt beside him, focusing instead on all the sheet covered motorcycles and jet skis around them. "We have a problem." He tells her. "There's no car here."

"Car?" She says vaguely, still fuming; it takes a second for her to catch up to what he's talking about. "... What? No car?"

There's a pause where her shortness seems to register even to her own ears; at once his head swivels round to look at her properly."... Yeah." He says slowly.

 _(It's so strange to her, how months ago she hardly talked to Connor— all at once it seems so sudden, the fact that he can now look at her, like the way he is now, and tell that something is wrong. And it's strange too, that she can even tell what that hardened and closed-off expression he's currently wearing means.)_

There's a sticky moment in which Connor's eyes narrow, but before he can ask her what's going on she beats him to it; ducking her head she makes to scrub along her cheeks, trying to dismiss the blush still lingering there. "Guess it makes sense. Not having a car round here." She mutters gruffly, avoiding his eye and glancing instead at the collection of tarps that distinctly resemble motor boats. "Dick and Zatanna are too young, M'gann has the Bioship and you have Sphere. Kaldur and—" She pauses, feeling bile gather angrily in her throat. "— _Wally_ don't really have an interest. No need for one I guess."

The last part sound bitter, Wally's name coming out sour and too-sharp at the end of the ramble— there's a half beat of silence where he watches her scowl at her feet. "... What's your problem?" He asks predictably.

She jerks her head, ignoring the question. "... Not that I need any more driver training, you said it yourself. I might as well book my test."

Connor blinks once, watching as she slouches and peels back the tarp on one of the vehicles, revealing a shiny red motorbike he used to ride. "... You're upset." He says after a long moment.

Her hands fumble and there's a quiet tang of her nails against the metal. "… So?" She snarls, crossing her arms.

There's more silence in which they both stand there a little awkwardly before Connor shrugs. "... I'm not good with upset girls." He tells her gruffly; when she glances at him he's scowling vaguely at the ceiling, as if worried the slightest look will cause her to burst into angry tears. "So if you... If you need... Do you want to go back and be with everyone else?"

She's a little caught off guard by the offer, feeling herself blink in surprise as she considers him. "No." She says carefully, before hesitating. "... Do you want me to go back and be with everyone else?"

"No."

It immediately gets quiet again, the awkward kind of quiet between her and Connor that never seems to go away; she gets the sense that although he's hit his limit for talking about feelings or saying kind things he's still curious about what just happened with Wally.

"Well, _okay then_." She says in a stupid, forced kind of way, her hands unconsciously shoving themselves in her pockets. "Then we'll just... Hang out."

"Fine."

"Fine."

* * *

Hanging out with Connor, she discovers, includes spending a lot of time in various states of silence; the two of them hardly speak to each other for the rest of the day, instead flickering through activities that don't require more than a few words. She'll read in a chair while he stares at television static from the couch. They spar. He barks out the names of tools from behind his old motorcycle and she guesses which ones are right. She brews him a proper cup of tea and lends him her favorite books.

All the quiet is good for her head and for her temper, and Connor's sturdy presence is reassuring.

That evening she haunts her bedroom at the Cave, which for some reason no longer feels like it belongs to her; the room seems to have developed a strange presence, simultaneously untouched but different, as if someone's been in there while she was gone without her permission. For nearly an hour she sits on the edge of her bed, debating sleep but feeling uneasy as she looks around, studying the inconsistencies: the uneven spacing of hangers in her closet, pens sitting atop her desk rather than in the drawer she keeps them in, photo frames half an inch from where she knows they should sit.

It's all small things, the kind that would be crazy to voice out loud.

So instead she sits in silence, observing them and untrusting in her own mind.

* * *

At half past nine there's a faint knock on her door, one rap of sound just loud enough to force her out of her own thoughts. For a long moment she considers ignoring the knocker before her own curiosity gets the better of her.

When she opens her door it's to Kaldur, who's looking down at her with that strangely serious smile he always seems to wear. "Greetings, my friend. I thought I would find you hiding in here."

The way he says this is odd, not like he's accusing her of anything but as if he simply finds her predictable; before she can prepare herself for it he's leaning in, arms bracing around her shoulders and forcing her into a hug. "Hi." She says awkwardly, uncomfortable with the closeness and pulling back too quickly; she doesn't know why she doesn't want to be touched, why it feels like she's secretly worried she'll taint him. "Sorry, I just— it's been a long day."

"So I have heard. You and Connor have been busy." He says kindly. "... Although I hope it is still good to be home, despite the circumstances."

Again, this sounds strange— not accusatory, just as if he knows more than she wants him to. "Uh." She starts awkwardly, twitching her head in that funny shrug she's been doing so much lately. "... It's okay, I guess."

"Hm." He makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat; once again she's being stared at, analyzed, as if every confusing emotion is whirring obviously behind her eyes— she doesn't know how or when she became so readable, as if all her secrets are suddenly public domain.

For the first time in her memory the silence between them feels almost uncomfortable, unfamiliar. Gradually the welcoming smile fades from about his lips, his face settling into something more muted and solemn as he continues to watch her, only speaking when she starts flexing her toes into the carpet, wishing she could shut the door on him. "... I came to invite you to watch a movie with the Team. But I suspect you would rather be alone."

She's grateful when he says that last part; exhaling slightly she tries to wear an apologetic smile. "... It's just been a lot to process... You know. With everything." She tells him, dropping her eyes to her feet.

She can sense his gaze narrowing as her hair flops forward, watching her carefully as her thumbs press the fringe back behind her ears. Without looking she can sense the last bit of humor disappearing from the lines about his eyes, and when he speaks his voice is quiet, as if worried about waking the dead. "... Are you doing well, Artemis?"

"I'm fine. I was just about to go home, actually." She tells him without being asked, jerking her head up quickly and forcing her mouth into a fake feeling grin. "... I'm okay."

A muscle in her cheek twitches and the fake smile cracks; although his face remains almost set she can sense a change, something about his cheek bones tightening. "I do not wish to intrude." He tells her politely, probably sensing that she was just about to reach for the door to begin closing it. "But we both know that you are lying."

She feels her expression sour. "... No I'm not."

Kaldur nods as if indulging her, eyes still fixed on her face. "But you are not being an 'open book' either."

It's not meant to be rude, but for some reason the repetition of her old words feels more like a low blow than harmless teasing; he seems to recognize this when her face suddenly bursts into a glare. "Apologies." He says smoothly, not wincing when she whips the door forward, one of his hands reaching up to stop it from closing in his face . "I did not come here to test your temper. I simply—"

Uncharacteristically he cuts himself off, seemingly trying to think of better words to say; feeling annoyed she lets out a huff of breath, blowing hair out of her mouth. "What?"

There's another half-second before the words come to him. "... I simply wanted to make sure you were alright. I know things have been very... Difficult, for you. Both before and after Quarac."

She doesn't like his gentle tone, or the surprisingly comforting phrasing of the words; rather than indulge his kindness she forces herself to scowl. _"I'm fine."_

 _(And she thinks of how many times she's repeated the words in the last few days_ — _I'm fine and I'm okay, playing on an endless loop out of her mouth. And the more she says them the less meaning they seem to hold, losing a definition and simply sounding like noise as she reiterates them; I'm fine and I'm okay and I'm fine and I'm okay, again and again until it sounds less like words and more the howling of some sort of animal, the thing inside of her than is hurt and crying out but nobody can hear it_ — _I'm fine and I'm okay and_ — _)_

The words are practically spat at him, and even though it's obvious she's lying again he doesn't acknowledge it; instead he blinks and straightens his spine— and she registers the fact that he's no longer speaking to her as a friend, but rather as a commander addressing a soldier. "I also wanted to update you."

Her brows raise, nose wrinkling. He seems to take it as a sign to continue.

"You were not informed prior to your leaving because of the sensitive nature of the assignment... With the help of your arrow Robin and I have been tracking—"

"Sportsmaster." She cuts him off, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "I know. And I know he was near Quarac when Marie was killed."

There's a long moment of silence, in which none of Kaldur's surprise shows on his face except his eyes narrowing a tiny fraction; before he can ask any questions she waves him off, slouching. "I can track someone as well as you can." She huffs, choosing in spur of the moment not to tell him about her eavesdropping; before she has time to feel guilty about it she rushes on. "So is that what you're here to tell me? That he killed her?"

And she can't hide the desperation under her cutting tone, or the way she's suddenly staring at him too hard.

(And in that moment, she's an open book.)

Kaldur hesitates, and it's about the longest few seconds of her life; his face in unreadable, an impenetrable wall between her and the truth. She can feel her heart creeping up into her throat, choking her as the silence stretches on.

 _Say no. Please say no._

"... It is a possibility." He says at last. "We cannot rule anything out yet."

She exhales, the air in her throat emitting a tiny squeak; forcing the tears at the back of her eyes to stay in place she swallows, trying to ignore the sensation of her heart aching as it plummets to the pit of her stomach. "... Okay." She grits out between her teeth.

Kaldur disappears as she screws her eyes shut, but that does nothing to shake the feeling of his eyes fixed on her. "Artemis—"

"Is that why you had Connor following me?" She demands, eyes snapping up and nostrils flaring. "So someone could keep me in check if I figured too much out?"

The weight of the silence seems to sit heavily on her lungs again, cutting off air; for a moment Kaldur's lips part before he inhales, as if bracing himself for the worst. "I know you are more than capable of self restraint, Artemis. That decision was not mine to make."

Her eyes narrow, a disgusted noise sounding in the back of her throat. "Then whose was it?"

"... The League," he says stiffly, and from his tone she takes this to mean _Green Arrow,_ "thought it pertinent to advise Superboy that you may be vulnerable while there."

She doesn't know what this is supposed to mean and takes a wild guess. "So I was being baby sat the entire time."

"Connor was not tasked with watching your every move." Kaldur says firmly, looking annoyed when she lets out an angry exhale. "He was, however, instructed to keep you with the rest of the Team. And, if need be, to follow your orders in the event of an altercation with the Light or Sportsmaster."

There's a beat in which this seems to settle into her mind. "... Oh."

As if he can tell what she's thinking Kaldur reaches out, bracing one hand on her shoulder. "You have proved yourself as a leader more than once, Artemis. I did not think you would forget your first trip to Athens so quickly."

She wants to keep arguing, although something in the firmness of his tones stops her; not wanting to accept his compliment she bites her tongue, waiting for him to continue. "... I also did not think you would forget the events of Quarac quickly either." He says quietly, eyes narrowing when she's not fast enough to hide the flash of gloom that crosses her face. "... I know why you are hiding Artemis. Even if it was Sportsmaster who killed Marie, her death is not your fault."

She much more careful this time, forcing her face to stay guarded; he must still be able to see something shift behind her eyes because at once Kaldur's hand is tightening, the edges of his fingers pressing reassuringly against the swell of her shoulder. She can't think of anything to say.

"The Team has missed you." He tells her quietly. "... And they are worried."

Although once again emotion is flaring up inside her she forces it to be buried; shrugging out from under his arm she takes a step back, gripping hard on her bedroom door like a lifeline. "I'm fine." She says, not sure if she's trying to convince him or herself. "... I just want to be alone, okay?"

 _She is alone and she is being swallowed whole; she can't trust anyone with her feeling or her suspicions, can't trust herself not to cry. She is a natural disaster, a tidal wave of a person, and if anyone speaks to her or looks too closely she will burst open and drown everyone_ —

He's not fooled. "You are punishing yourself for something that you had nothing to do with—"

 _"Nothing?"_

The word fires out of her before she can stop it, anger and misery and grief forcing it to burst out of her uncontrollably; for a long moment Kaldur stares at the furious blush on her cheeks and the trembling of her sealed lips, as if trying to decide what to say. "... Artemis—"

"Leave it alone, Kal—"

He takes a step forward, as if to enter her bedroom. "You cannot—"

"Leave it!" She shouts, and before she can think on it she's slamming the door.

It's a mistake, and she knows it, but she can't do anything about it now; she can still see Kaldur's shock and hurt imprinted on the backs of her eyelids, pressing through her retinas and seeming to latch into the grooves of her skin. Hating herself she lets out a panting breath, already wishing she could apologize as she hears his footsteps disappearing down the hall.

She doesn't know what's wrong with her, why all her emotions are suddenly driving inward and bubbling out of her at the worst possible moment; she wasn't even that close to Marie, it shouldn't matter that she's dead—

 _But it does._

* * *

On the first of July she walks down to the water's edge at day break, not stopping until her bare feet are ankle deep in the water; it's chilled as always, although nothing compared to the strange coldness that seems to have been inhabiting her body almost unceasingly the last few days. She had woken too early to the sound of Gotham sirens, the loudness so strange compared to the quiet of her shared bedroom in Quarac; she had thought the emptiness of the Happy Harbor beach at daybreak would clear her head, but in the silence her thoughts only seem magnified.

 _(The air is humid and the sand is warm, the breeze rolling off the water ruffling her too-short hair the way Wally's fingers used to. She wonders if he's even awake yet, if his twitching limbs have forced him out of bed, if he's up and thinking about her too. As always, she has to remind herself that she's not supposed to think these things anymore._

 _Wally is nothing. A blot on the page of her story. And she hates him, for making her feel these things.)_

Not even ten minutes pass before she hears movement behind her; when she looks over her shoulder she doesn't know why she's unsurprised to find Connor there, walking towards her as if they'd agreed to meet.

He doesn't stop walking, not even when the bottoms of his jeans are submerged in the ocean. She finds she doesn't want to look at him when he comes to a stop beside her, instead staring unseeingly over the water until her eyes and pulled out of focus. "... This place doesn't feel like home anymore, does it?" She doesn't know why she asks him this.

 _Maybe she's just wondering if she's the only one going crazy._

She hears him make an indistinct noise in the back of his throat. "... No. Not without M'gann."

And the words are so simple, said so surely that nothing in the world could make her doubt them— he's right, of course. Home simply isn't home without the person you love.

But M'gann will come back. They may not know when or how but M'gann will find her way back. But Wally...

She can feel her throat going tight and forces herself to swallow, biting back the misery stirring inside her; she's making this harder than this has to be, she knows she is. But somehow, despite her burying them alive in the Quarac desert her feelings have followed her back home— she can sense them fighting to reach her in the looks Wally sends her when they pass in the hall, in the anger that had imploded inside her when she had seen her elastic still on his wrist. No matter how hard she tries those emotions are consuming her from the inside out, making her bitter and lonely no matter how many people are around her.

She's being stupid. She just has to accept the fact that certain things will never go back to how they used to be. The Cave feeling like home is one of them.

Out of the corner of her eye she watches as Connor turns his head towards her, obviously listening to the irregular pounding of her heart. "... You okay?"

"No." She says emotionlessly. It's the first honest thing she's said in days.

A beat of silence. "Is it Marie?"

"No." For some reason she says this too quickly, the word sounding fake.

"... Is it Wally?"

When she doesn't answer he turns towards her; the sun, still bursting out the beginning of the day, colors his skin a strange milky orange. "You keep telling everyone it's over between you two." He mumbles. He looks as if he hasn't slept in days. "... But I don't think it is."

She doesn't want to talk about this with him, and she thinks he knows that; he doesn't say any more on the subject, and after a while they both slip into the familiar but awkward silence.

The sun rises along the horizon, and she thinks of how she once watched the sunrise with Wally— in his arms, the both of them still sore from their constant fighting. What had they been bickering about? It takes a moment for the memory to surface— she had been keeping distance between them. Putting up barriers. All the other things she used to be smart enough to do.

 _But she had let him in, hadn't she? And now his memory is destroying her from the inside out._

It had been their own kind of magic. She had loved Wally because he had always come back to her— and he had loved her for the same reason. But when they parted ways that last time... She had known that would be it. She knew that when she left for Quarac what she was coming home to wouldn't be the same.

If she knew that, then why is this so hard?

... And it's sad, really. Because she knows, even if she won't admit it, why the world feels as if it's been flipped on it's head: she's still waiting. Waiting and waiting, waiting for Wally to unfailingly come back to her, or for her to come back to him.

She's waiting.

And she knows he's not coming to find her. And she knows she isn't looking for him either.

The people they used to be are older, wiser now— maybe broken, too. Too weary for their childish games.

... It can hardly be later than six in the morning, and even though she's been closer to him than she has in months she misses Wally— _the old Wally_ — as if he's miles away. And perhaps it feels more powerful now, when he's so close and the world is silent and her mind is blaringly loud, whirring through emotions and screaming the one thought that's been on her mind since she returned home: everything has changed.

Connor inhales the sea beside her, eyes closing and skin looking more statuesque than ever before; the boy carved from marble beside her doesn't believe it's over between her and Wally. Perhaps he's right— maybe some part of it will always feel like unfinished business. But it's over, it's over, and she'll repeat the words inside her head until they become true: _it is over_ , and she's more in love with the memories of the boy in the desert than she is with the man in the library.

Everything is different. She is friends with Connor and Wally is a tall, handsome stranger; Kaldur is not to be trusted and she might be responsible for a murder. Zatanna can only speak of unknown boys and Dick can only speak of Zatanna, and M'gann, her only trustworthy confidant, is miles away across the ocean.

Is it six in the morning and her home no longer feels like it belongs to her, and she feels like the girl trapped in a vortex of feelings inside the Gotham apartment all over again.

* * *

That afternoon she's pulled out of her book when Zatanna propels herself over the back of the couch, landing clumsily in the cushions beside her. "There you are." Immediately she gets the sense that this is going to take a while, and foolishly she starts reading as fast as she can, trying to reach the end of the paragraph before she's forced to stop. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

"… What?" She hears herself say vaguely, not looking up.

The other girl isn't fazed by this lack of response, make one annoyed click of her tongue before she reaches out, snatching her book from her hands and closing it before she can dog-ear her page. "Zatanna!" She hears herself say indignantly, fingers slipping along the pages as they're ripped away, leaving several long reddened lines in her palms.

"Bad move." She hears someone call out from the kitchen, and when both their heads turn to find the source they're greeted by a smirk from Dick, hardly glancing up at them from his phone. "Everyone knows not to disturb the beast while she's reading."

She glares, about to sneer out a retort before there's a blast of air from around the corner— at once she's gagging on the scent of walnuts and spitting hair out of the back of her throat, all of them watching as Wally skids into the kitchen in sock feet, stumbling as he catches himself on the counter. Even from here she can see her elastic still wrapped around his wrist.

 _She hates him, this person who wears her heart break like a trophy._

She hardly hears the greeting he calls to the common area at large; feeling a surge of anger run through her she slumps behind the back of the couch, her cheeks reddening as she glares. "Give it." She says as sternly as she can, extending a hand and pretending the kitchen is empty.

If Zatanna notices this exchange she doesn't mention it beyond the smirk rapidly adorning her face, raising the book above her head when she makes a grab for it; she's forced to slouch further into the arm of the couch in annoyance, not willing to sit up properly and risk the chance of having to look Wally in the eye again. "Are you done sulking?" The other girl taunts, looking pleased when she scowls.

She can feel her nose wrinkling and promptly does her best to smooth it. "I'm not _sulking_."

"Yes, you are." Dick's voice calls from the kitchen. There's the sound of buttons beeping on the microwave, presumably heating a bag of Wally's popcorn.

"See? You're sulking." Zatanna agrees, nodding at her. "Come on—we've barely seen you since you got home. All you do is stay shut up in your room and mope about— you know."

She doesn't like Zatanna dodging around Marie's death like she understands, and despite her best efforts she can feel her expression souring. "I've been busy." She mutters evasively, trying again to get her book back.

The other girl waves this off, extending the book higher and further out of her reach as the microwave sounds out, a few stray pops signalling that Wally's popcorn is finished. "Well, stop it then. Its summer, you're supposed to spend time with your friends—"

"Oh yeah, because I'm enjoying your company _so much right now_ —"

It's Zatanna's turn to scowl, her face pinching for a moment before she tosses her hair over her shoulder, looking haughty. "See? Sulking. You get snarky when you sulk."

She's just about to say something biting back when Wally wanders into the living room, picking the remote off the coffee table and throwing himself into a chair. "She's right, you know." He tells her through a mouthful of popcorn, absently flicking through the channels. "You sulk."

She glares at him so hard that her nose wrinkles again. " _Shut up."_ She snarls at him.

Wally isn't phased by her come back, instead shrugging and returning to the television; before she can reach something to throw at him Zatanna sends her a superior sort of look. "See?" She gestures to Wally, as if this is an explanation. "You need to do something fun." She tells her, with the air of explaining something to someone very stupid. "Listen, Fourth of July is coming up. Remember that guy I was tell you about— Kaleb? He told me a bunch of the Happy Harbor kids are having a bonfire on the main beach before the fire works. Want to go?"

Dick snorts loudly from the kitchen, scrolling through his phone a little more ferociously than he has to; Zatanna for her part ignores him, looking down at her expectantly. "... I don't know." She mumbles, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Come on." The other girl sighs, beginning to pout the longer she remains unexcited. "Kaleb has this really cute friend, Owen— I was telling you about him, remember? You'll love him, Artemis. Look—he's hot, right?" Before she can brace herself Zatanna's waving her phone in front of her face, flashing through photos of herself and two good-looking boys.

"They both look like idiots." Dick says over her shoulder; she didn't even hear him get up from the counter yet suddenly he's leaning over the back of the couch, squinting at the photos through his sunglasses.

Zatanna ignores this, although privately she has to agree with Dick— both of them look a bit stupid, wearing matching pretty boy pouts and squinting their eyes at the camera. "That's Kaleb on the left." She tells her, gesturing to the better looking of the two, an older boy with green-flecked hazel eyes and perfectly tousled hair. "And Owen, obviously." She points to the other boy she's got her arm around.

She supposes the other girl is right; the unknown Owen is no doubt handsome, his jaw chiseled and his hair mused into sandy blonde curls. For a long moment she stares at him, willing herself to feel something for the well-tanned skin and the charming smile. "... Yeah." She says after a moment. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Wally's mouth freeze in the process of chewing a wad of popcorn, obviously listening very hard; ignoring this she clears her throat. "I mean, he's okay."

"Just okay?" Zatanna barks, looking annoyed. "You're kidding, right?"

She can feel her cheeks going off, her knees knocking together as she pulls them tighter to her chest. "Okay, okay, he's— He's cute." She mumbles, wishing she had picked a more private spot to read.

"Right?" Zatanna squeals, taking her phone back. "He's the perfect distraction from all... This." The other girl gestures to her a little vaguely, and she becomes very aware of the fact that she hasn't properly washed her hair in a few days.

"Well—" She starts, ignoring Dick when he looks at her a little critically. "... Okay, I guess. Whatever."

Zatanna's face bursts into a dazzling smile as she lets out one bark of excited laughter, eyes glinting mischievously. "Yes! I've only been to the main beach a few times but the guys say the fireworks show at the end of the night is amazing every year— and Kaleb said he'd use his fake I.D to get us something to drink too, but I told him not to bother— my Dad's old liquor cabinet has more than enough to—"

The last idea intrigues her, especially the suggestive tone it's said with; before she can agree Dick's interrupting them both, scowling. "So you two get to go on a bender with two guys you just met while we're stuck here? What about the rest of the Team? I thought we were planning on spending the Fourth of July together?"

Rather than look annoyed Zatanna smirks, looking like she's enjoying the challenge as she stares Dick down. "Then come. It's a public beach, isn't it?" She smirks. "In fact— let's invite the whole Team. How often do we get to go to a _party-party_? No mentors? Just us on a beach with a drink and some cute boys—"

"Don't public beaches have open liquor laws?" Wally chimes in dryly from the couch. His mouth seems to be working very hard to grind all that popcorn down before he swallows it.

They all ignore him. "Fine, maybe we will come." Dick says firmly back, glasses glinting.

"Fine!" Zatanna huffs; despite the argument both of them look quite pleased with themselves.

* * *

The prospect of a party—a real party, with real teenagers whose only worries involve summer flings and gas money for their first cars— seems to alter the mood in the Cave drastically; despite the glumness of her mood and her never-ending coldness she catches herself looking forward to pretending to be normal for the evening, even indulging the dithering plans Zatanna puts her through involving which swim suit to wear and what kind of alcohol to bring. The effect, however, is short lived.

"Dick's bringing someone." Zatanna snarls at her, yanking her head phones out of her ears and interrupting her running on the treadmill. "To the 4th of July thing. Barbara something."

"Barbara something?" She pants, still trying to maintain her pace. "Barbara something who he took to prom?"

Zatanna seems on the verge of explosion. "Yes."

There's a very pointed silence in which she gets the impression that she's supposed to say something cutting about the unknown Barbara; ramming a few buttons on the treadmill she slows to a stop, trying to catch her breath. "... I thought you had moved on from Dick?" She gets out. "After the whole prom thing?"

Apparently this is the wrong thing to say; at once Zatanna lets out an exaggerated sigh, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "Why am I even talking about this with you? You don't know anything about boys!" She huffs, storming out of the training room before she can do much other than wipe the sweat from her forehead.

She suspects the whole party thing might be more trouble than it's worth— or at least, that's what she tells Kaldur.

"... You're coming, aren't you?" She asks, having just spewed out an invitation after bumping into him in the kitchen.

Instead of answering right away Kaldur simply surveys her with those milky eyes of his, watching as she shifts nervously from foot to foot; she had wanted to apologize for her behavior the other day and somehow she had started talking about the Fourth of July instead, too ashamed and embarrassed of herself to mention anything else. "... I believe Tula and I have other plans." He says smoothly. "Summer time on the surface world makes it very... Difficult, to hide that we are Atlanteans."

Before she can argue he gestures to the gills adorning neck; she supposes hiding them with high collars or scarves during the hottest month of the year would be impossible. "Oh. Right." She says dumbly, leaning against the counter and feeling slightly tactless. "... Might be for the best, actually. Zatanna's going to have us running around with these two idiots she met at the country club. You're probably saving yourself from having to take care of her all night after she drinks too much."

The corners of his mouth quirk up and for a moment they both share a knowing look; although she's not entirely sure if Kaldur approves of all the under age drinking he doesn't say anything on the matter, as if determined to stay out of it. "Perhaps you are right. Is that why you are going?"

She shrugs. "Sure."

"But then who is taking care of you?"

A part of her— an old, more habitual part— might take this as a challenge. Instead she runs a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. "I don't need taking care of." She mutters, trying not to sound too defensive.

Kaldur nods, looking almost thoughtful, and like a coward she leaves the kitchen.

* * *

The morning of the Fourth of July greets her with a loud rapping on her bedroom door; before she can even get her eyes properly open Zatanna's whirling into her bedroom, already talking at her as if they've both been awake for hours. "— of plans. You're lending me that blue bikini."

She groans into her pillow. "I thought I was wearing that?" She huffs, feeling annoyed when she hears the sound of her drawers being riffled through. "What's wrong with what yours?"

"Changed my mind. I'm going for a red, white, and blue thing now."

"Red, white, and—" She starts, cutting herself off when she sits up and pushes her hair out of her eyes; her question is answered when she sees the red rimmed sunglasses and white shorts Zatanna has draped over her arm. Blinking sleep out of her eyes, she decides to accept the inevitable. "... What am I wearing then?"

In answer the other girl flings a black strappy thing at her. "My black one."

Ignoring Zatanna as she continues to go through her drawers she examines the swim suit in question, eyeing the thin straps and flimsy ties with a sense of unease. "I thought you were going for something a little more... _You know_." She says awkwardly, scrubbing the sleep out of her eyes as Zatanna finally retrieves the blue swimsuit from the back of her dresser. "My blue one is a little more... Covered."

There's a loud sigh. "I can't be too sexy if Dick's bringing another girl." Zatanna tells her, sounding annoyed. "If I'm sexy then it's easy for her to hate me."

This doesn't make a lot of sense. "... But you hate her." She says slowly, feeling stupid. "Why do you care if she likes you or not?"

For the second time in only a few days Zatanna sends her a dry look, as if completely frustrated with her. "Because if she likes me it will annoy Dick." She blinks and Zatanna sighs. " _It's a strategy_ , Artemis!"

Although she thinks this all sounds incredibly complicated she decides not to push the point, instead gesturing to Zatanna's swimsuit, still strappy and menacing on the end of her bed. "... Any chance I get to wear something that isn't so... _You know?"_

"No." Zatanna say simply. She's too exhausted to fight it.

Although threatening on the end of her bed Zatanna's old swimsuit is hardly unpleasant once she puts it on an hour later; it's a little tight in a few places but she supposes no one will notice much with it hidden underneath her shorts. Yanking a shirt over her head she glances back once, almost self consciously, in the mirror.

 _God. She looks so normal._

Well, almost; she fiddles once with the hem of her shorts, tugging them down until they cover the scar still lingering on her upper thigh from Metropolis.

She knows she should feel nervous, what with the prospect of meeting two unknown and good-looking boys; instead all she can feel is a cool, almost numbing sensation pulsing through her, alienating her from her own body. Habitually she tries to fit her hair into a pony tail, grinding her teeth together when her blond tresses refuse to cooperate.

After nearly twenty minutes of stalling in front of the mirror she's distracted from the emptiness of her reflection by her phone ringing; expecting Zatanna she takes her time crossing her bedroom to pick it up from where she left it on her desk, not eager to be yelled at for keeping her waiting. One glance at the caller ID, however, is enough to send the annoyed huff dying in her throat before she can release it; at once her back goes rigid, stomach churning in surprise before she flips her phone open, talking before the speaker is properly by her mouth. "M'gann?" She blurts out in greeting.

There's a lot of static; at first she can hardly hear the other girl. "Hi." The familiar tone croaks through the line.

Her heart tightens at the misery in the other girl's voice; she sounds as if she hasn't done anything except cry since they left. "Hi." She says quietly, listening to the static as it cuts between them for a moment. "… What's going on, Meg? How are you?"

There's a strange sound, like someone sucking in a breath through a puddle of water. "I'm okay." M'gann tells her. Stomach sinking, she suspects M'gann's version of "okay" is the exact same as her own as of late; there's a long silence in which only static fills the air. "… Just needed someone to talk to." The martian says after a moment.

There's something odd in her tone that makes her feel suddenly inadequate; stomach twisting her feet start walking around her bedroom at random. "… Do you want me to get Connor?" She blurts out stupidly.

"No." M'gann says quickly. "No, he doesn't—I just wanted to talk to you."

"Oh." For some reason this takes her by surprise, her feet dragging across the carpet as she takes a few steps towards the door. "Okay."

Another silence, this one so loud she can feel it pressing into her eardrums through the phone. "How are things there?" M'gann prompts.

She swallows, unsure why her mouth is so dry. "Alright." She says dumbly, and then starting again to try to give a proper answer. "Zatanna's insisting we all celebrate the 4th of July. She's dragging us down to the main beach." She hesitates. "She's also making meet some idiot named Owen."

M'gann tries to chuckle and only manages to let out something that sounds vaguely like a mix between a snort and a sob. "Bet you love that."

Even though the other girl can't see it she smiles weakly, twisting her door knob open. "I don't really know how I feel about it." She sighs, hesitating only for a moment before continuing. "... Things here just feel so... I don't know. How are things there?"

She wishes immediately that she hadn't said anything; instantly M'gann lets out a wailing sob that's so loud in her ear she winces, nearly dropping her phone. " _Awful_." The other girl wails, trying to contain her crying and not succeeding. "It's been—I don't know what to do—"

A wave of panic runs through her, eyes wide and staring unseeingly at the blank stretch of wall opposite her room as she closes her door behind her. "M'gann? What is it? What's wrong?"

More sobs that make her chest tighten. "I—I got Marie's will today." She sobs. "This morning. Her lawyer came and dropped it off and… And at first I thought he was giving it to Garfield. And I told him he couldn't see him, because Garfield's still in the h-h-hospital—"

Another loud sob that makes her fingers tighten around her phone, the metal beginning to dig painfully into her fingers. "M'gann?"

"She mentioned me!" The other girl wails, hardly understandable through her sobbing. "There was a whole section—right at the top. _To My Daughter, Megan._ "

Her knees nearly give out at the awfulness of it, air bursting out of her lungs as she sways back against her door. "Oh my god." She says more to herself than M'gann, screwing her eyes shut.

M'gann's still sobbing through the phone, talking so quickly she can hardly pick up certain words through the static. "And I s-sat down and I read it and—I was expecting everything to go to Garfield, I didn't… Oh, Artemis, I don't know what to do."

"What did she leave you?" She asks urgently, trying to get the other girl to get the words out before she starts crying too heavily to speak.

More silence mixed with sobbing and fuzziness, the line nearly cutting out. And then:

"She left me Garfield."

She nearly drops her phone, a large amount of rustling in her ear telling that she's just exhaled loudly into the speaker. "… What do you mean, _she left you Garfield?"_

"She left me h-him." M'gann repeats, sounding near hysterical. "She—I don't know what I'm going to do. He doesn't have anyone else—no grandparents, no aunts or uncles. She—I'm his g-guardian, Artemis."

She lets M'gann cry for nearly half a minute as her brain explodes into thought, trying to manage all this information; her stomach seems to have migrated to her ankles, knees trembling as she pushes herself harder against her bedroom door, trying to remain upright. "… Where are you now?" She breathes, free hand running through her hair and scrubbing hard at her face, trying to force herself to stay calm.

 _She did this. This is all her fault._

"The barn." The other girl wails. "I h-hate the house, it's too quiet— How am I supposed to take care of a little boy, Artemis? I can't even get him out of a hospital, I can't—"

She winces when the other girl starts sobbing again, her nails scratching hard at her cheeks as she runs her hands over them. "... What do you need?" She presses, going automatically into a kind of trance she only falls into in the direst of situations, her instinct to protect M'gann the same one that prompted her to shield Garfield from his mother's dead body. "Do you want us all to come down? Call the League?"

"League members are already here, Batman and—"

"You aren't listening, M'gann." She says sternly. "What do _you_ need? Do you—should I get Connor?"

There's an odd strangling noise again that breaks up the sounds of M'gann's sobs. "I don't know what I want!" She bursts out hysterically. "I don't— _I want Marie to be alive!"_ She howls, and before she can say anything remotely comforting the line slips into static.

"M'gann!" She says desperately into the phone; the other girl's name isn't even out of her mouth before the call goes dead, leaving her feeling helpless as she clings to her phone. "Hello? _M'gann?_ "

She probably stands there for too long, clutching her phone to her ear and breathing heavily, face raw and hair standing on end from scrubbing her hands through it. Her heart is racing in her chest, her throat suddenly so tight she can hardly breathe. The line continues to sound out endlessly, screaming at her in a deadened and one-note tone, howling at her until she snaps her phone shut, hurling it as hard as she can at the wall opposite.

 _This is all her fault. All her fault._

 _(Worthless_ — _)_

She's past the point of tears now; her father killed Marie and now Garfield is alone and motherless and M'gann is only freshly eighteen and now responsible for a child. She always does this, always makes things worse for every one; she ruins things, she hurts every one, this is all her fault, all her fault—

The heels of her palms are pressing painfully hard at her eyelids, trying to force all the emotion threatening to burst out of her further inside; breathing hard through her nose she tries to force herself to calm down, to not be weak and cry as the imaginary clawing hands begin to pull at her skin, threaten to pull her into her own darkened corners—

 _Focus._

 _Don't be a baby._

By the time she registers the foot steps in the hall she's too late to compose herself, her hands shaking too heavily to fiddle with the door knob and hide in her bedroom; before the blotchy redness can retract up into her cheeks she smells walnuts.

Her head snaps in an almost feral manner towards Wally when he turns down her end of the hall; at once he stops short, heels dragging on the floor at the suddenness of the movement. "Oh." He says dumbly, ears going off.

 _She can't think of anyone in the world she'd rather see less._

He looks ridiculous; sunblock smeared across his burnt nose, wearing the same brightly patterned swim shorts she first met him in and an old faded button down splayed open across the new muscles of his chest. Looking at him now makes her want to vomit, the familiarity and differences so striking that she can feel the rise of confliction emotions in her chest, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

She doesn't say anything back, instead narrowing her eyes as he pushes one of the sleeves of his shirt further up his forearm; as ever, her elastic is on his wrist. The ferociousness of her gaze must make him uncomfortable, unable to stand the maliciousness of her silence anymore. "Uh, hi." He throws out.

It occurs to her how stupid she must look: hair on end, cheeks blushing, drenching in a nervous sweat with her phone thrown at her feet. "... Hi." She mutters, screwing her eyes shut and throwing her head back into her door, hoping the pain will snap her out of it.

She opens her eyes just in time to watch the confusion crossing Wally's face as he tries and fail to read her. "What—" He starts to say, stopping short when she glares at him. "Uh, what's up?"

" _Nothing."_ She says grittily, feeling herself going crimson as she struggles to push her sweat slicked hair off her forehead. Muttering indistinctly she releases her door, not looking at him as she makes for her phone.

Before she can even get her hands on it he's appeared beside her, the familiar breeze hitting her hard across the cheeks; she can taste the old walnut scent on her tongue as her hair flutters about her chin, flipping in her face as the both of them straighten. "Thanks." She mutters glumly, feeling like an idiot as he hands her back her phone.

 _(And as he passes it to her she feels his finger grazing the back of her palm, his bare skin against hers striking her like a bolt of lightning; at once the numbness is replaced by a flood of warmth that seems to radiate up her arm and into her lungs, breathing fresh life into her—)_

He pulls back and she freezes over again.

Blushing, she makes a bigger show of shoving her phone into her back pocket than she should; as they stand there, only a foot apart, it hits her again how tall he's gotten— a few months ago he had only an inch on her, yet now as she straightens beside him she's surprised to see that her eyes are hardly even level with his chin, let alone his eyes. It feels like only a little while ago she used to have to slouch to fit into the safety of the hollow of his chest; now she would simply have to step forward and—

She stops herself from finishing the thought, throat bobbing as she tries to force down the wanting twisting in her stomach. She can tell something must show on her face that he can't quite identify because for a long moment he simply stares at her, brows knitted together.

"Well—"

"Are you—"

They both try to break the silence at the same time, talking over each other in a jumble of words that makes both of them blush— she hates this, hates the swirl of emotions consuming her and how much he can make her feel so much with so little; she can't focus on anything, can't figure out how to help M'gann with him this close to her, this imposing. Grimacing, she takes a step backward, hating the awkward nothingness enveloping them again as they stand outside her door, staring at each other. "You go." He says politely after several seconds, hand scrubbing at the back of his neck and stretching his shirt open wider.

Seeing more of his bare skin does little to quail the twisting in her stomach; she catches herself reaching up to nervously run a hand through her hair and stops. "... I was just going to say that I was going to go find Zatanna now. For the—" She pauses, not sure how to phrase it. "Yeah. So, uh. Bye, I guess."

Wally's expression droops a bit before he nods. "Oh... Yeah, the date thing. With those guys."

She can tell he's trying to pretend like he's forgotten about it, his words sounding forced and too natural. For some reason she feels compelled to correct him. "It's not a date." She says quickly, blushing again. "I mean, I just said I'd go. It's more her thing than mine."

"Right." Wally nods, voice sounding hard and more hurt than expected. "Well, whatever it is. You don't want to keep _Owen_ waiting."

It's not hard to notice the way he says the other boy's name, so different than the other, much more gentle words he's spoken to her; feeling herself blush she narrows her eyes at him. "Whatever." She says after a moment, feeling annoyed.

She makes a funny half turn, not missing the sharp exhale that fires out of his mouth as she makes to leave; she gets as far as stepping back onto one foot before something shifts in his face, something there that she can't read. It's enough to quirk her interest, her feet stopping. "… What were you going to say?" She asks suddenly. "Just now, I mean."

Wally jerks his gaze back to her, no longer glaring at his feet; for a half second she's met with an annoyed look before something about his eyes softens, traces of frustration fading into something she can't place."Nothing." He says quickly, and instantly she knows he's lying; he hesitates, then rushes on the way he always does. "...I just—are you alright?"

 _(I'm fine and I'm okay and I'm fine and I'm okay_ — _)_

This sends one of her brows quirking, and before she can answer he keeps talking. "You just seem… Flustered, or something. I don't know."

It's frightening, how well he knows her; feeling invaded she drops his gaze, turning her back on him. "... I'm fine."

Wally doesn't say anything when she starts to walk away, as if knowing what she's about to do before she does; she makes it about two paces before she stops, thinking hard.

 _Out of all her Teammates... She once trusted Wally the most._

 _... And if she's thinking on it, she would still trust him with her life._

 _Why can't she trust him with her secrets too?_

"... M'gann called me." She says before she can over think it, turning back to look at him fully. He looks nothing like the boy she once woke up to in the desert but that other person... He's still there. She just can't see him. "Just now."

Wally's making an effort to keep his expression unreadable but he can't hide the sudden tightness in the angles of his jaw, popping and more severe than they were a few weeks ago. "Yeah?"

She hesitates. "She was crying." When she says it she doesn't sound like herself, less biting and strangely breathy, as if someone's hands were pressed against her throat. At either her words or the way she says it the muscles in Wally's shoulders tense, as if he's holding himself back from doing something. "They got Marie's will today. She—" For some reason her voice warbles and she has to take a deep breath. "M'gann got custody of Garfield—"

"Marie's son." Wally finishes, and she remembers distantly that he's met the little boy before.

"Yeah." She mutters, shaking her head. It's very hard to think, to not get lost in all the feelings slamming against her insides; her stomach can't stop twisting at the thought of the panic in M'gann's voice and it doesn't help when Wally takes a few steps closer. "She was—she was freaking out, Kid. She doesn't know what to do—Garfield's sick, he has a fever that won't break—and before I could help the phone cut out, and—" Her voice breaks off again and she feels stupid when her chin wobbles.

 _(And like always he brings this out in her: this vulnerability. It was always strange to her, how they could go from screaming and swearing to tenderness. She's always soft for him, the way she isn't soft for anyone else, and that's the problem, isn't it? It feels too much like home with him, and she can't trust it, she can't_ — _)_

Wally for his part watches her through knitted brows, finally sighing; the comforting walnut smell splashes her across the face and she forces herself to focus. "… What are you thinking?" He asks her.

 _("What are you thinking?" He had asked her once. "... I can't tell if you still want me...")_

She swallows down the memory, skin prickling with an imagined cold as she wraps her arms around herself. "I don't know—I asked her if she wanted Connor and she seemed to freak out even more, it was like she didn't want him to know she couldn't—"

Her voice cuts off with a tiny squeak and Wally takes a step closer. "Breathe." He reminds her, and as obediently as ever she inhales; at once she tastes him on her tongue, and the impulse to not burrow into his arms is harder than ever. "... Let's just..." He trails off, not finishing; instead he watches as she drags another breath in and out, his thoughts obviously moving too fast for him to get out.

After nearly half a minute he sighs, one of his arms swinging upward; for one wild moment she half convinces herself he's about to touch her, wincing strangely before she realizes he's simply back to scrubbing his neck again. "... What?" She asks, watching his brows knit together as he thinks.

He opens his mouth to say something but doesn't speak, instead staring at a spot over her shoulder; she doesn't have to look behind her to know who's there, automatically placing the familiar thick footsteps against the floor.

"Zatanna's driving me crazy." Connor says flatly when she turns around, not saying hello to either of them as he jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "Will you hurry and meet her? I'm getting tired of all the—" He stops his sentence slightly short, and with a grimace she knows instantly her and Wally's surprise at his appearance isn't being well hidden; at once Connor sends her a confused look, no doubt wondering why both their hearts are thrumming at his appearance.

Despite herself she glances at Wally as he shifts to her side; Connor seems to follow the exchange, taking in her pale and blotchy appearance with a little too much knowing. "... What's wrong?" He asks her.

She doesn't know whether or not to tell him, feeling endlessly guilty when Wally's raises his brows at her, looking expectant; after a few seconds of silence she hears him exhale, annoyed with her. "Meg called Artemis." He says for her. "Just now."

Connor stares at her, hard, jaw tightening and a worried look crossing his features before she drops his gaze. "M'gann called you?" He repeats, looking slightly bewildered. "What did she say?"

"Well..." She starts, trying not to feel as if she's betraying M'gann in some way. "She was... crying, Con... Marie's will came out. She made M'gann Garfield's guardian."

If any of this is making any impression on Connor at all he doesn't show it, his face flat and unreadable as ever; once again her eyes are drawn to Wally, who glances at her slightly helplessly. "M'gann's upset." Connor repeats after a moment.

There's a pause, and before she can even confirm this Connor's grabbing her wrist, yanking her forward. "Con— _Ow_!" She yelps, wincing at his impenetrable grip and hardly hearing Wally when he flares up in surprise beside her, her feet stumbling as Connor starts leading her down the hall. "What are you—"

" _Supey!"_ Wally snarls; there's a whirl of air that sends her hair into her eyes and then a distinct scuffling sound. "Con, you can't drag her around like that, you're—"

"Connor!" She barks, her hand now going numb in his grip. This time there's a distinct urgency in her voice and at once his hand slackens around her; with her free palm she pushes her hair out of her eyes, hardly looking at where Wally's now flat against the opposite wall, looking as if he's just been shoved there as she rips her arm out of his grasp, glaring at him. "What the hell are you—"

"We're going." He tells her shortly, staring down at her in a way he never has before; for the first time in her life she's afraid of him. "M'gann's in trouble. We're going."

She sighs, heart still beating loudly in her chest. "Con, she's not in trouble— she's just... Overwhelmed. She just needed somebody to—"

"You said she was crying." He says severely, almost as if he's daring her to lie. "Right? She needs us."

Wally seems to get his breath back, righting himself off the wall and taking a step forward. "She's fine, Supey."

Connor ignores this. "I'm going." He tells her, looking expectant. "She needs me, and I'm going."

He won't look away from her, as if half expecting her to pipe up and agree; when she doesn't he makes a strange growling noise, whirling on his heel and stomping down the hallway before she can even process what's happening. "Connor, wait—"

He doesn't stop, and feeling helpless she glances at Wally. "It's fine." He tells her, eyes scanning over her quickly. "I'll take care of it, okay? Just— are you alright?"

It takes her a moment to realize what he's asking; following his gaze down to her wrist she looks herself once over, eyes tracing the distinct red blotch beginning to swell around her tendons. "I'm fine." She says dismissively, turning towards him. "Wally—"

"It's okay." He tells her firmly. "It'll be okay."

Before she can even decide if she believes him, he's gone.

* * *

 **AN: I hope the update was worth the wait. Now onto a quick Q &A...**

 **Q: I really love a character and want them to get more of an arc. When is that going to happen?**

 **A:** **I do have arcs planned for every main character in the Young Justice series, the planning of which taking up several pages in my notebook of story planning. Unfortunately, if I wanted to do each of these with the detail they require it would take me about 20 years to finish Parenthesis.**

 **This is Artemis' story from her perspective, and while there are character developments happening they may not be something that I can necessarily show. Artemis's relationship with each main character is different, and as such she's only privy to their personal lives a certain amount** — **plus, as much as I love the girl she can get a bit wrapped up in her head and not notice what's happening in the larger scheme of things. It's as simple as the limitations of story telling, and as a writer I can only do so much without breaking down structure altogether.**

 **That's not to say there's no hope** — **we are less than a year into a story that spans the length of 5 years. There's still plenty of time for things to happen.**

 **Q: So much angst! When will it end?**

 **A: Artemis is going through a rough patch. In the interest of not spoiling anything, I ask that you stick with her for another chapter or two. She needs all the support she can get.**

 **Q: How's school? Is there an update schedule yet?**

 **A: The schedule right now is that there is no schedule! I'm trying my best to update every two weeks at the latest, and it's looking like this is something I'll be able to maintain until the semester ends around Christmas.**

 **Thanks for all the questions, kids** — **now go read and review!**


	29. Sweep of the Sand

**AN: Finally an update! Thanks so much for all the reviews- I just noticed Parenthesis passed 400. Words can't express how happy that makes me.**

 **Please enjoy.**

* * *

"Artemis? Are you even _listening?"_

She blinks; when she realizes that she's supposed to look up from where she's been staring at her feet as they slap down the boardwalk she'd met with an annoyed look from Zatanna. "What?" She says automatically, wincing when her hair falls into her eyes. "Yeah, I mean—" She stops herself in the middle of the lie, pushing her hair back behind her ears. "... Sorry."

The other girl makes an annoyed noise in the back of her throat, head turning to check her reflection in a passing shop window. The closer they get to the beach the more people seem to appear around them, and for a moment she loses sight of the other girl as a passing group of boys their age shoulders between them, sniggering at them in passing before continuing their walk towards the beach. "— this is supposed to be _fun_." Zatanna says stiffly when they come back together, one of her arms slinking through hers in order to avoid separation again. "I know this was my idea, but if you don't want to go—"

"I do." She tries to say as convincingly as she can, ignoring the whistling as they pass another group of teens and pretending not to notice the way several heads turn and stare at them as they continue down the boardwalk. "I just... I don't know."

Despite herself she glances down to her wrist, the mark Connor left there hours ago now fading into a sickly yellow bruising; wincing, she shoves her free hand into her back pocket.

When she looks at her again something in the other girl's expression shifts, azure eyes watching her carefully. "... You could at least pretend to be excited." She says after a moment, nudging her and smirking. "I showed Owen your picture and he's been texting me constantly, asking me all about you."

"I am excited." She tries to grin back— perhaps there's a something a little too convincing in the look she sends the other girl because at once she finds she can't look at her, her gaze returning back to her sandals. "About everything: the fireworks, this beach, _Owen_..."

She trails off, not sure where the lie is taking her; for some reason she doesn't want to tell Zatanna about the phone call from M'gann, as if it's some sort of betrayal to the Martian, or to Wally or Connor— it just feels as if voicing what happened aloud would make it more than just her problem, something that the Team as a whole has to deal with... Regardless, the ends of her words seem to hang in the air for a second before Zatanna picks them up, looking at her sympathetically. "... It's just that this is your first date since Wally."

 _Wally_. His name alone seems to strike through her, a spike of warmth in the never ending frost bite inside her... She doesn't understand him— perfect, too-nice, _Wally West_. Even more, she doesn't understand why this keeps... Happening, between them, why they keep coming back to each other in odd moments of comfort. What's the point of him even being nice to her? He didn't have to be earlier; he could have walked past her, ignored her— neither of them owe each other a damn thing anymore. Isn't that what the elastic means? His contempt for her, all the bad things between them? If he's supposed to hate her...

Why is he always there?

 _And why does she always trust it?_

She forces herself to stop going over the never ending questions in her mind and instead shrugs, the movement jostling the two of them and sending the vodka bottle in Zatanna's beach bag clinking; ever since returning home she's been sidestepping her feelings about the boy in question, and the last thing in the world she can stand to do is talk about them.

Again Zatanna seems to take her silence for what it is. "I know it's weird." She says kindly. "But this is good for you— I mean, you've been so down lately. And Owen's such a fun guy, and he's not on the Team so you can... You know. Have _fun_ and not be worried about... Stuff."

This is oddly unspecific. "Fun?"

"You can get laid without feeling guilty."

She lets out a loud snort of disbelief; the noise is apparently so offensive that two bikini clad girls in front of them feel the need to glance back over their shoulders, looking scandalized. "Zatanna!" She hisses in an undertone, an exasperated smile crossing her features.

"What?" She other girl counters, looking amused at her horrified expression. "What other kind of fun are boys good for?"

Shaking her head she pushes her hair back behind her ears, deciding not to answer that question. "... Did Dick say what time him and Wally were coming out?" She tries to ask as innocently as possible.

"You mean what time him, Wally, and _Barbara Something_ are coming? No."

She doesn't say anything to this, and she thinks the other girl knows why; ignoring the look Zatanna sends her she drops her gaze back to her feet.

* * *

It's noon by the time they make it to the block across from the main beach, which is so full of bustling crowds bursting through the shops and restaurants that they hardly have room to move down the boardwalk. It looks as if all of Happy Harbor has migrated to the beach for the occasion, the people passing them all laughing and talking animatedly. "This is ridiculous." She says through her teeth after being knocked into for the umpteenth time. "How are we supposed to find anyone in this mess?"

Zatanna ignores her, instead unclasping her arm from hers and pulling her hair off her neck; it's impossibly hot, and looking on with the slightest jealousy she watches the other girl pull her overlong hair into a pony tail. "We're supposed to be meeting them in front of this burger place." She says, reaching out to grab her hand. "At the end of the block. Come on."

It seems to take forever to make their way through the crowds, being hindered constantly by scantily clad girls and teenage boys gawking and hollering as they pass; between the people and the heat she can feel her temper shortening, annoyance flaring up in the back of her throat.

Finally after over half a block Zatanna stops her short, hand tightening on hers as she turns on her heel; she nearly steps on the other girls toes as she whirs around to face her, both her hands clasping hers as her face breaks into an excited grin. "There they are!" She squeals in an undertone, the both of them ignoring the annoyed clucks they get from the people struggling to move around them. "Look! Under the restaurant sign."

It takes several seconds of standing on her toes to see over the crowds but she finally spots them— the two boys from the photographs, looking bored and over heated. Without a doubt Kaleb is the better looking of the two; once again his hair is arranged in that perfectly tousled way, shoulders broad and jaw tilted as he leans against the outside of the building. For some reason he seems older from a distance, or maybe it's just the fact that he's no longer pulling ridiculous faces; there's a strange, almost Roy-ish air to him as he tilts his head towards the sunshine, saying something she can't hear.

There's a half second where Kaleb's words seem to settle before her eyes are drawn to the unknown Owen beside him; although slightly less remarkable she's sure he's still good looking, a glint of pearly white teeth flashing at her as he bursts into laughter. Even from here she can tell he has a nice laugh, the kind that unwillingly reminds her of Wally— it's a burst of raw joy, happiness firing out of him in short chuckles as he rakes his hands through his blonde curls and forces them to stick out at odd angles.

There's more laughter between the two, another joke, and she watches as Owen polishes off a water bottle and tosses it carelessly towards a nearby trash can, missing but making no move to correct the mistake as they both continue their leaning. They're both tall, even slouching like that. Tall is good.

She can tell Zatanna's watching her face very carefully, looking excited when she lowers herself down from the ends of her toes. "Well?" The other girl grins, eyes glinting wickedly.

"... They're cute." She says, for the first time believing it.

She gets a single excited squeal, her fingers throbbing as Zatanna squeezes them. "Come on!" There's enough time to register her hands being released before the other girl is gone, darting in a gap in the crowd before she can follow. "Kaleb! Owen!"

She's left standing awkwardly several yards behind, her shoulders being buffeted as people try to push their way past her and onto the beach— it takes her two attempts before she can part the crowd, feeling herself blush as she's forced to burst awkwardly through the solid lines of people, stumbling to a stop as her hair flops into her eyes.

When she emerges Zatanna sends her a look that seems to tell her that she's hopeless, and privately she agrees.

The unknown Kaleb seems to take pity on her, releasing Zatanna from the hug he's pulled her into and instead grinning at her a little sheepishly. "Rough water out there?" He says slightly in a half teasing voice; there's something odd about the way he's putting his words together, as if he's faking halfway to an Australian accent. "Happy Harbor can get a little crazy on the 4th of July. We thought you'd gotten lost in the riptide."

She can't quite place his accent, or his fake one, and without thinking her eyes narrow, untrusting; it takes the prodding of one of Zatanna's fingers in her side for her to realize that it's her turn to say something. "... Well." She says dumbly after a moment, cheeks heating again. "I'm here now."

It's meant to be subtle but she can sense his eyes scanning her up and down, one of his elbows shifting unnoticeably to prod his friend; before she decides if she likes being looked at like this the curly haired Owen is jutting out a hand, his smile so wide she can count each one of his teeth. "Hey." He says politely, taking her hand and shaking it before she can offer it. "You're Artemis, huh?"

She doesn't really know what to make of this, instead turning to look at Zatanna. "Uh, yeah." She says slowly, feeling annoyed when he doesn't release her hand for several seconds. "And you're Owen... And Kaleb."

There's several moments of awkward silence in which they both look at her again, as if waiting for her to talk more; she has the distinct impression that they know far too much about her, as if Zatanna's been saying things that aren't quite true behind her back. "So," Owen says after a long moment; he tilts his head too much when he talks, although she supposes it does make his blond curls bounce in an almost cute way. "Wow. I mean, hi."

Now he's not saying anything; for a long moment the two of them just look at each other, sizing each other up. She can feel her eyes narrowing at his curls, the sandiness of his skin, the well toned biceps sticking out of the sleeves of his tee shirt. And she knows she should feel it— the sudden whirl inside her, the nervousness jumping in her stomach, the heating of pleasure at being looked at this way...

But she can't. Her stomach is empty and her heart is cold, and the longer this strange and handsome boy looks at her the more she wishes he would stop.

"... So." She says after a while, feeling slightly helpless as she catches Zatanna's eye begging for help.

"We have vodka!" The other girl bursts out badly, the tip of her nose blushing.

It's neither elegant or graceful, but it does make the two boys laugh; she's on the receiving end of a flash of teeth from Owen, her stomach taking the moment to turn over uncomfortably before Kaleb speaks. "Sounds like we have the beginning of a party."

* * *

"... So."

She glances up from where she's been picking at her almost empty plate, immediately locking eyes with Owen across the booth. He has the strange practice of putting the word out there, probably a nervous habit designed to fill the silence like the awkward one Kaleb and Zatanna have plunged them into since disappearing towards the bar with Kaleb's fake I.D.

The restaurant around them is busy, people talking loudly and drinking enthusiastically, waitresses weaving in between overcrowded tables. She supposes she ought to try to smile a little more, or pretend to be more interested— after all, he's buying her meal. And it's not like the two guys have been that awful to hang out with so far.

Kaleb, for some reason, had reminded her startlingly of Roy even more so after the first few minutes— an opinion on everything and something to say on every subject, no matter how trivial. Strangely, this isn't entirely a bad thing; between him and Zatanna the conversation moves easily, flowing around her with such ease that she doesn't really have to listen.

... Owen is a different story. He's confident, maybe too much so, and every few minutes he blurts out a joke or a comment that's only halfway funny to her yet seems to crack Zatanna and Kaleb up with ease; for some reason it feels so much like an act, a façade he's wearing for her benefit that she can't quite figure out.

It occurs to her that he's waiting for her to say something. "... So?" She shrugs dryly.

Her response, or lack there of, makes him grin; once again she greeted with a flash of glinting teeth, too-white next to his tanned skin. "... So, you're kind of bad at this, aren't you?"

She can feel her spine straightening instantly, eyes narrowing to glare at him across the booth. "Excuse me?"

Rather than be intimidated he grins again, leaning back with apparent ease, one hand combing through his curls and making them frizz. "You haven't dated much, I mean." He tells her, dropping his fist back to the table. "Either that or you're just shy."

She can feel her nose wrinkling, looking away in hopes of somehow finding Zatanna in the crowd. When she doesn't say anything back Owen leans forward, elbows bracing on the table. "Not that there's anything wrong with that." He tells her, and when she turns her head back towards him she feels a stab of annoyance run through her as he seizes his fork, reaching out to pick at her leftovers. "I'm cool with either one."

She wants to strangle him as he pierces a lettuce leaf from her plate, popping it into his mouth. "Great." She says between her teeth. "How reassuring."

"It's also cool if you don't like me." He shrugs, looking amused when she keeps glaring daggers at him. "You will eventually."

" _Really."_

"Sure." He grins again. "... Zatanna's told me a lot about you. You're pretty much how I thought you'd be."

She blinks, watching as he takes a glug of water. "And how am I?" She counters.

Owen clangs the glass on the table, hesitating for a moment as if to survey her. "A little cold. Pretending to be tougher than you are." He says calmly, the corners of his mouth quirking into a cocky grin when she forces her face to remain impassive. "A challenge."

"A challenge?"

She watches through narrowed eyes as he raises his little finger, nail scratching food out of his teeth before he smiles again. "You know what I mean. You're not _easy_ , like Zatanna."

"You," she starts, feeling her cheeks heat as she leans back against the booth, "are an asshole."

"I'm actually being pretty nice." He tells her frankly. "I've been trying to make conversation for almost ten minutes. You're the one whose been sitting there like you're getting your teeth pulled."

It takes a second for this to register in her mind; crossing her arms she presses herself further into the plushness of the booth. "... Whatever."

Owen shrugs, looking amused when she blushes again. "You don't have to apologize." He says teasingly, guessing correctly that she wasn't about to. "I'm not phased or anything. My mom was married four times when I was growing up— I've known my fair share of cold and distant step fathers. I can bond easily enough with someone who's just shy."

She hesitates, caught between correcting him and the strange comfort his words have just given her; swallowing, she presses her hair back more firmly behind her ears. "... Your mom was married four times?"

"Sure." He says vaguely, and somehow she can sense that he doesn't want to go into detail. "Makes you a lot more mellow. You get used to people coming and going, and you learn to just enjoy them while they're there."

She hears herself make an indistinct noise in the back of her throat, thinking over his words carefully and not remembering to be annoyed when he leans forward again, spearing more of her salad on his fork. "That must have been hard." She says after a moment. "... People leaving."

He shrugs again, and she's not surprised when he changes the subject. "You're not having that great of a time, are you?"

"No." She says quickly, pausing at once to think the answer over. "I mean— I don't know. I haven't decided."

Feeling sheepish she glances down to her now empty plate, ignoring the look he sends her. "Anything I can do to make it more fun?" Once again she feels her stomach turn over, as if it's strange that someone is being kind to her; she can't even decide what to say when she hears Owen chuckle. "At least smile for me. You're too pretty to be scowling all the time."

It's a bit of a line and she can't help but roll her eyes; still, despite herself the corners of her mouth quirk up, a not quite smile that sends Owen grinning.

Before either of them can say anything else there's a loud bark of laughter as Kaleb and Zatanna slide their way back into the booth, passing them tiny glasses of a strange amber liquid. "Shots!" Kaleb whispers, handing her and Owen a glass before they can even greet them. "Come on, let's take them quick before the waitress comes and starts asking questions."

Across from her Owen raises his brows, and without wanting to she hears his words again— she's a challenge. Another girl to charm, another girl to play a game with.

Ignoring him when he raises the tiny glass to her she shoots the amber liquid down, the harshness of the alcohol burning angrily for a moment before the numbness consumes it, just like everything else.

* * *

The afternoon reaches a boiling point shortly after they leave the restaurant; she's sure even the tip of her nose is sunburnt, her Vietnamese skin not saving her from the intensity of the heat.

She's in the middle of wishing she had remembered to bring sunscreen when Zatanna flops down on the bench she's currently occupying, smirking at her. "I just talked to Owen." She says after a moment, eyes glinting. "What do you think?"

Without saying anything the two of them automatically glance back towards the line for ice cream, surveying the two boys as they talk animatedly while waiting to pay. "I don't know." She says carefully, taking the cone Zatanna hands her. "Why? What did he say?"

"That you're cute." The other girl pauses, taking a lick of her own cone, a strange orange thing piled several scoops too high. "Really cute. He says he likes shy girls."

She snorts. "God." She mutters, carefully twisting her cone so as to catch a dribble of chocolate before it melts down to her hand. "He's a piece of work."

"And what does that mean?"

She scoffs at the other girl's tone, half amused and half offended. "Come on, Zee." She huffs. "He's full of himself. And a bit of an ass."

Zatanna lets out a bark of laughter that nearly topples the top scoop of her cone. "So what? You're a bit of an ass too." She teases, ignoring her when she pretends to glare. "You know what I mean. You guys have a lot in common—"

"—Gee, _thanks_ —"

"—Besides, you've only spent, what, ten minutes alone with him?" The other girl finishes, not looking phased by her interruptions. "You can't really get a good grip on someone that quick."

She hesitates but can't think of a good argument for this, her head beginning to feel clogged by the heat and the alcohol they've been taking turns sipping from the bottle in the other girl's bag; for a long moment she remains quiet, taking a few licks of her ice cream. "... Things are going well with Kaleb, huh?"

"Yeah." Zatanna grins, sounding slightly relieved that she's caught on. "Really well. So if you could just... Keep Owen busy? For just a little longer?"

She sighs. "Fine."

* * *

Keeping Owen busy, it turns out, is more difficult than she's expecting; despite Zatanna's insistence that they have so much in common she finds him incredibly difficult to talk to, his repeated cracks at conversation often leaving her attempting to laugh weakly at his lame jokes, or nodding along and trying not to be annoyed when their conversation sputters out and she's forced to endure more teasing about her apparent shyness. By the time the sun starts drifting towards the horizon she can't wait for the evening to be over, already dreaming of the Cave and its air conditioning.

As time passes the main part of the beach grows mercilessly packed, people no longer lounging on the sand and instead weaving through each other, simply trying to find a place to stand. All around them people seem to tither with excitement, drinks sloshing over the rims of their cups and girlish squeals sounding as the party begins to bloom around them. Distantly she can hear the thrum of boats spinning across the water, music blasting from speakers every few feet all repeating the same few choruses of boppy pop songs and raging beats.

"You have a cigarette?" Owen asks her quite suddenly as they're walking down the boardwalk, Zatanna and Kaleb tottering several yards ahead and having a noticeably better time than either of them.

She feels her nose wrinkle, one hand shoving in her shorts pocket and the other tilting her drink towards her mouth, sipping through her straw and feeling to burn of alcohol on her tongue. "No. Don't smoke."

For some reason this makes Owen laugh, when she glances up at him she's unsurprised by another glance at his pearly teeth— vaguely she wonders if he practices smiling this way, determined to show off the too-white and too-straight teeth his parents no doubt paid good money at an orthodontist for. "No way." He chuckles, grinning down at her. "I thought that was a thing with you mysterious types. To prove you're all deep or whatever."

She doesn't know what to say to this and instead watches as he fumbles in the back pocket of his shorts, extracting a cigarette carton. "I smoke." He tells her confidently, as if this is supposed to be impressive. "But my mother would kill me if she knew. _Kill me_."

The way he says the last words is ridiculous, as if this defiance is supposed to impress her; she can't stop herself from snorting. "You sound too young to smoke." She tells him frankly, glancing towards the ocean and wishing she were literally anywhere else.

Owen makes a big show of placing the cigarette between his lips and lighting it, puffing on it shakily and blowing a half breath of smoke into the air in front of them; she can tell right away it's a new habit, something stupid he's taken up to impress girls. "You're not doing it right." She tells him after a moment, watching the last of the vapor fade away into the heat of the early evening. "You're inhaling around the cigarette, not through it."

"I thought you said you didn't smoke?"

"I don't." She mutters. She doesn't mention her father or her sister— instead she takes another sip of her drink, tasting the spike of alcohol under the sweetness of the pop, and silently wishes the vodka would burn some feeling back inside her.

"What's with the wrist?" He asks, watching as she lowers her cup from her mouth.

It takes her a second or two to register what he's talking about; when she glances at her hand holding her drink she's surprised again by the painful looking yellow bruising, now becoming flecked by strange blotches of purple. "I fell." She says automatically, firing out the old response she used to use when her father's beatings got a bit too savage. "I'm clumsy."

It's a bit of an obvious lie, but before he can say anything teasing to this to there's a shout and a flurry of movement as the crowd opens up; she has enough time to glance at Owen in a slightly confused manner before she feels a hand slapping her hard on the shoulder. "There you are." Dick grins, shoving forward through the crowd and yanking on the hand of a red haired girl she thinks she recongizes. "We've been looking for you for like an hour."

There's an annoyed noise to her left and Wally appears at her elbow. "It's been twenty minutes, Dude." He huffs, turning to her and speaking in an undertone. "He's been driving me crazy, looking for Zatanna. Hi, by the way." He adds, voice trailing off with a bit of a chuckle.

"Hey." She mutters, the corners of her mouth quirking.

 _(It's his laughter that does it_ — _the small inflection of humor, of exasperation. It sparks something inside her, something so fragile and vulnerable that she's afraid to touch it, to think on it too much. She's not even sure if there's a name for it_ — _this feeling of "more," that consumes her, filling in her hollows...)_

There's a moment of silence in which she can sense Owen glancing between them. "Uh." He says gruffly, shifting himself into the conversation and seizing her drink from her hand. "Who's this?" He asks, puffing once on his cigarette before taking a sip directly from her straw.

She feels her nose wrinkle, annoyance flashing through her as quickly at the strange look that crosses Wally's face as he blinks smoke out of his eyes. "Friends of mine." She says between her teeth, grabbing her drink back. "Wally, Dick, and— She hesitates, the unknown red haired girl merely smirking and raising a brow at her. She's not sure if she's supposed to know the other girl's name.

"Barbara." She finishes for her, voice haughtier than she expected as she surveys her through heavily lidded eyes. "I know who you are. You're Artemis Crock, you go to Gotham Academy too."

All this is said with a slightly suspicious tone, but before she can do much more than frown in surprise Dick interrupts. "Barbara likes to _play detective_ too." He offers as an explanation, and she doesn't need to guess what he means by it— she needs to be careful with what she says around her. As if to ward off the sticky moment Dick extends a hand, looking Owen once over quickly before standing on his toes, attempting to see around him. "You must be Owen. Seen Zatanna?"

In response Owen frowns. "Uh, over there—"

He's not even finished speaking before Dick's dodging past him, spitting out a thanks that they only half hear; trying her best not to snort at the expression on the other boy's face she's instead is forced to confront Barbara as she surveys her again, eyes narrowed. "You know, Gotham City is pretty far from Happy Harbor."

She blinks. "Yeah?" She says vaguely, taking a sip of her drink without thinking and wincing at the stale taste of cigarette smoke.

Barbara keeps looking at her, brows raising. "I just mean— Dick's father flew us out here." She says, a note of pride in her voice. "It was very romantic, but it cost a fortune."

"Okay." She says vaguely, wondering where this is going.

The other girl's nose wrinkles, as if debating something, before charging ahead determinedly. "I know you only go to Gotham Academy on a scholarship. I'm just wondering how you managed to afford the trip down here."

Her brows raise, feeling mildly offended; Barbara, like Zatanna, seems to be a fan of cutting to the chase, however brutally so. Thinking off the top of her head she forces herself to shrug nonchalantly, ignoring the empty slot in her stomach where she knows embarrassment and shame should sit. "I'm just in town for the summer." She says vaguely. "My, uh, sister lives down here. I visit sometimes. I met Zatanna through her."

The other girl's eyes narrow before they turn accusingly to Wally, who meets the unasked question with the air of someone who's already faced it a thousand times. "I told you. I'm just here for the week to visit my Aunt Iris."

"I thought you were from Central City?"

"And I can't have an Aunt in Happy Harbor?"

Although she's only just met her she has to give Barbara some credit; the girl has an uncanny ability to read people, and she's almost certain she knows that something is off. As if giving the two of them up for a bad job she swings her head back to where Owen's standing, looking nonplussed. "And you?"

"Happy Harbor, born and raised." He says stiffly.

The other girl glares and instead rounds on the two of them, hands resting on her hips. "It's just strange." She says defensively. "People from all over the country... And you two know each other how?"

Wally lets out a fake sounding sigh. "We've met once or twice over the years." As if he's already explained this to her before, continuing before she can ask any more questions. "And Dick and I know each other from when we were kids. And," He says in that annoying over exaggerated way of his. "Dick and Zatanna are cousins."

She can't help from chucking at this, and immediately had to stifle the noise by taking a swig of her drink; rather than look fooled Barbara glares at her, tossing her auburn hair over her shoulder. "Please. _Kissing Cousins_ , maybe." She huffs, looking a mixture of annoyed and amused. "Speaking of which, I'd better figure out where Dick ran off to."

Looking slightly moody Owen jerks a thumb over his shoulder, directing her and exhaling another puff of cigarette smoke; feeling annoyed she's seized by a stroke of inspiration as she watches the back of Barbara's head disappear into the crowd. "Actually, can you run and get the vodka from Zatanna?" She asks him, trying her best to smile weakly. "I need another drink."

Judging by her only half empty cup this excuse is pretty lame, but Owen seems to take the hint; puffing more smoke out he shrugs, following Barbara into the crowd.

Almost the second he's gone Wally snorts, smirking down at her. "Nice." He rolls his eyes, waving a hand to clear the smoke. " _He seems great_. The date's going well?"

"Shut up." She says back, trying to glare and instead feeling her lips quirk up in the slightest, the smallest of movements that feels more real than anything else that's crossed her features all day.

There's a pause, the kind that's just a heart beat too long to be simple, and before she can dissect what the grin on his face is supposed to mean he's crossing his arms, shaking his head. "Seriously. How's the guy?"

It's a bit too casual, and she's sure the way his eyes suddenly drop to the sand isn't coincidental. "Wally." She sighs.

"It's just a question." He says quickly, glancing up at her.

Something inside her quails at the earnest expression on his face, her stomach twisting as she watches him shrug his too broad shoulders; suddenly it's her who can't quite look at him. "... I don't know." She mutters, feeling her burnt cheeks heat. "He's a bit of an idiot, to be honest."

For some reason Wally lets out a short chuckle— _and she feels it again, that fragile wholeness that terrifies her_ — and when she finally gets the courage to look at him he's scrubbing nervously at his neck. "Ah, well. That doesn't mean much." He says, his voice sounding strangely un-Wallyish, smile a little too forced. "You thought I was an idiot at first too, didn't you?"

It's so strange; talking about the past in such sterile terms, as if there aren't still feelings stirring just out of sight inside her; once against her stomach twists, her fingers clenching nervously around her drink. "... That's different." She says after a moment.

Wally's hand falls back to his side, and for some reason her eyes are drawn to it; her elastic is still sitting there, its presence around his wrist so dependable that the sun has darkened the skin around it, new freckles bursting out on either side and giving the appearance of a tan line. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." She says sincerely, and without warning the alcohol in her stomach seems to flood into her blood stream, forcing words out of her before she can think them over. "You're your own special kind of idiot. At least to me."

She doesn't know why she says it, or what it means, but there it is again— that too-long silence, the kind that might have once felt like home and now feels forced. She watches as Wally's hand curls into a fist, her elastic— _which_ _seems to scream now more than ever about all the awfulness between them_ — straining against his tendons; she can tell he's looking at her, smiling maybe, but like the coward she is she can't bring herself to do anything other than take another sip of her smoke stained drink, not stopping until her straw slurps against the last few drops along the bottom.

"... So you drink vodka, huh?" He says after a moment, voice sounding oddly measured but otherwise giving no indication that she's just said anything out of the ordinary.

Taking her cue from him she shrugs, deciding it's finally safe to look at him; he's got his eyes fixed somewhere in the crowd, so tall he can no doubt see Dick's progress in finding Zatanna. "Sometimes." She says vaguely. "Are you, uh... Drinking something too?"

Wally glances down at her. "No point, remember? Fast—"

"Metabolism." She finishes for him, nodding. "I know. Just wondering."

She can sense the uncomfortable silence approaching again and is thankful when he starts talking, voice hushed and expression growing a little more serious. "... I caught up with Connor."

"... And?"

In answer Wally makes a jerking motion with his head, shoulders rolling underneath his splayed open button down. "What do you think? Not like I could stop him."

She swallows, nodding her head; at once she can feel a strange throbbing in her wrist from where the Kryptonian grabbed her, as if it's been waiting all this time to finally start hurting. "I should thank you." She says awkwardly, not managing to utter the actual words. "For helping me with... I mean, I didn't have a clue what to do."

The corners of Wally's mouth twitch up. "Not to mention you'd have been dragged to Quarac against your will."

Although it's meant to be teasing she can't quite manage to smile, instead feeling a sinking somewhere around her heart. "... Yeah. Right." She mutters somewhat blankly, thoughts of Garfield and the dead Marie billowing through the numbness inside her and seeming to make it more enveloping.

Her thoughts must show on her face because at once Wally's teasing smile is turning into a frown, watching as she takes another distracted sip from her empty drink. "Artemis—"

Before he can finish there's a loud squeal behind them, Zatanna's hand appearing out of nowhere and winding around her shoulders. "There you are!" The other girl grins, dragging a bewildered looking Barbara along with her. "It's still boiling out and Barbara and I want to go swimming. Come on!"

Judging by the look on the other girl's face she doesn't want to go swimming at all, but before she can interject with an excuse to save them both Zatanna's releasing her, dragging a confused looking Barbara towards the water and calling back over her shoulder. "Kaleb! Come on! We're facing Dick and Barbara at chicken fights!"

Wally lets out a snort, the two of them turning to watch Zatanna babbling in the other girl's ear, pretending as if they've known each other for years. "Looks like you better go." He says knowingly, trying to hide the half frown he's still wearing. "You might have to play life guard out there— I'm pretty sure this is just an excuse for Zee to drown Barbara."

She rolls her eyes, glancing out when Zatanna calls her name. "God." She sighs, unthinkingly yanking her shirt over her head and fiddling with the bikini tie at her neck. "Those two are pathetic, aren't they?"

She misses the way Wally's ears redden, eyes quickly leaving her and focusing on a far off point in the crowd as she starts fiddling with the button on her shorts. "Sure."

* * *

"So, you're telling me—" Zatanna starts, cutting herself off with a loud hiccup. At the sound of the noise there's a lot of tittering and sniggering around the fire. "—that you've never once thought about it. _At all_."

The wind rolling off the water blows a little stronger than expected; there's a moment where the fire in the middle of their group flares suddenly, stacked so staggeringly tall with logs that for several seconds all their eyes are drawn to the flames. Diagonally from them Dick and Wally exchange an uncomfortable look. "No, Zatanna. _Stop asking_."

She snorts at the way Dick says it, slopping some of her drink on herself; despite the expression on his face she suspects this argument is being kept up for Wally's benefit more than anyone else's—while Dick looks level headed as always Wally's ears are rapidly turning crimson, blush leaking down his features.

Shifting more firmly into the sand she props an elbow up on the log her and Zatanna are slouching against with Owen and Kaleb. "It's a valid question." She hears herself say into her drink, eyes glinting when Wally glares at her.

Zatanna leans across her a little unsteadily, one arm looping around her shoulders for balance and nearly strangling her; when the other girl speaks she's hit across the face with the bitter scent of vodka. "I don't believe you. You're telling me that you've never—"

"Never." Wally cuts across her, looking annoyed.

"—been attracted to each other." She finishes, looking disbelieving. "But you're both… _Hot_."

A few people over Barbara lets out a snigger; Wally practically jumps at the sound, shifting as far away as he can from Dick without leaving their edge of the fire. As if sensing trouble Owen leans across her and detaches Zatanna from around her neck. "Zee—" She starts, immediately cutting herself off when she feels Owen's hand lingering against the slice shaped scar along the back of her neck.

Any attention she catches is lost when Zatanna keeps talking, her slurring words pulling all the notice around the fire except Wally's, who eyes narrow as she flinches away from the touch. "You guys are like best friends! You spend so much time together—"

Somewhere to her right Kaleb lets out a single note of laughter, quickly muffling it at the look on Wally's face and disappearing behind his beer bottle. "I think that's a key word, Zatanna." He says, pausing to take a sip. "They're _friends_."

"That doesn't mean anything." Zatanna scoffs, rounding instead on him. "Wally and Artemis were friends before they got together."

The second the other girl says it the awkwardness in the air increases a tenfold; rather than face any of the swiveling eyes now turning in her direction she raises her cup to her lips, gulping as quickly as she can, ignoring Owen's gaze as it fixes on her. "You never said he was your ex."

She's sputters awkwardly into her cup and is saved when Wally speaks, looking distinctly more embarrassed than he was a few moments ago. "Yeah. But that was because she's, you know…"

"Hot?" Dick guesses, eyes glinting mischievously.

She feels herself blush, ignoring the annoyed look Owen sends her; Wally slouches lower, hand absently foraging a chip bag he emptied a while ago. "Well. Yeah. And a girl."

There's an awkward pause where Zatanna grins at Dick, apparently enjoying the embarrassment of their two friends; as if to ease the tension Kaleb stretches out, taking another swig from his bottle. "I've been friends with all the girls I've ever slept with." He muses, sipping again.

"Yes, thank you!" Zatanna says a little too loudly, pointing accusingly with her drink and slopping some over the edge. "My point exactly."

Dick make an annoyed noise. "That you two are sleeping together?" He asks dryly.

"Shut up, Dick." Barbara says jerkily, beginning to look impatient with the lull in their game of Truth or Dare. "Zatanna, you're missing the bigger picture here."

As if gearing up for a battle the girl in question straightens, expression set. "Which is what?"

"That I'm straight!" Wally bursts out.

There's more sniggering and tittering at his expense, Zatanna's bark like laugh the loudest; before she can stop the other girl is reaching for her empty cup, refilling it with more vodka and too-sweet soda. "Like that matters."

As if hoping to divert more attention back onto him Owen leans forward again, looking ill-tempered. "I think that bottle's empty." He says moodily.

He's ignored; Wally's ears have now passed maroon, a bad sign— he looks beyond annoyed when he crosses his arms, scowling. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh please." Zatanna rolls her eyes, tossing the empty vodka bottle into a growing pile a few feet to the right. "I know I've thought about being with everyone here at least once." There's a pause, where she's so embarrassed she finds she has to focus on the last few rays of pink cloud along the horizon to keep from burying her face in her hands. "Except you, Barbara. We just met."

This comment sends a new wave of interest though the circle, a few backs straightening and eyebrows disappearing into fringe; Dick for his part smirks, leaning back onto his elbows. "Oh _really?"_ The two share a flirtatious look that makes Barbara go an angry red. "Do we get to hear details about these fantasies?"

Instead of looking frazzled Zatanna merely tosses her hair, looking haughty and unruffled as always, the pink high in her cheeks bones blushing slightly darker. "I wouldn't call them fantasies." She says demurely. "But we all know these things happen—close quarters, summer heat. Artemis—" The other girls looks expectant, turning to her and ignoring the surprise on her face. "Back me up."

She's fully aware of her mouth falling open like a trout, her cheeks prompty blushing and an annoyed retort ready on her lips; then suddenly all she can remember is her own initial attraction to Connor, the encounter with Roy in an alley way that she had half enjoyed… And then of course, Wally…

As if knowing what she's thinking Dick speaks for her. "Well, we all know about Wally. And you liked Connor for a bit too."

"Who's Connor?" Owen interrupts, head snapping towards her so quickly she hears his neck crack.

She feels herself glaring and instead goes in for a drink again; on Dick's other side Wally looks annoyed too. "Take it easy, guys, it's not like that mattered. Connor liked Megan."

"So did you." Zatanna reminds him, grinning when he only looks more frustrated. "What's to say you couldn't like Dick too?"

"But that's the difference, Zee." Wally huffs, grimacing. "I'm not—"

Instead of letting him finish Dick cuts him off, grinning wickedly. "What's the matter? I'm not cute enough for you?"

Wally's ears bypass maroon when a few people they're sharing the fire with start to chuckle. "Dick—"

"Then what's the problem?" Zatanna cackles. "It's not that big of a deal, look—"

She's halfway out of her drink when too soft hands seize her jaw, expertly turning her head away from the fire; before she can process what's happening she's ambushed by a flowery perfume and too-sweet lips pressed against hers.

It can't last longer than a second, Zatanna's hands on either side of her face and her glossy lips working against hers; she has enough time to hear the blaring sound of stunned silence before it registers what's happening in her mind.

" _Zatanna!"_ She yelps out, pushing the other girl back by her shoulders and slopping her newly refilled drink down her front, the liquid dribbling over her breasts and soaking her swim suit; she can feel her cheeks heating when Kaleb's jeering hits her ears, her eyes roaming wildly to watch as people she doesn't know start whistling, cat calls sounding out loudly in the night. "What was—"

"What?" Zatanna interrupts drunkenly, looking nonplussed when she gets clumsily to her feet. "Where are you going? Artemis—"

"Fuck off, Zee."

There's more jeering and some disappointed groans as she leaves the fire; the laughter is still so loud she can hardly hear the other girl when she calls after her. "Don't be such a baby!"

* * *

She marches down the boardwalk, bare feet slamming against the pavement— she's forgotten her sandals by the water. It takes an annoyed breath before she realizes she's left all her clothes back by the water too, or... Maybe the fire? She can't quite remember...

The air which had felt so warm near the flames now feel almost chilled, her skin prickling as she picks up the pace of her walking, front still wet from her spilt drink. "Move." She barks out to a passing group of boys, ignoring their tittering as she takes a wobbly side step around them.

"Where you going, baby?" One of the drunker ones yells, eyeing the strappy seams of her swimsuit with a little too much interest. "The fireworks are just about to start. Hey!"

He's still yelling after her long after she cusses, spitting the swear at him so violently that she can practically taste the liquor boiling inside her; feeling increasingly angry with each clumsy step she listens as he keeps shouting after her, his words growing more vulgar but somehow more blurred, no longer making sense to her... She pauses in her walking, leaning forward until her hands are braced on her knees.

 _Breathe._

 _Calm down._

She spits the taste of Zatanna from her mouth, saliva dribbling clumsily down her chin. She can't believe her, can't believe she would embarrass her like that in front of everyone—why did she have to tease Dick and Wally like that, anyway? And make her look like an idiot, all part of the show…

Several choice swears burst from her lips before she spits again; the taste of cherry lip gloss seems permanently imprinted on her tongue, Zatanna's floral perfume clinging to the ends of her hair. Pushing her fringe off her forehead she sighs, anger still pounding at the front of her mind.

She registers the change of the temperature, the wind blowing a bit stronger as she straightens; she's near the water now, the day's tide beginning to roll off the ocean and along the boardwalk, sending her hair ruffling and her skin prickling less out of cold and more out of something, some other feeling she can't identify... It had been a joke, she knows that. Zatanna was teasing Dick and Wally, enjoying the discomfort she had been causing…

It's strangely quiet here; like a ghost she walks through the empty street, head turning automatically to look out towards the horizon where the night is beginning to burst out in a beautiful crimson and navy. There's nobody on this beach, nobody to watch her as she grows more consumed in her thoughts; the quiet seems almost overwhelming, as if the numbness inside her has escaped, slithered out her openings...

... Still, she thinks savagely, wrapping her arms around herself and glancing about a little aimlessly, not quite remembering where she's going; still, the other girl didn't have to drag her along for the ride. She had no right to kiss her, turn her into something to laugh at too—

"Hey!"

She blinks once at last few rays of bloody red sunset unfolding in the sky, a strange wave of dread washing over her; feeling a scowl crossing her face she gears herself up for another round of lewd comments from the same drunken boy, no doubt searching for her in the darkness. "Will you fuck _off_ already?" She snarls, turning to glare over her shoulder.

At once she feels her expression fall, quailing slightly when Wally stops a clean ten feet behind her, looking more than a little taken aback by her tone; even in the lingering half-light she can see his brows raise, looking off put by the anger in her voice. "Whoa." He says, one annoyed chuckle firing out that tells her she's caught him off guard. "Geez. Just wanted to see if—"

"—I'm okay?" She finishes, sneering a little more than she should. She knows he doesn't deserve her anger but she can't help it; turning her back on him she goes back to glaring out over the water, fingers reaching up absently to brush her saliva from her chin. "I'm fine, Wally. Go back to the party."

She knows she's acting a bit childish but she can't help it; she doesn't want him here, watching as she braces her elbows on the rail around the boardwalk and looks out towards the ocean, waiting for her familiarity and predictability to reveal more than she wants him to see. Who does he think he is, anyway? She doesn't need him here, taking care of her... She didn't need his help this morning either, whatever she might have told him out of guilt after.

 _(Why does he keep doing this_ — _following her, comforting her. What's that supposed to mean?_

 _... Why doesn't it bother him, being around her, the way it does her?_

 _... She can hardly stand to look at him, just in case she stares too long and notices all the differences between him and the boy she used to love.)_

As usual Wally doesn't take the hint, no matter how obvious; even above the loudness of the waves she can hear his heavy footed approach, as if his limbs are clumsy and not used to the amount of man they have to work with. In a few long strides he's beside her, elbows bracing against the wooden planks only inches from hers, ignoring the evening billowing out in front of them and focusing only on her face. "Come on." He prompts, and she flinches when an unfamiliar elbow knocks out into her shoulder, trying to get her to look at him. "You know Zatanna didn't mean to embarrass you."

"I'm not embarrassed." She says too quickly, aware suddenly of her blotchy cheeks.

"Course you're not." Wally amends, and she hates that she can see the knowing smile he's wearing out of the corner of her eye. "She was just—"

"Being a cow?"

Wally snorts. "You said it, not me."

The laugh is so familiar that she can't help but glance at him, as if expecting to find her Wally standing there, boyish and wonderful; rather than hide all the differences the half-light only exaggerates them, illuminating all the contours and the bulkiness of new muscles and angles she's never seen before.

He smiles, and for a moment she almost does the same back.

 _(She wishes there was a name for what there was between them. This strange and fragile thing that feels like everything wonderful and awful at once.)_

Instead she looks away before she can do something stupid, going back to scowling at the night; the light is disappearing fast, the wind ruffling the shirt sitting lopsidedly on his shoulders, the front flapping open and revealing panels of his bare chest as he sighs. "Come on, Artemis. It's not the end of the world." He says kindly, being perfectly reasonable and only vexing her further. "Don't leave now and—"

This time she expects his nudging elbow when it comes, managing to step away before it can find her again; for some reason being touched by this stranger, even being looked at, feels like a betrayal on behalf of someone he used to be. "What do you want, Wally?" She says stiffly, forcing herself to be more gritty rather than delicate, like she feels. "Are you here for any reason? You know, other than to be annoying?"

The words are more cutting than they're meant to be, and something in the way they fire out of her mouth makes the smile drop from his face. For a long moment he looks at her, studying everything from the redness high in her cheeks to the ends of her platinum hair that barely brush her chin.

Something shifts in his face and he turns back to the water. "... No."

For some reason it's not the answer she's expecting; it takes her several seconds of flexing her fingers into the boardwalk railing before she can figure out what to say next. "Well... Okay then." She says moodily, biting the inside of her cheek as she takes a step back, arms folding over her chest. "Goodnight."

She gets about as far as stepping around him towards the stairs leading down to the beach before he makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat, eyes finally leaving the horizon to glance at her. "God." He says irritably, looking down at her when she reaches the sand. "If you're going to walk all the way back—"

The waves must get louder, or maybe he doesn't even finish the sentence— either way she glances up at the cutting off of his words, looking back just in time to watch as the he rips his own shirt from his shoulders and throws it down towards her, the blue fabric landing in a crumpled heap mere feet from her.

She narrows her eyes at the cotton as if it's bomb half buried in the sand, feet automatically stilling. "What the hell is that?" She says automatically.

Wally makes the same annoyed click, leaving his spot on the railing to round down the steps towards her. "My shirt, genius." He scoffs, picking it up from where she's failed to retrieve it. "I know you're cold. Put it on."

She blinks, watching as he shakes the sand loose from the collar, extending it out towards her. She doesn't know why it takes several seconds for the words to penetrate her skull, or why her stomach suddenly feels as if it's twisting up and occupying the space between her lungs. She's not sure if it's another joke or not, if he's teasing or trying to manipulate her vulnerability, but something— maybe the vodka— spurs her on, sending a wave of anger flooding through her.

"... _Fuck you_." She hears herself spit at him, turning on her heel.

Wally allows himself exactly half a second to be shocked by her reaction before he calls after her, sputtering slightly as she continues to march down the beach. " _Artemis_ , what the—"

She doesn't want to hear what he has to say to her, doesn't want to be comforted; he has no business following her, pretending to be nice and half convincing her that things between them are _simple_... More than ever she can feel the urge to run building inside her, her clumsy feet ripping through the sand as she picks up her pace towards the water— she can't do this, she can't be around him, she can't, _she can't—_

 _(She can't breathe; she can feel the familiar ache in her lungs, like the first rush of inhaling warm air after being out in the cold. He's here and she can't do this, can't be warmed by him_ — _)_

 _(And she hates herself, for feeling too much or nothing at all. She hates that when it comes to him she can't be half way...)_

She's not expecting him to leave her alone and he doesn't, the new version of Wally charging after her and catching up after only a few steps. "What the hell is your—"

She flinches when too-warm fingers attempt to grab her frozen arm, trying as always to slow her down; even though he barely touches her she can feel the heat of his skin on hers as she tries to pull her arm away from him, feet stumbling through the sand— the waves on the water are too loud and the numbness inside her too deafening and she can't be around him, not when he's the only thing stopping her from drowning—

"What are you doing?" She hisses, voice low, accusing. It takes her a second to realize what she's really asking. "Why are you here? Why are you being so nice to me?"

 _("Why are you still trying to come back to me?")_

Wally's brows shoot up, looking surprised and hurt at the fierce, untrusting expression on her face; still, she can't help herself from staring at him, eyes narrowed and breath stuttering in her chest. She can't explain it, can't put her own feelings into words—all she knows is that the man in front of her now is not the boy she left, no longer resembles her best friend, and even though she might want to she's not sure if she can trust him even though she half did this morning; she feels as if a stranger is trying to invade her thoughts, sabotage her, manipulate her feelings…

 _(... She's had too much to drink, she can't think straight...)_

Her face remains stony as the hand holding his balled up shirt falls back to his side, his expression quickly closing off the longer he looks at her. Perhaps it's occurring to him that the girl who came back from Quarac is no longer the same one who left him in the first place. "... So I can't be nice now?" He says back after a moment, voice getting the hardened edge to it that once used to both excite and terrify her. "What the hell is your problem? Just take the damn shirt, Artemis—"

He makes to shove it at her again, and this time she's faster than either of them are expecting; at once she's jerking him forward by the opposite wrist, twisting his tendons until his forearm is fixed between the both of them, her elastic still branded there and impossible to miss. "And why," she snarls, " _are you still wearing this?"_

She makes the point of twisting his arm until he gasps out in pain, taking care to gouge her nails as she rips the elastic from his skin, tossing it in the sand as if it means nothing to the two of them before she releases him, not wanting to feel the reassuring warmth of his skin any longer than she has to. " _Why?"_ She repeats, practically yelling as she watches him clutch at his wrist.

"You're crazy." He snarls at her. "You're—"

"Answer the question!" She cuts him off, seething.

"I…" He snarls, trailing off and apparently lost for words; she can see his ears, glowing as brightly as her own furious cheeks must be as he shakes his head, glaring out at the water and shrugging. "... I don't know." He admits after a moment, no longer yelling but somehow speaking with a deadly amount of restraint. "I don't know why. I just thought… I mean, you had a lot to drink, Artemis.

He's deliberately not answering the more important of her questions; even though she knows he has a point she still feels herself blush an angry crimson, her hands balling into fists. "So?" She snarls, hating that her hair flops in her eyes and she's forced to pause to push it out of her face. "I don't need your help, _Kid."_ She sneers, over emphasizing his alias in a way that's meant to be insulting.

"Artemis—"

"Go back to the fire." She says as cuttingly as she can, turning her back on him again.

This time when she stomps through the sand she listens hard for the sound of him following; they're more than halfway back to the Cave now, the tide curving around the shore and bringing the water closer to her feet the further she walks. The waves seem to grow louder and the wind stronger, and Wally stays resolutely still.

"... It's a reminder, okay?"

The words seem to echo off the water before they reach her, a thousand Wally's calling after her in the night; for a half moment she's sure she's imagining them, a whispered explanation of something she so desperately wants to understand, and before she's even sure if it's really him or not she stops moving, listening hard.

There are no words for a moment, and she can feel her skin prickle as her hair rustles around her chin. Then he speaks again. "... A reminder of what it costs to play the hero. I... I screwed up that night, and you got hurt because of it. I don't ever want to make a mistake like that again."

He pauses, long enough for her to turn back to him; for some reason she won't believe the words until she sees them slip past his lips. "... I won't wear it anymore, if it bothers you. Just—" He starts, cutting himself off. Even in the half-light his face seems to set, brows furrowing, and before she can properly register the reddening of his ears he's shaking his head, looking away. "I don't know. Never mind."

It's her turn to feel a bit hurt when he turns away, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck as he walks the few paces back towards the shoreline. Perhaps it's the familiarity of the gesture or the way his newly blossomed muscles look, framed against the darkness rising on the water; either way her stomach suddenly clenches, not sure what's about to happen. "… Wally?" She hears herself say, voice scratching and too rough.

"Never mind." Wally repeats, hand dropping. Without looking at her he plunks himself down moodily in the sand, the water barely reaching his toes as he settles. "Goodnight."

He always does this; always manages to make her feel properly ashamed of herself with just a few words. Suddenly she feels embarrassed by her coldness, the way she yelled...

 _(She makes everything worse.)_

... She's no good at this. At navigating this new territory, this new Wally. Everything between them feels so simultaneously familiar and unknown, like an old path in the woods that's grown in after years of absence…

He doesn't look back when she approaches him—but, she supposes, she's always had the lighter tread between the two of them. It's getting properly dark now, but the sand is still warm as she drags her feet through it, searching.

He doesn't glance at her when comes up behind him, announcing herself by clearing her throat. She doesn't ask permission before she makes to sit beside him, leaving a clean foot between them as she settles in the sand. It feels comical, almost forced, the way she extends an arm across the distance between them that might as well be thousands of miles.

"Here." She says gruffly, pinching the elastic between her fingers and offering it to him.

"No—"

"God." She cuts him off before he can say anything else. "Just... Shut up, okay?"

And she's determined not to watch the expression on his face when her fingers curl around his forearm, pulling it towards her much more gently this time; out of the corner of her eye she can see him glance at her as she loops the elastic back around his wrist, pressing tenderly against his tendons for a second, just long enough to feel his pulse.

Wally watches, jaw tilting up after a moment to look at her as she curls her fingers back into the safety of her lap. "Shut up." She repeats, willing him not to say anything before he even starts.

She's always thought it was so strange, this thing between them; how quickly they can go from screaming and fighting to sweetness, how suddenly laughter fades into snarling. They were never good at doing things in measures.

And she understands now, or at least she thinks she does; seeing the thin stretch of nylon there no longer hurts as badly as it once did. At once the memory pulls itself from her depths, her heart aching as it seems to bolt through her like lightning—

 _("... I wasn't fast enough." He had choked out, heels of his palms pressing into his eyes. "You got hurt, and I wasn't fast enough_ — _")_

... No, she understands now. There are some mistakes you make that brand you, scar you, change your life from the moment they happen. She thinks of her mother, with shot gun shells digging into her skin as she'd been dragged down the street. She thinks of Wally, trying to say her name as his blood melted the Metropolis snow. She thinks of little Garfield, who she couldn't save from his mother's dead body.

... She thinks of Wally. Of how it must have felt when he awoke on the roof top, how she must have looked there beside him, scalped and bloody and half-dead. She understands, she understand too well.

She carries similar scars inside her, hidden and too painful to examine... And maybe that's enough for her, feeling their reminder underneath her bones. If there are people who are scarred like her then there are people who are scarred like Wally... The kind of people who must see the reminder of that kind of pain to heal from it.

She gets it now. It's not a souvenir of what she did, or how she hurt him. It's a reminder, a painful one, of the mistake he made and what is cost.

No, she understands. She hates it, but she does.

They blink at the same time, two sets of eyes flickering hesitantly away before rejoining. And there's a moment, as their irises find each other again; that same half-second they shared earlier that day, where things might be different. She can feel it, she thinks, rolling off the shore and into the possibility of her mind. For a few seconds she can imagine him wrapping his arms around her, can imagine how the new broad muscles might feel under her cheek, her skin... For a moment her heart, which lately has been thrumming at nearly a flat line, picks up.

In that moment she knows he's feeling it too; that pull, that attraction, that longing that neither time nor distance can seem to break between the two of them. She knows she might never forgive him, and she realizes now that he knows that too— and maybe that means things will never work out quite right between the two of them.

But you can love someone without wanting to be with them.

Wally smiles— a crooked grin that houses straight teeth, freckles she's never seen before stretching across his nose. She has the impression she's being examined by his scientist eyes again, and this time she's brave enough to stare back.

* * *

"...Sorry." She says after a while, more grunting than actually talking. She watches as the smile on Wally's face fades into something more muted before she drops her eyes back to the sand. "I don't know why I... I shouldn't have yelled." She mutters awkwardly. "... Just forget it, okay? I'm drunk, or whatever."

Wally shakes his head, smiling in a knowing kind of way. "No you're not. If you were you wouldn't say so."

For some reason the corners of her mouth perk up for a second before she smooths them back into place. "Maybe." She says vaguely, not looking at him when he glances at her again; instead she looks at his toes, watching as the water washes over them.

Both of them jump when there's a squealing noise further down the shore; the banging of fireworks is unmistakable as red, white, and blue sparkles erupt high over Happy Harbor.

Neither of them say anything, simply watching as the colors fade out along the horizon, sparkles seeming to hang amongst the stars for a moment before glimmering into faintness. And she can't help it; the way her gaze drags down from the sky to examine his jawline, his eyes too preoccupied with the fireworks to notice. It seems impossible for someone to grow so handsome in only a matter of weeks, and yet here he sits beside her; a wreck of angles and muscles and manhood.

Her heart is still going; not pounding, like it used to, but still thrumming as if it's only recently be restarted. The breeze is ruffling her hair with his walnut scent, with the temptation of a comfort she can't allow... She can feel the alcohol buzzing in her system; and although she suspects if she drinks enough maybe one day she will forget pieces of the boy beside her, like his apple eyes or his freckled shoulders or the smile that always bursts through the numbness inside her, she will never be able to forget how he loved her. And she will never be able to forget how she couldn't do the same.

Wally remains absorbed in the fireworks, angular jaw tilted back and exposing the thick column of his neck. She watches, unaware of her baited breath as he blinks, long ginger eyelashes fanning out and green irises reflecting the lights above him.

"... It was the only piece I had of you when you left."

She pulls her eyes back into focus and realizes he's talking about the elastic again, his fingers unconsciously thumbing it between them. He keeps talking, not even checking to see if she's listening. "... I missed you. I didn't know I could miss someone like that."

She can feel herself retracting, the familiar coldness sweeping through her and forcing any emotions his words might inspire to curl deeper insider her, hidden. "... Don't, okay?" She whispers.

"Why not?" He counters, turning towards her more surely; behind him the fireworks keep lighting up the sky, the cheers coming further down the beach seeming more distant than ever. "... It doesn't have to be like that, you know." He tells her frankly, looking away and staring off towards the water. "... You were my best friend, Artemis."

She swallows, shifting uncomfortably in the sand; she can still feel it, underneath her layers of numbness: she still wants him. It's the first real feeling that's hit her since… Since Marie died. Since she abandoned Garfield and M'gann. Since she returned home, scarred and bruised and broken by things there aren't names for.

 _(And somehow she's still breathing, after all the mayhem has slowed. She is surviving through it, but she isn't really alive_ — _)_

Maybe that's why the wanting hits her so strong, why as she inhales at the unfamiliar emotion the walnut scent seems to fill the deserted hollows inside her. Perhaps that's why she suddenly can't stop her eyes from raking down the sloping of his shoulders, the jutting of his clavicle; why she can't stop memorizing the unfamiliar thickness of his biceps, the way his hands clutch so surely around his balled up shirt... The panels of muscles on his chest, the hardness of his ribs, the way the fractured light illuminates the bumpiness of his abdomen, the cutting v-shaped lines that disappear underneath the waist band of his swim trunks…

She can't. She knows she can't.

 _But she wants to. She so badly wants to…_

Wally looks back at her and she tactfully returns her gaze to his toes, trying not to examine the thick lines of his thighs or the tautness of his calves. "... We don't talk anymore." He says softly, one finger rubbing at his nose. "It doesn't feel like you're even back."

She can't think of anything to say, her limbs coiling in on themselves and the numbness fighting against the emotion Wally's sent roaring inside her. "... I don't really feel like I'm back." She mutters after nearly a half minute of silence, palms attempting to scrub warmth back into her arms. "If that makes you feel better."

Wally sighs, the kind that lets her know that she's just said the wrong thing; he glances over, as if to say something, catching her shivering. "Here." He mutters, sounding defeated as he passes her his shirt. "I forgot you were cold."

She doesn't want to take it but leaving it bunched in her lap feels impolite; pulling the walnut scented fabric over her shoulders she allows her hair to blow in front of her face, wanting to hide from him.

When she emerges from her hair she's a bit taken aback to find his gaze sitting on her, a little more critically than she's expecting; for not the first time she feels as if she's being x-rayed, as if she's more naked now, wearing his shirt, than she was a few seconds ago in just her swim suit. "… Something's bothering you." He says simply, studying the curves of her brows and the hollows underneath her eyes.

She blinks, debating for a half-second how much to tell him; in an instant she makes up her mind. "Am I that easy to read?"

Wally's not charmed; instead his brows only seem to furrow more when she says it, something about his jaw setting. "Not always." He says honestly, continuing to look at her. "Some things are easier—like I can tell you hate your hair right now." She feels her cheeks reddening, one hand freezing halfway through pushing her platinum locks off her face. "Somethings don't change. But others…"

He trails off, not finishing, and suddenly more than ever she feels inadequate next to him; she's been fighting at these old feelings since she came back, too afraid to acknowledge them or admit that she's still not over him—Wally, on the other hand, seems more whole, more accepting, more healed than she ever will be.

She swallows but doesn't answer, letting the distant banging of the end of the fireworks fill the quiet between them; Wally, however, doesn't indulge her. "You don't have to tell me everything." He says softly, barely audible over the finale of the 4th of July. "And I know I asked this morning but… Are you sure you're okay?" He sighs, looking at her through furrowed brows, one hand seeking his neck. "Not just with the M'gann thing but... I don't know. In general?"

The last firework goes off, sending a spray of red that reflects off the water at the two of them; as darkness engulfs both of them she can hear the distant cheering from Happy Harbor, so quiet yet so loud she can practically feel it thrumming inside her skull.

The water licks up to her ankles and something inside her breaks.

"No." She whispers.

"No." Wally repeats, the side of his face hardly visible in the dim light. "… No. Of course you're not."

And before she can stop it the numbness is consuming her from the inside out, swallowing parts of her whole, filling up the places she usually hides her feelings and forcing them to float to the surface; at once she can feel her lips trembling, sealing tight together in an effort to stop whatever she's about to say from leaking out.

... But she can't conceal the way her shoulders quake, and despite the darkness she knows she's not hiding anything from him; she can sense the way his head tilts towards her, can feel the way he's staring at her just a little too hard, knows that he can sense the storm brewing inside her but isn't sure how to quail it. "... Artemis?" He whispers, silently asking her to tell him what to do.

"It's stupid." She says thickly, forcing her voice into a fake sounding chuckle. She can feel the tears beginning to sting at the backs of her eyes, a weakness she refuses to let him see. "I know it is. She wasn't my mother."

She blinks, so quickly that Wally's turning towards her seems to happen in snap shots, fragments in her memory as he watches her start to fall apart. "Who?"

"Marie." The name comes out broken, only half uttered before she's forced to stop, the taste burning on her tongue. "But—when I saw her—I-it was like I was ten all over again. Watching them drag Mom away. And I just—I couldn't protect them. Garfield and M'gann, I couldn't protect them—"

She's saying things to him that she's never been brave enough to say aloud, and before she can even finish saying what she wants to her own need for oxygen cuts her off; she's forced to drag in a gasp of air, the imaginary hands of the Metropolis Girl choking her into silence. Wally seems to stare at her too long, not moving to touch her even when she curls in on herself, forehead pressing against her knees. "... It wasn't your fault, Artemis." He whispers, voice so soft she might be lured into believing him. "Why would you—"

She lets out a bitter laugh, something that sounds too-high pitched and maniacal to belong to her. " _How do you know?"_ She spits bitterly, shaking her head until her forehead clangs against her knee caps painfully. "You weren't there. And even if it wasn't, I just— _I ran away._ I ran away like I always do." She bursts out, feeling frustrated as she raises her head, hands scrubbing savagely along her cheeks.

 _(Artemis is a born runner._ )

For the first time since she's known him Wally doesn't seem to have any words of comfort, instead sitting next to her in a hopeless sort of silence. "I ran away from home, and I ran away from Quarac." She sighs bitterly, pushing her hair angrily out of her eyes. "... I'm that little girl stuck in that apartment all over again. I'm trapped."

"No, you're not." Wally says firmly, apparently not up for indulging her pity party.

She lets out another spiteful chuckle. "Yeah, I am, _Wallman_." She sneers, and for a moment the maliciousness of her tone settles between them, as unforgiving as the evening tide. "... I don't know what happening to me there. I— I didn't think it was possible for me to get more screwed up than I already am. But ever since I got back it's like... Like I can't feel anything anymore. I'm numb, or _disappearing_ , or... I don't even know how to say it."

And she wants so badly to cry, to scream, to let all this emotion out; as ever it swirls inside her, unable to be tamed and or grasped onto. "I thought going there would help me forget how I felt about you." She mutters, more to the sand than to him. "... I feel like I've forgotten how to feel anything at all."

There's a long silence, the only sound between them the rolling of the waves; she doesn't know why she's telling him all this, as if he deserves to know. She doesn't owe him anything. A minute passes, and then another, and she can feel the crushing emptiness inside her billowing, catching all her feelings and placing them in compartments where they belong.

When he finally speaks it's more to the water than her, lips quirking in a sad sort of way as he stares at the horizon. "... Can I be honest?"

"... Okay."

He seems to take his time with answering, weighing his words too carefully; she watches as his thumb migrates unconsciously to her elastic, stretching the nylon tightly and releasing it against his skin with a snap. "... I don't think what's between us can... I don't know." He mutters, ears going off. "I get why you left. If things were different I might have been the one to go, but..." He hesitates. "... You've been running away from things since I met you." He tells her honestly, glancing at her as if trying to catch any stray emotion she's let cross her face. "I guess I'm just wondering when you're going to realize that you can't outrun yourself."

It's not meant to be mean, but the honesty still hurts; she catches herself shrugging, arms folding around her knees defensively. "... Maybe I'm stupid." She offers dryly.

"No, you're not." He says firmly, finally looking at her fully; for some reason he's looking oddly serious, jaw tight. "You're not stupid, Artemis. I—" There's a pause in which she can practically see his brain working behind his eyes, one of his hands scrubbing once through his hair. "You never just let yourself... _Be._ You don't let yourself feel things, because you think you don't deserve to. And you bail whenever things start getting too real, because it scares you. And I just..."

He makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and trails off, glaring out towards the water. "What?" She asks, and edge to her voice that she can't place. "If you have something to say then say it, Wally."

She can hear the annoyed breath that fires out of his nose, hand working hard against the back of his neck before he lets it collapse into the sand. "... I used to think about that last night at our window." He says softly. "I used to think about it constantly; wishing I'd followed you, or said something, done anything that would have made you stay. But there wasn't anything I could do was there?"

He pauses, glancing at her. "No." She says honestly, curling in on herself more tightly. The chance of pace is scaring her.

"I figured." He sighs, and for a long moment he doesn't say anything, instead leaning back onto his elbows in the sand. "... I know it wouldn't have changed anything, whatever I did. But I just wish... I still wish I'd said what I was thinking."

"... Which was?"

She keeps her eyes fixed on the water, but it doesn't matter; he's leaning too far back for her to see the truth on his face. She can only sit and wait, listening to his breathing, soft exhales that seem to flow out of him in time with the movements of the water. "... That it was real." He says quietly. "I know that kind of thing wasn't easy for you, but... That was it. You were it for me. And I know it scared you, and that's why you left when you did... But I think you're wasting your time, trying to get away from it. Because that's your problem— you don't let yourself feel things, and then they bottle up and hurt you."

He pauses, long enough for her to feel ashamed of herself. "... I don't think what we had was the kind of thing you can outrun, Artemis. Take it from someone who's still trying."

The words slither away quietly into the air, disappearing and blending with oxygen until she breathes them in; she can feel them, warm and alive inside her, awakening something that feels as if it's been sleeping for months. "... What's that supposed to mean?" She whispers, as if afraid speaking too loud will scare him.

He doesn't answer, and her heart starts kicking to life inside her ribs; as if afraid of her own heartbeat she ducks her head down, hiding behind her forearms and the swell of her knees as shock starts rolling through her, mind racing as she struggles to figure out what he's saying. "... Do you still love me?" She doesn't mean to let the words slip out, and instantly she hates herself for needing to know...

There's silence. "Wally?" She breathes; he doesn't say anything back, and at once she's scared to turn and look at him, as if frightened that she'll find the bloody streets of Metropolis instead. "... Do you still love me?"

 _She needs to know, before she does something stupid._ _She needs to know, because he has seen her naked flesh and her rotten mind and all the flaws branded into her skin_ — _but he has never seen her raw. He has never seen her raw and broken like this._

It takes all the courage she has to lift her head, blinking out towards the water. The moon is rising, yellow and peering at its own reflection off the ocean. She swallows. "Do you still love me?" She says as loudly as she can, voice wavering.

There's no noise, no ghost of a breath. Then—

"... Yes."

The word sounds so fragile, so broken coming from his mouth; she hears the sound of skin dragging through the sand, and when she glances over her shoulder at him he's laying fully back against the beach, arms splaying across his bare stomach, face set and eyes screwed up, not wanting to look at her. She's being cruel, and she knows it, and she can't stop watching.

And that's all it takes; the one word he utters seems to cut through her, ease under her skin and rip her open along the seams. And something happens when he says it, those three letters that shred her open— she can feel it again, her heart working, the nothingness inside her suddenly becoming something—

 _(Wally isn't the person who's always made her the happiest, but he's the one who's made her feel the most. Time and time again he's sent the loudest clanging in her chest, the most violent emotion through her veins; he's the only person who has ever drawn her out of her herself, the first one to make her laugh in years. When the rest of the world was quiet and the lights were out he was once the person she would reach for in the darkness_ — _her and Wally. Her and Wally. That has to mean something.)_

She feels herself release a breath, and with it something else; Wally loves her. He loves her still, in spite of everything, in spite of herself. He's saved her life a thousand ways before— through desert and galaxies and rubble and now maybe from the numbness too; he is here, he is pulling her out of her own head, and like a hundred times before that special, unfailing love of his is making her pain more muted. The world is dark and so is she but he is here, he is here, and maybe that's what she needs.

 _She needs to feel something. And nobody has ever made her feel as much as Wally._

She shifts, twisting and brushing over the sand until she's as close to him as she can stand; he doesn't open his eyes, not even when she leans over him.

 _(Please.)_

Her hair slips out from behind her ear, a tangle of blonde dipping down and just barely brushing his cheek; at once his apple eyes crack open, a brilliant shade of confusion bursting out behind them as she splays a hand over his bare chest, fingers tracing his clavicle.

"Artemis—?" He whispers, trying to sit up and wincing when she pressing her nails into him warningly.

"Don't." She breathes, nose grazing his. "Don't."

It happens slowly, then all at once; she leans in and he exhales and the walnut smell seems to spring up between them. "Don't." She whispers one more time, her hair swooping down and hiding them from the night.

She breathes in his scent, whole and unbroken in a way neither of them are anymore. He keeps staring at her, unblinking.

 _(Please.)_

She kisses him, soft and fragile and not like herself; she can feel his eyelashes as they flutter shut, can taste the sweetness on his lips as she tilts her jaw more surely against his. Stubble grazes her chin as she kisses this stranger, this new Wally, the one who tastes like the boy she loves and makes the same low and guttural noise in the back of his throat...

 _(Just one more time, please...)_

She feels warm hands, too large to be Wally's as they find her wrist; there's sand gritting against her tendons as he traces the notch of her bones, fingers pausing once on her pulse point to feel the way her heart is beginning to pick up, beginning to charge so quickly inside her chest that she's sure he can feel it in her breasts as she presses herself more surely into him, the buttons on his shirt flattening between their skin almost painfully. She can feel warmth beginning to flood through her, blossoming out from her lips and the hot point between her legs and from his fingers as they trace up her arm, swooping over her shoulder, her neck, her—

She whimpers at the tugging on her too short hair, her breath rushing out between their mouths as Wally pulls back; he looks as if he's recently been hit around the head, hair mused and eyes out of focus as he struggles to push her off him and maneuver onto his elbows. "You, uh." He starts, blinking stupidly before his ears go off. "I changed my mind. _You're definitely drunk."_

She ignores this and instead leans in again, the hand on his chest splaying wider and attempting to push him back into the sand. "Shut up—"

"—Hey." He says firmly, yanking his head back when her lips brush against his again; before she can react he's sitting up, the speed of the movement sending her jostling back onto her backside in the sand. "Artemis, come on. It's—it's not right, okay?"

She can feel the warmth inside her beginning to fade, the coldness consuming her sending her skin prickling. "... What?"

Wally delicately removes her hand from his chest, looking pained. "I mean—You're drunk, okay? And I'm not." He says firmly, as if trying to convince the two of them. "It's— Just forget it. Let's go back to the Cave and… And get you a cup of tea or something."

He says this with such an air of finality that she can practically feel her heart sinking, getting to his feet as if he can't stand to be close to her; for some reason watching him leave sends a wave of anger through her. "Forget it?" She repeats, heart beginning to pound feverishly inside her ears. "After all that? How am I supposed to—"

"I shouldn't have said anything!" He cuts her off before she can finish, sounding embarrassed and angry; his hand is back to working against his neck, furiously scrubbing at the skin. "I— I didn't say it because I wanted to... I just— I know you don't feel the same, so—"

"So what?"

"So forget it!" He yells at her, waving his hands through the air and beginning to stomp down the beach, ignoring her when she gets to her feet and charges after him. "So— So don't kiss me, and make this harder than it has to be, okay?"

"Wally!" She snarls, finally catching up and rounding in front of him, hands raised as if ready to forcibly shove him back. "Wally, I didn't kiss you because I was trying to— be mean, or— I kissed you because I had to."

It's a strange thing to say, not worded well; something in the desperate sort of way she says it sends him still, jaw clenching as he glares out at the water. "Because you had to." He repeats, voice hard. "What the hell does that mean?"

"I just—" She hesitates, biting hard on her tongue, hoping the pain will help her focus as she flails her arms a little desperately. "I had to." She says weakly.

It's not the right answer; at once Wally's eyes are rounding on her, the pale green seeming almost stormy in the darkness. "I don't need you to." He says, voice hard and too measured. "I don't need you doing anything, okay? I know it doesn't mean a thing to you but it does to—"

" _Doesn't mean anything?"_ She snarls, offended. "Wally... Just now was the first time since..." She's fumbling with her words, quailing under his gaze and unstable under all the emotion right at her surface, terrified of saying the wrong thing. "... It's you." She whispers, not sure how to make it more clear. "You're... _It's you_. I did it because I need you."

She can hardly see his face in the darkness, can't tell what he's thinking; without being aware of it her eyes are automatically drawn the outline of the old scar from Metropolis, raised and too-white along the freckled skin of his chest. And maybe it's a low blow, but she doesn't care—she needs Wally, needs him like she did all the other times before.

"Please?" She whispers, not able to look at him and instead screwing her eyes shut, ashamed at her begging. She's not sure how to say the words, how to tell him how badly she needs this one comfort from him, just for tonight. "I wouldn't ask if I didn't... Please, Wally." Her voice breaks, and suddenly she can't stop the tears that start stinging more fiercely at her eyelids, one hand scrubbing impatiently at her lashes. "I just need you. I just need to feel something. I can't— I feeling like I'll die if I don't feel something soon."

Wally must be able to hear the desperation in her voice; she can sense his head turning back to her from where he's been staring, red eared, into the distance. "… What am I supposed to make you feel?" He asks, voice almost gruff.

"Better." She whispers.

There's a silence again, a long one; she can feel the chill in the evening air, arms wrapping around herself and clinging to his shirt, waiting. "... Please." She says one more time, fists coiling around the seams of the fabric.

The waves crash against the shore and distantly she can hear a beat; a drum, music, or maybe it's just the too-loud sound of her pulse in her ears.

The tides comes in and the stars come out. The world turns on, not looking when Wally reaches for her.

* * *

 **AN: Hopefully this chapter made up for such a long delay in between updates- midterms will be the death of me. Feel free to scream your displeasure about the ending in the reviews; enough squawking and I'll try to update quicker :)**

 **A quick Q &A:**

 **Q: Does Artemis ever meet Wally's Aunt Iris?**

 **A: Although it crossed Wally's mind once or twice to introduce the two while they were dating, the idea stopped short after the disaster that was Artemis meeting his parents. But yes, she will eventually meet Barry and Iris.**

 **Q: Does Wally suffer health problems because of the speed force, a la comic canon?**

 **A: In the interest of not spoiling this story (and the sequels I have planned) I will give you the simplified answer... Yes.**


	30. Begin to Burst and Bleed

**AN: Wow, the 30th chapter... I have a few things to say but I'll save those for the end. Enjoy the update!**

* * *

 _(People always ask how long forever is._ _And maybe she knows the answer better than most; she's had moments, like this one, that seem to contain the whole universe inside of them._

 _((She's standing in the back of the Bioship, telling him to leave; even though she means it the sound of the door shutting behind him stabs through her like a knife.))_

 _((She calls his name and it hangs there in the night, dribbling over her like the blood running down her leg. He doesn't say anything back, and the second after she realizes something is wrong she swears her heart seems to implode inside her.))_

 _((He swears into her neck as she settles into his lap, bodies naked and wanting. Her skin is sweat slicked and she can't stop repeating his name, their hips rocking and his fingers finding the slippery point between her legs_ _—))_

 _... That's the thing about forever. In the infinity of time the sheer volume of it ceases to exists, be important or worth thinking of. Forever can encompass thousands of lives, of heart beats_ _—_ _of moments, just like this. If forever is endless, is it really anything at all? Is it even worth thinking about?_

 _She bites her lip._

 _((The lightning sounds and Wally shakes. She makes the mistake of touching him.))_

 _((Her fingers are bleeding and the bathroom is too small, and the walnut smell that still tastes toxic on her tongue is making her dizzy. He smiles at her and fumbles with the cabinet.))_

 _((Books are knocked off of shelves and the hot point between her legs is aching for him. Her moans echo around the emptiness of the library.))_

 _People always ask how long forever is supposed to be, how to define the endless. People much smarter than her will come up with mathematics and equations and theories to explain these things to others. But she knows. She knows now._

 _Forever is the seven seconds it takes for Wally West to kiss her._

 _It starts with a touch, as it did before; the feeling of warm fingers sliding up her frozen arms, tracing heat into the seams of her skin. Elbow and bicep and shoulder and collar bone, all seeming to thrum to life underneath his palm. She inhales the smell of walnuts, shivering when she feels his thumb tilt her jaw upwards._

 _She doesn't open her eyes; she knows what she will see. She'll see all those strange and beautiful pieces, the almost not-human qualities that compose the man in front of her, weaved together in the Wally-ish way of his. She knows that if she opens her eyes she will be afraid of him, of his goodness, of the thousands of reasons not to do this sitting freckled across the skin on his cheeks._ _She exhales, throat catching in nervousness._

 _Wally pulls her mouth to his, and forever both ends and starts again._

 _He kisses her, and like fireworks sounding inside her she can feel it again_ _— air in her lungs and a pulse beneath her skin and electricity sparking through her and it's all because of him, all because of him... H_ _is lips are too hot against her, pleading and demanding and pulling the moans out of her mouth almost instantly. She can feel herself fumbling, caught on the tips of her toes and fingers gripping his biceps to stay upright, back arching when she feels a too-big hand splay along the narrow of her spine, one familiar thumb catching and pressing against the jutting of her hip bone..._

 _((She wants him. With every piece of everything that has ever consumed her. And she will forever want him and forever look for him in the darkness, like she is now. She will need him near her, inside her. Forever, please. Forever.))_

 _Wally grunts when she digs her nails into his shoulders, his weight rocking back onto his heels and nearly lifting her from the ground altogether; she can hear the anxious pants that are beginning to fire out of her nose, his free hand still cupping her jaw and forcing her too-short hair back from both their cheeks. And in a matter of seconds it's no longer kissing, it's panting and clawing and fighting to be closer, fighting to feel something, anything—_

 _He gasps into her mouth when she bites his lower lip, one of her hands pulling a little too hard at the hair on the back of his head; she almost unbalances when he slouches forward in surprise, placing her back more surely on her feet— but she can't stop, won't stop, not now—_

 _((She can't do this alone anymore.))_

 _"Artemis." He whispers hoarsely into her mouth, her name coming out thickly and only half pronounced in between the kisses she forces on him. "Artemis—" He moans when she licks his bottom lip but seems to be pulled back to his senses; at once his palm presses a little too insistently against her cheek and she's forced to pull back._

 _He exhales against her mouth before he straightens, arms still tight around her as if he has no intention of letting go, but... But he's looking at her, in that too close way of his. Analyzing her, reading her too much. And she knows, or at least can guess what's supposed to happen— what he's waiting for as his apple eyes flicker between both of hers. And for a moment, maybe, she almost says what she knows he wants to hear._

 _(("... I love you, Wally."))_

 _The words swirl inside her but make no attempt at escape_ _— instead other ones come, more weak explanations. About how she's spent her whole life building walls around her heart to protect it from the worst parts of the world and that she's not sure how to dismantle them. How she's so used to having her feelings manipulated and played with and exploited that she still almost doesn't believe a kind word anyone says._

 _... How there was something about the little things he did— like rubbing warmth into her shoulders, or looking her over with those green eyes, or getting so close to her that her walls felt less like protection and more like imprisonment_ _— but she's still doesn't think it's enough; how even now, she's not sure if a girl like her is supposed to be feeling these things, if anything like this will ever be real to her..._

 _((Because sometimes it does feel like a dream, something she just made up... And sometimes she is convinced that one day she'll jerk out of a half sleep and find herself slouching against her bedroom window with a partly-finished book, and she'll realize that she's still newly 15 and never joined the Team and the name Wally West means nothing to her at all...))_

 _The seconds pass and she swallows, the words slipping away and disappearing.; she can feel them churning inside her stomach, poisoning her. This time, she's the one to reach for him._

 _(("Please."))_

 _It isn't enough, as she knew it wouldn't be. As if knowing what she's almost said Wally sighs, releasing her and ignoring her fingers when they brush pathetically against his neck._

 _"... I can't." He whispers, voice breaking. "I can't."_

 _He pulls away, and her forever shatters.)_

* * *

Unconsciousness lifts mercilessly, bringing with it a dry tongue and an aching head.

She hears herself exhale, can feel the way her own breath ruffles the too-short hair mused over her eyes with sleep; childishly she rolls more determinedly onto her stomach, trying to will herself back to dreaming. She doesn't want to wake up; wakefulness only means loneliness and emptiness and apparently a hangover. Forcing her aching throat to swallow she runs a palm over her face, feeling the previous day's make-up caked inside her pores.

And _—_ ouch. Without looking she groans, clenching her hand into a fist; Connor's bruise feels worse now than it did yesterday.

... But it's not just that. Every part of her seems to ache, as if all the alcohol from the day before is lingering in her joints, making them pop every time she moves; refusing to indulge in wakefulness she shifts again, registering for the first time that she's managed to find her way into bed.

She smells of fire and salt, the creases in the folds of her joints filled with a strange cold sweat. The skin on her face feels too tight along her skull.

 _(She watches as one of his hands reaches up to his neck, scrubbing in that familiar fashion. She can feel the beginnings of embarrassment, of hurt, of the weight of rejection starting to submerge her into coldness again. She's thankful when he turns towards the water, not noticing the silent tears dribbling down her cheeks, hot and fast in her drunkenness._

 _"... I know." She says, and even though she manages to wipe the wetness from her eyes she can't erase the warbling in the back of her throat. "I_ — _I shouldn't have even... Sorry."_

 _Wally's hand falls from his neck. "... Artemis."_

 _"It's okay." She says quickly, barely managing to choke out the words. "I get it. I didn't even... I'm drunk. I didn't mean it."_

 _She sounds like a coward, trying to back track from her begging a few minutes ago with gruff words and indifference; Wally finally turns back to her when she wipes her nose loudly on his sleeve. "Hey." He says in that low tone of his, the kind that would make her stomach twist in other circumstances. "Don't... Don't cry, okay? I hate it when you cry."_

 _((And she hates this. She hates that she either cares too much or not at all, hates that she can't tell which one is worse. And most of all she hates all these feelings, all these emotions she can't control, hates the way she's crying in front of him right now_ _—))_

 _"Sorry." The word flies out of her mouth but she makes no effort to stop, instead disappearing behind his overlong sleeves._

 _She hears him say her name, hears the tenderness in his voice, but she doesn't want to see the apology hidden in his eyes— he's done with her, he doesn't want her anymore. She doesn't know why it hurts as badly as it does now; she's stepped on his heart a thousand times. But it hadn't mattered a minute ago_ _— he had said that he loved her, right? Or had she imagined that? Or is it just that he loves her out of habit, but wanting her, wanting her like she wants him, isn't possible.._ _.?_

 _((She doesn't know what to think.))_

 _She sobs, growing confused; her head feels too heavy for her shoulders and her heart feels vacant once more. Her words won't work the way she wants them to and she wishes, so badly wishes, that she were suffering this humiliation alone..._

 _"Artemis." He says again, this time taking a step closer. "Babe, come on..."_

 _And this time when he reaches for her it's with too much tenderness, too much pity; even though she can't stand to be touched by him again she still allows it, still escapes into the warmth of his arms with eagerness, her head ducking automatically to fit into the hollow of his chest and tears sticking to his bare skin. "Don't cry." He repeats, saying the words again and again as if hoping to convince the both of them; she can feel his whole body tighten underneath her cheek, as if his ribs are trying to contain his heart as he wraps his arms around her. She registers lips pressing more words into the top of her head. "Don't cry, don't cry...")_

She groans as the memory comes back to her, face turning towards her pillow as if wishing to suffocate. God, she had been such an idiot... Begging for him, crying when he had said no, and—

 _("Artemis." He says her name with more urgency the longer she keeps crying, palms pressing insistently at her cheeks as her sobbing grows ragged, trying to coax her into looking at him. "Artemis, breathe with me, okay? You're starting to panic and_ — _it's okay, hey, Artemis_ —"

 _And she can feel her legs beginning to give out and too-strong arms crumbling with her, and there's sand slipping into the tenders points behind her knees as he arranges her in his lap; the ocean is too loud but her breathing is louder, ragged and muggy against his nakedness_ —

 _((And he had been right— she still has feelings for him and no matter how many times she tries to tell herself that she's better off... She can't let him go. And even though she knows that she can't— because she is dangerous, because she is worthless, because she will never, ever be good enough— she can't stop clinging to him, leaving claw marks. And she misses the way things used to be so badly but she can't bring them back again— can't make that mistake again_ _— but she can't live the rest of her life being haunted by ginger hair and old memories...))_

 _((And she can't breathe_ _—))_

 _Wally's arms cradle her against him, tightening when she shivers; she can feel his jaw grinding as he presses his lips against her forehead again, hardly registering when his hand wraps around her wrist, dragging her fingers to the rapid pounding of the pulse point against his neck. "Breathe." He reminds her, pressing her fingers against his neck, an old trick he once used to calm her down during her panics. "In and out with me. Okay? Artemis?"_

 _She ignores him, fingers escaping his neck and curling down his shoulders, clawing into him in ways she knows she shouldn't...)_

... And breaking down in front of him. Oh, god.

She curls more tightly into the ball of sheets she's tangled herself in; her memories of the previous evening seem oddly scrambled, the timeline of events warbled and filled with strange empty patches. She can remember the whole day— lunch with Owen, licking ice cream, Barbara, a stray conversation with Wally... Swimming, and Zatanna and Kaleb losing spectacularly at chicken fights... Kissing Zatanna around the fire, and of course, kissing Wally... She winces, wishing those memories were the ones that were forgotten.

God, she had been such an idiot. Her head gives an insistent pound, a reminder that after all her crying and sweating and drinking yesterday she's desperately dehydrated; rolling onto her back she looks up at the familiarity of her own ceiling, the pale looking grey of her walls. Her bedroom smells of sweat and something sour that she can't place...

... Why did she have to get so upset anyway? She was doing fine. Well, not fine _—_ but managing. For all she knows all that numbness had been a defense mechanism against her own grief. Maybe she screwed herself up even worse, trying to feel things... Or maybe this is good? Being able to process what happened? Ugh, she can't even think straight.

 _Why did she have to drag Wally into this?_

She exhales as another dull ache runs through her head, her palm lifting to push her hair out of her face; when she can see again she's thankful that she at least had the foresight to place a glass of water at her bedside table before she went to bed. Propping herself onto her elbows she escapes her sheets, reaching for it. She manages about half the glass of water before she realizes she's no longer wearing her swimsuit; when she pulls the drink back to look at herself she dribbles some water down her chin, looking a little suspiciously at the oversized Central City High crest splayed across her breasts.

It's Wally's old tee shirt. A tee shirt that she's sure was shoved unceremoniously to the back of her drawer.

She can sense embarrassment in the air, the scent stale with regret; she'd been drunk, she's sure. Wanted something comforting to wear but... Oh god, had he seen her wearing it? ... No. It's not like her and Wally spent the night together, how would he... Eyes narrowing, she places the half empty glass back on her bedside table and sits up a little higher, stomach beginning to twist uncomfortably as she peels back the rest of her sheets. She's wearing her usual sleeping shorts, no underwear.

She's not exactly sure what that means.

 _... No underwear? Had she been so drunk when she changed that she forgot her underwear?_

Well... it's possible, she supposes. The headache she has right now is indication enough.

The water is doing her some good, or perhaps it's simply the fact that she's becoming more alert as she looks around her bedroom, searching for more signs that could somehow tell her what happened the previous evening. The empty space in the bed beside her looks as undisturbed as ever. She can see the swimsuit she borrowed from Zatanna discarded on top of her desk, strings tangled as if she flung it there wildly. Wally's button down is hung along the back of her chair. And—

And it's stronger now, the strange sourness in the air that makes her stomach churn; the garbage usually tucked out of sight beneath her desk is pulled out, forcing her chair to sit crooked as opposed to straight. Sitting up fully she makes to get out of bed, wondering if she perhaps vomited—

Her bare feet hit a strange plushness and at once she glances down; she's greeted by the vivid red of Wally's blankets, arranged carefully along the carpet.

 _... Wally's blankets, but no Wally._

Her eyes narrow at the slept-in appearance of the comforter, the arrangement of his pillow. Wally slept in her room last night. Her stomach starts churning again and she feels her knees warbling as she settles back onto the edge of her bed, mind racing. Then at once—

 _(The world is quiet; even the water seems to have slowed, the evening tide whispering at them in the darkness._ _Wally continues to hold her, long after her panic has subsided. She can feel his fingers gently strumming across her skin, one hand pressing music into her knee while the other muses comforting circles into her shoulder._

 _((She wants to love him with her whole heart but something keeps holding her back... Fear, maybe. Of what saying those words would mean.))_

 _They breathe at the same time, heart beats aligned; she can feel the fingers along her shoulders still for a moment, breaking the predictable and soothing pattern to flatten along her muscles, tightening around her and holding her too close for a moment. For a half second the moonlight hits his chest, and even though she wishes it would stay hidden the scar above his heart flashes at her._

 _(("You did this." It seems to say, glaring.))_

 _Rather than look back she closes her eyes, lashes brushing against his neck._ _"... I missed you too." She whispers, voice hoarse and throat dry from her crying._

 _Wally doesn't ask her to clarify about when, or how badly; instead he presses his cheek more firmly to the top of her head, fingers leaving her bicep to brush her hair back behind her ear. "... Do you want to go home?" He breathes._

 _"Where?"_

 _"The Cave? Or Gotham?"_

 _She's hardly awake anymore, lips brushing against his collar bone as she presses her face into his shoulder, hiding from the scars she's left on his skin. "Take me where you're going.")_

So that's it. Wally must have taken her here.

She can feel her whole face heat with embarrassment, bile beginning to rise so rapidly in her throat that it takes several swallows to send it back to churning in her stomach. Oh, god. She must have had to be put to bed like a child and... Her forehead pounds again, her hangover beginning to hit her harder now. She hates not knowing what really happened, not knowing what to apologize for or be embarrassed about. What if she had clung to him like she did before, crying and sniveling and having to be carried to bed like the mess of a person she is... What if she had said too much?

What if she told him that her father killed Maire?

... But she did, didn't she? She had told him it was her fault.

Oh, god.

Ignoring the dizziness suddenly overwhelming her she gets to her feet, fighting against the nausea that's forcing her to salivate; she needs to get out of here, to run away from this room and last night and herself— Wally may be gone now but she's sure he'll be back soon, and if there's one thing she can't stand to do right now it's having to look Wally West in the eye. Stumbling, she crosses the room, determined to go home and hide from him and everyone else who had to see what a mess she was last night—

Her hand shakes as it turns the knob and she flings the door open too quickly, the stray edge snagging along the tops of her toes; biting back a loud gasp she's forced to hop ridiculously from foot to foot, catching a glimpse of her own blood seeping out of the scrape and onto the carpet. " _Fuck."_ She curses.

Before the word is even fully out of her mouth she's met with a wicked laugh. "Language." Dick drawls, looking amused as he pauses several paces past her bedroom, turning back to grin at her. "If you're not careful Red Tornado will make you put a dollar in the swear jar."

Instantly she glares, leaning against her door frame and bending to examine her foot. "Shut up." She mutters, not in the mood for him or his usual games.

Rather than be discouraged by the annoyed expression on her face Dick grins again, looking infuriatingly impish as he shoves his hands in his pockets. "Good morning to you too." He muses, retracing his last few steps until he's in front of her, watching as she licks her thumb and leans clumsily against her door frame, scrubbing her finger once over her scrape. "You look especially cheerful. Have too-good of a time last night?"

She scowls, becoming suddenly aware of her matted hair and the fact that she has an unknown dried substance— probably vomit— cracking along her chin. "Sure." She says between her teeth, releasing her foot and instead passing a hand once over her face. "What, uh, about you?"

"Good. Barbara had fun." He says this with a shrug, as if he whether the other girl enjoyed herself or not wasn't really a concern of his; for some reason he looks down at her a little too long, as if her appearance is telling him more about the previous evening than she ever could.

Feeling her brows furrow she clears her throat; whether intentionally or not it's just occurred to her that Dick's essentially boxed her in, trapping her into conversation or sentencing her to a retreat back into her bedroom. "Well, uh—"

"Is Zatanna in there?" He asks abruptly.

At once she understands his lingering, and feeling a strange sense of relief she exhales, pressing her hair back behind her ears for a moment before reaching to close her door behind her. "No."

"I haven't seen her since last night." He clarifies, and to her annoyance he reaches out a hand to try and press her door open again, standing on his toes to see better around her. "Her and that Kaleb guy left not long after you did—"

"So? Why would she be in my room?"

"Well, I figured after that big show at the fire—"

" _Shut up—"_

She's not up to her usual fight, and after a few moments of dodging and shoving her hands out of the way Dick manages to duck around her; there's a loud bang as he rams it open, the wood clattering against the wall. " _Dick!"_ She snarls, not sure if she's insulting him or calling him by his name.

In response he snorts over his shoulder, grin glinting mischievously as he makes to move into her room; she can tell he's thoroughly enjoying teasing her, especially when she's so exhausted and drained she can hardly argue back. "What? You have something to hide? Should I go tell RT that you had a guy in your room last _—_ "

She can feels herself going maroon, wincing; he cuts his teasing off when he finally faces forward, feet abruptly stopping before he's really even crossed the threshold inside her bedroom. Even in as dull a mood as she's in now she knows exactly why he's stunned into silence, is sure he knows Wally's bedspread as well as she does. She grimaces as the increasingly awkward seconds tick by in which he stands there, hand still on her door knob, registering the jarring red comforter spread out in a make shift bed on the floor.

"What _—_ uh." He says dumbly; in the uncomfortable moment that follows her head starts throbbing again, and feeling impatient she yanks him by the arm back into the hallway, slamming her door shut behind her.

For some reason Dick continues to stare at the closed door for a moment before his eyes find hers; even though she can't see them through the shade of his glasses she's sure there's something almost accusing in the baby blue of his eyes. "It's nothing." She says grittily, blushing.

"Wally spent the night." He says, suddenly a ten fold more serious than a minute before. "... For you two, that isn't nothing."

She feels her eyes narrow as she looks up at him. "What—" She cuts herself off with an annoyed noise in the back of her throat when he shakes his head. "Look, I'm exhausted. If you're going to be all judge-y at least let me have a cup of tea first."

"Are you guys back together?"

She snorts. "No."

Dick nods, then hesitates. "Did, uh… Did you guys—"

"No." She says quickly. "No we—" She pauses, thinking of the lapses in her memory and then immediately changing course. "It wasn't anything, okay?"

"Good."

He says this with such a firmness that it immediately strikes her as strange, almost rude. "Good?' She asks vaguely, brows raising.

Dicks seems to take a moment to gather his courage, as if speaking his mind is a skill he's not quite yet mastered. "Yeah. Because—because he was a wreck when things ended, Artemis. And even worse when you left."

"And you think I wasn't?" She scowls, trying to hide the guilt rapidly filling up her stomach. "... We can't be together, okay? And Wally knows that. Last night was just—"

For some reason Dick lets out a loud scoff that stings her more than anything else he's just said. "What? A fluke? A screw up? _A moment of weakness?_ God, you could give Batman a run for his money." He says sarcastically.

She can't think of anything to say back, her head aching far more insistently than it has thus far this morning; something must show on her face because at once Dick sighs, shoulders slacking. "I didn't mean that." He says quietly. "I just... Wally's my best pal. And I can't—I'm not sure how many times I can throw him together again, okay? You just need to let him get over—"

"And you even listening to me?" She cuts him off, cheeks reddening. "I said we didn't, and we didn't, okay? What more do you—"

"Hey."

Their conversation is abruptly cut short when Wally turns down the hallway, brows raised at the company outside her door; instantly Dick takes a step back, expression turning from serious to amused. "Morning." He says warmly, smirking again.

"Uh, morning dude." Wally says, looking slightly confused at the expression on his best friend's face; at once he gestures to the cup of tea in his arms, carefully avoiding her eyes. "Brought you some tea. You know, for the hangover."

This makes her blush but Dick seems to be pleased again, as if the conversation between them just now never happened. "Oh, well, sure." He says cheekily, stretching out his words just enough for her to find it annoying. "You two going to spend the morning together?"

"Uh _—_ "

"No." She says quickly.

Dick smirks at the discomfort between them, apparently ignoring the rude gesture Wally sends him that she manages to catch out of the corner of her eye. "Why not? Head down the beach again, relive last night. It's supposed to be another hot day today."

She can't think of anything to say and apparently neither can Wally; when she glances at him again he raises his brows at her a little weakly. "Wanna go for a walk?" Wally asks, grimacing.

Truthfully the last thing she feels like doing is spending more time with Wally, although between him and the ever changing personalities of Dick Grayson she supposes he's the lesser of two evils this morning. "... Sure." She says between her teeth, begrudgingly accepting the cup of tea.

* * *

Without saying anything they find their way to the beach; it seems more obvious now than ever that this place, like their window, is a sanctuary of sorts where the weight of their thoughts seems lighter, easier to bear.

Some of her tea slops over her fingers as she follows him, the heat of the liquid scalding her hands before it's immediately soothed by the air rolling off the water; it's a bright morning, almost painful to her exhausted eyes, but the wind seems much cooler than the day before. Without thinking her head turns automatically towards the old grove of trees she used to hide in.

"Probably not the best way to wake up." Wally says suddenly, voice oddly muted; with a jolt she realizes she's slowed to a stop several paces behind him. "Dick can be a bit of a jerk first thing."

She makes to catch up, continuing to follow him wherever he's leading. "It could have been worse." She says honestly. "Just wanted to know where Zatanna was."

"Hm." Wally grins, nodding towards a cove of jagged looking rocks that she knows are concealing the more manufactured edges bordering the Cave. "Seems to be a common theme lately."

"Yeah." She watches him take a seat on one of the flatter boulders before she follows, deliberately not sitting next to him like she wants to; rather then be closer to him than she has to be she carefully chooses a slab of rock a few feet away from him.

He looks at her for a long moment, squinting the sun out of his eyes and leaning back to put his weight on the heels of his palms; for some reason the nature of the look sends her cheeks blushing. "Thanks, by the way." She says weakly, dropping her eyes to her cup. "For the tea."

The corners of Wally's mouth twitch upwards, and as if understanding that his staring is making her nervous he looks away when she takes a sip; the liquid is still scalding hot when it rolls over her tongue, crisp and prepared the way she likes it. She's surprised he remembered. "... Sure." He says vaguely.

For a long while they sit in silence, looking out at the horizon and watching as the middle of the day rolls in; despite the cool breeze she's sure it's going to be another hot one as Dick predicted, the only clouds in the sky a few scant whisps that will disappear as the warmth builds. She has the distinct impression that Wally's waiting, or at least gathering the courage to say something; trying not to grow impatient she does her best to maintain the somewhat awkward silence, sipping her tea long after the liquid inside has started going cold.

After nearly ten minutes she can't take it anymore, her hips growing sore from sitting on the uneven rock and eyes beginning to ache the longer she stares at the sun's reflection off the water; resting her mug on her thigh she clears her throat. "… You look tired." She tells him.

Wally glances at her before shrugging, muscles rolling under his tee shirt as he raises a hand to scrub at his face. "A little, I guess. How are you feeling?"

"Fine." She says automatically, immediately back-tracking when he sends her a knowing smirk. "Well— Okay, a little tired too."

There's another pause, this time an awkward one, in which she sips her tea and Wally goes back to the water; finally she lowers her cup, trying again. "Um." She starts, feeling stupid when his head swings back towards her and her stomach instantly squirms. "Were we... Up late? Last night?"

At this his eyes narrow at her, as if trying to figure out what she's really asking. "Uh, yeah."

"How late?" She presses.

"I don't know." He shrugs, brows furrowing.

"Well..." She can feel herself starting to lose her nerve and almost returns to the safety of her cup before she remembers that she's emptied it. "Can you try to remember? Please? ... Because I can't."

Wally blinks exactly once before he looks away. "… You don't remember?" His mouth twists into a frown when she shakes her head. "Anything? At all?"

She can't read his expression; once again she's confronted with the new angles of his face, the morning's stubble hiding things she used to be able to decipher without problem. "Well—I mean, I remember some things." She says awkwardly, dropping her eyes to her cup— she's got her fingers clenched so tightly around the handle that her knuckles are going white, and it takes her a moment to figure out what she wants to say. "Like— kissing. I remember some kissing."

She hears him let out an exhale that might be the beginnings of a forced chuckle; when she glances up he's still staring out at the water, the tips of his ears starting to go a vibrant pink. "Uh, yeah. Lots of that." He says sheepishly. "That part would be pretty hard to forget."

Again he slips into an unhelpful silence, the twisting in her stomach now growing unbearable; for a long moment her insides seem to gnaw at her before she forces the words out, stuttering in her haste. "A-and? Was there anything else?"

"Kissing wise?"

"Kissing wise."

She watches his throat bob, his hip shifting as he tries to coax his overlong limbs into a comfortable position. "No." He says after a moment, and instantly she can feel a whole part of her relax, seeming to melt into the rock with relief. "… Not that both of us didn't want to."

The last part is said strangely— a hint of a laugh, a bit of embarrassment; when he finally looks back at her with a sheepish smile she can't help but feel her mouth twitch back in response. "… Right." She says dumbly.

"Yeah."

Her cup is still half warm despite its emptiness, her fingers splaying along the ceramic as if hoping to absorb some of it; even though the heat is beginning to build along the beach she feels cold, like always. Once again he seems to be avoiding her eyes, not looking at her as she leans forward, bracing her elbows on her knees. "... I— I do remember a few things actually." She blurts out. "I just... I don't know if they're entirely real."

When she glances at him he's back to scrubbing his neck. It had been so much easier to talk in the darkness, where everything seemed so hidden. Now she feels as if everything between them, all these feelings, are written in the sand for everyone to see. "What— uh. What do you remember?"

She swallows, debating how much to tell him and where to start. "Wanting to cry." She starts vaguely, tightening her hands around her cup. "I was drunk, and mad at Zatanna and... A lot of things." She mutters, carefully avoiding any mention of Marie or Garfield. "And I remember... Just wanting to be held. To be with someone... Warm."

She can sense Wally's gaze back on her and she deliberately keeps staring at her mug, thinking hard; the hairs on her arms are rapidly prickling, as if actually chilled. "And I think I remember asking you to... Be that person." She mumbles, blushing. "And I... I cried? Didn't I?"

Wally shifts on his rock, taking so long to answer that she nearly interrupts him with more babbling. "Well… Yeah. There was some crying, for a bit." He says gruffly. "And when I tried to—you just didn't want to be by yourself." The words come out rushed, as if saying them quickly will save her any embarrassment. "... And I was kind of scared to leave you alone, if I'm being honest."

She makes a vague noise in the back of her throat, and at once the memory comes back—

 _(The shoulder beneath her cheek tenses, the warm arms curled under her releasing. The mattress seems to blossom around her, enveloping her limbs and threatening to strangle her._

 _"Wally?" She whispers, voice half frantic in the darkness._

 _For a second there's no answer, just the sound of her breath growing more desperate as unknown sheets are pulled over her legs_ — _her tongue tastes like stale tea and she's no longer wearing his shirt_ —

 _Her hands are clumsy when they find his, looping through too-large and too-warm palms. "Right here, Beautiful." He whispers back, shifting his weight on the edge of the bed. "You fell asleep on the couch. Didn't even finish your tea_ — _"_

 _Inside. They're inside and... And she had changed out of her swimsuit. And they had talked and put on a movie and... She can't remember. The tea in question is currently churning in her stomach but she doesn't care, not when he's leaning over her like this, his free hand reaching up to press her hair off her clammy forehead. "Go back to sleep." He tells her, pulling back._

 _"Wait." She blurts out, fingers curling between his in a way she's sure must hurt; for a half second she hesitates. "... Stay? Please?"_

 _"Artemis_ —"

 _"Please?"_

 _She can hardly see his face in the darkness, can't tell if he frowns or smiles; all she hears is a rush of breath, indicating he's still inches from her, exhaling. "... Okay." He whispers. "Just... I'll be back in a minute, alright?"_

 _And perhaps she's already dreaming, her eyes fluttering closed as he leans in and presses a kiss to her cheek; the world is quiet and in the darkness it's very hard to remember for a moment why she's keeping herself from this boy. His lips press against her skin and she closes her eyes and the world shuts down and for the first time in a while she lets her mind wander._

 _And this time her dreams are not mauled by blood or dingy green skin or children screaming for their mothers. This time her mind takes her to a place she doesn't talk about or acknowledge exists anymore. It takes her to an old place, a warm place. And Wally is there, and that's all that matters.)_

She misses what Wally says, only catching him when he finishes. "I—I slept on the floor, if that helps."

She swallows, trying her best to find her voice; she can tell by the warble in his tone that he half expects her to be mad. "... Thank you." She mutters, blushing again. She's not entirely sure where to go from here. "Not just for… You know. Thanks for making sure I was okay."

Wally's hand scrubs once through his hair before it falls; she suspects that her embarrassment is showing on her face. "Yeah, well." He hesitates. "… You've kind of done the same for me."

She blinks, finally looking away from her cup. She doesn't know why the comment catches her off guard; all she knows is that he's talking about one of the few things they've silently considered off limits between the two of them: the night she found him, alone and shaking at their window. But it's more than that— it's the fact that something about how he mentions it— this huge, unspoken thing— seems almost cold, oddly dismissive for the type of conversation they're having.

"... What?" She asks after a moment, eyes narrowing. Wally doesn't answer, and she can feel another wave of discomfort washing over her. "I can tell you aren't telling me something." She says gruffly.

He hesitates, one hand reaching up to scratch peevishly at his arm; unwillingly her eyes fall to his wrist, stomach twisting when she sees her elastic still there. The silence seems to stretch between them for nearly a minute before words start spilling out of him, following the same rhythm of his foot tapping against the sand. "I just kind of hate this." He gets out before abruptly stopping.

The words aren't what she's expecting and she can tell her surprise shows on her face; when Wally glances at her again she can see the vibration of one bitter chuckle in his chest before his smile fades, gaze going back out to the water. "… What's _this_?" She asks after a moment, not entirely sure she wants to hear the answer.

In response he shrugs, finally turning away from the water and shifting towards her; almost tortuously the breeze blows some of the tantalizing walnut scent towards her. "… This. Us, right now. I hate that we don't talk unless one of us is drunk, falling apart, or... Both." He says gruffly, any trace of humor beginning to disappear from his features. "... I can't do it anymore. It's just too... Hard. I can't be everything to you one night and then nothing the next morning. I can't be in the middle, okay? And I know that if you wanted to be with me, you'd be with me, and there's a reason that we aren't but— But I can't keep up with what we're doing right now."

"Wally—"

"I'm serious, Artemis." He says firmly, cutting off whatever exasperation she's about to come up with. "It's not... And it's not me making it like this. You're the one making this so hard."

The words sting, so hard that for a moment all she can do is sit there, blinking the hurt out of her eyes. She can't figure out what he's asking her to do, what he wants her to say; biting the inside of her cheek for a moment she tries to mull her way around what he's just said, only coming up with the words that she's been thinking for weeks now. "I'm sorry." She whispers. "For how I... For how we ended things. And for leaving."

Wally exhales, breath loud and ragged in the way that always tells her she's not saying what he needs her to. She doesn't know what he wants from her, what sort of script she's supposed to follow to make things less broken between them. She's not even sure if that's possible.

She watches as he glares down the beach _—_ and she knows, as well as anyone, that not letting herself love him is a mistake. This boy, who is sweet and kind; so stupidly loving and caring. This boy who's now a man, but still smiles at her as if always trying to make up for the day they met. This boy, who smells of warm spices and walnuts and autumn; this boy, who is good _—_ too good for her in all the right places.

He was her shot. Her one perfect thing.

And she can't trust herself not to ruin it.

(Although, if she's being honest, she knows that she already did.)

She doesn't understand what's stopping her from kissing him. She knows what he'll taste of: walnuts and warmth and maybe fresh toothpaste. She knows that if she kisses him she'll feel better, and he will to... But she's so tired. She can't think of anything else in this world she'd rather do than return to her bed, return to the worn in pages of the book she's reading. The real world feels suddenly so stunted, so far from everything.

... These past few weeks have aged them both more rapidly than she thought was possible; she feels more grown up now than she's sure most girls her age do. And maybe part of growing up means recognizing what you want. What you need. Who you are.

And that was the problem, with Wally _— s_ he was never really herself with him. She was always trying to be better for him, trying to be worthy; like everything else in her life she set herself up to fail, to not reach her own expectations. She's read enough books to know that love, the real thing, is supposed to be adaptive. It must be smart and strong enough to survive the constant change that two people live their lives through.

... Her father raised her to be all those things. She's a warrior; she's a survivor. Time and time again she's proved herself to be cunning, her body taught and capable in battle.

... But her heart. Her heart is too rigid.

Now isn't the right time for her and Wally. And if she were a fool she'd cling to some kind of hope; that maybe they'd meet again, years from now when her mind was less hectic, and then it would be perfect _—_ the two of them, together, the way she's always wanted. But she knows herself. She is chaos. And she won't wreak havoc on Wally again.

She tastes blood in her mouth, and suddenly she can't stop herself from asking the one question she can't stand to have answered. "... Do you regret it?"

He keeps staring out over the water, eyes narrowed. "... What?"

He sounds so gruff, too old to be her Wally; in response she hesitates again, licking her lips. "Being with me." She says as clearly as she can. The wind is beginning to pick up. "Do you regret being with me?"

She lets her too short hair slip out from behind her ear, conveniently hiding her from him when his head loops round to stare at her; although he's no longer the boy she could read with just a look she's still afraid of what she might see there, written in the honestly of his apple eyes. "... We didn't work out, okay?" He says quietly after a moment, his voice with an odd roughness to it. "... That doesn't change the fact that you were one of the best things that happened to me."

It shouldn't make her heart tighten, but it does— for several long seconds neither of them say anything, just two people who used to love each other sitting apart like strangers.

"Look." Wally says after a while, sound embarrassed and like this conversation has gone off the course he's spent all night planning. "I just... Can you either tell me to fuck off or— or be just my friend again? That's all I want from you."

The last part is rushed, and although it's not meant to be mean or anything close to it the words still send a dull aching inside her chest; automatically her head ducks, hiding. "... I don't know if we can." She says after a moment, finally looking up; instantly she feels a pang when she finds his eyes on her, already staring.

Wally's throat bobs as he swallows. "No?"

"No." She confirms.

For some reason he nods, as if really processing the information; his foot taps three times against the rock he's sitting on before he stops it, eyes dropping to the sand. "… Is it stupid if I said that I still wanted to try?" He asks her, voice oddly forced into lightness. "To be friends, I mean?"

She hesitates, really mulling over the question as his apple eyes bore into her; like the night before she can sense that she's in dangerous territory but for some reason she isn't smart enough to stray from it. Her throat feels dry as she swallows, her eyes leaving his and instead staring at the empty tea dregs in her cup. "… You always sound stupid." She gets out, voice hardly above a whisper. "But... I don't know. I think I'd like that, actually."

There's a beat of silence. "… Okay." Wally finally says. "Well then let's… Be friends, then."

"Okay." She croaks.

He smiles, a mess of freckles and straight teeth. For once she doesn't hesitate to smile back.

* * *

It's quiet again, the same way it always is; rather than indulge it the both of them exhale at the same time, lips immediately quirking into matching smiles. "... You gonna go out with that Owen guy again?" Wally asks after a moment.

She can tell he's deliberately keeping his face blank, the question too casual to be entirely innocent; in the interest of being friends she ignores all this, instead leaning back onto the heels of her palms and sighing. "Definitely not. He was an ass."

"Good looking though." Wally shrugs, watching her carefully; when she glances at him he quickly averts his gaze, eyes dropping to watch his foot as it starts tapping a beat into a nearby rock.

"His hair was too curly."

"You're going to let someone's hair stop you from dating them?"

"No." She says defensively. "He was an idiot. The hair just didn't help."

Wally snorts. "You're picky."

"Am not—"

"Whatever." Wally cuts her off, rolling his eyes. "Here, I just remembered..." She watches as he digs in the pocket of his shorts for a moment before extracting what she immediately recognizes as her cell phone. "In case you do want to call him. You left it in Zatanna's bag last night, she told me to give it back to you."

He tosses it to her and she catches it clumsily in her palm; with a quick glance at it she can see the familiar flashing green light of a missed message— probably just Paula, checking up on her in the same annoying way she's been doing since she returned home from Quarac. "Thanks." She mutters, fingers fumbling as she flips it open.

Wally watches her for a half second before relaxing onto his elbows, looking content to lounge in the sunshine currently warming the rocks they're sitting on. "What're you doing tonight? Rob and I were thinking of maybe renting a movie from that place in town and getting the Team to—"

She presses her phone to her ear. "Hm?" She says vaguely.

 _"You have 17 missed messages."_

"— Tula's been majorly lacking in her pop culture films. While you were gone we were working out way through the 80's— You know, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off—"

 _"Hi, Darling. Just checking in... You haven't been home in a few days. Call when you can, okay?"_

She skips over Paula, smirking at Wally as her voicemail announces the message's deletion. "Oh god. You can't show her Pretty Woman."

"Why not? It's a classic."

" _Why not?'"_ She repeats, wrinkling her nose; as if intrigued he sits up straighter, looking like he's half preparing himself for one of their old bickering sessions. "Wally, I know we've watched it about twenty times together but... Come on. It's garbage. I thought we only liked it in, like, an ironic way."

"An ironic way?" Wally blanches, looking offended. "My love for Julia Roberts is anything but ironic—"

 _"Hey, it's Zee. Call me back."_

"—You know what? This is, like, a betrayal of some sort of trust—"

 _"Artemis, stop being mad at me, okay? Call me."_

 _"It's Zatanna. I'm not kidding around, Artemis."_

 _"Look, Owen's all pissed off and Kaleb_ —"

 _"It's me again. Please call me back."_

"... Artemis? What's up?"

She blinks, unaware that the grin on her face has dropped entirely, her muscles going rigid. She can still hear Zatanna's messages playing, the unease and anxiousness in the other girl's voice sending her stomach churning— something's wrong. "I—I don't know." She says, getting to her feet. "I have all these messages from Zatanna. Did she ever come home last night?"

She can sense that Wally's struggling to keep up with what's happening— no doubt all thoughts of Julia Roberts are rapidly fading from his mind, the sudden change in her demeanor flushing his face into seriousness as he reads the worried expression quickly coating her features. "... I don't know. I didn't see her around when we went to bed."

 _"Look, I don't know where you are or what's happening and I just really need you to pick up your phone right now_ —"

Her stomach drops. Zatanna's crying.

Her voicemail squeals, signalling the end of her messages; before she can decide if she wants to hear them again she flips her phone shut, thinking hard. "I have to go." She mutters distractedly, getting to her feet. "Thanks for the tea."

"Hey—" She hears Wally call after her, and with a flurry of movement and wind he's right behind her, jogging to keep her pace. "Artemis, _hey_ , what's going on? Is Zee okay?"

She jerks her head, slipping out of his grasp easily when he attempts to slow her with a tug on her arm. "I don't know." She says flatly, mind already whirring and trying decide where to go first.

Wally continues to follow her, brows furrowed as he struggles to keep up with what's happening. "Well— like, ball park? Scale of 1 to 10? Because you're freaking me out. Should I get Kaldur? Dick?"

"No, just—" She hesitates, ignoring the wave of panic beginning to build inside her as she rounds on him, trying to remain calm. "I don't know. Zatanna's a big girl, she can..." She trails off, biting her lip. "I'll call you when I know, okay? Just... It's something with Kaleb, I think."

Wally's brows contract, apple eyes flickering between both of hers. "That guy from the party last night?" He frowns, and at once she can see a flash of something she doesn't want to see behind his irises, the unease in the back of her own mind clearly present in his. "... Do you think he did he do something to her? Like... I mean. She was really drunk too."

She hates the implications of the way he says it, her stomach squirming. "I _—_ I have to go. I can't even— just don't get everyone freaked out until I know what's happening, okay? Especially Dick—"

Wally nods but before he can say anything they're both cut off by the ringing of her cellphone; exchanging a look with him she flips it open, saying the name of the person she most wants to hear through the line. "Zatanna?" She blurts out, brows contracting when she hears the voice through the line. "... Mom?"

* * *

The stairs leading up to the Gotham apartment have never seemed more steep, never more daunting; ignoring the throbbing in her head and the vomit churning hot and fast inside her stomach she forces herself to keep climbing, not even stopping to indulge the swear that comes to her lips as she jabs her scraped toes against the top few steps, their unevenness catching her off guard as always.

"Hello?" She calls out before her front door is even open, peeling into the apartment so quickly she trips over the pile of shoes accumulating in the entrance. "Mom?"

She glances sideways into the kitchen as she charges forward, taking in her surroundings in flashes: newspaper open on the table, part way read. Tea cup half drained but not empty. The same predicable chords of her mother's Vietnamese music sounding from the radio on the counter, but no Paula—

"Artemis?" Her head snaps towards the sound of her mother calling her, and without question she follows it; down the hallway into the back bedroom, her bedroom—

She doesn't know what she's expecting when she opens the door— the ancient wood smashes open as she clatters against it, more stumbling into the room than actually making an entrance. "What the hell—"

She gets as far as inhaling and the words die in her throat. Her bedroom smells like blood.

For a moment, a long one, she feels weightless; the whole of her body seems to slam into her door, the impact almost vibrating the wall. Instinctively her eyes fly to Paula seated beside her bed, scanning and looking for something she isn't even sure of and eyes freezing on a pile of blood sodden tissues on her lap—

Then Zatanna sniffs.

"Oh my god." She hears herself say, fingers releasing the door knob she's still clutching. "Zee— oh my god. What happened?"

Zatanna opens her mouth to speak, trying to arrange her features, which are swollen from crying, into a smile. "You're really bad at picking up your phone, did you know that?" She says thickly, and she's forced to watch as blood dribbles down from Zatanna's split lip and onto her bed sheets.

The longer she looks at the other girl the worse it seems to get; eye make-up smeared down her cheeks, hair matted. Despite the fact that Zatanna's currently half hidden under her blankets she can see scratch marks and finger shaped bruises on her shoulders.

She swallows, doing her best not to breathe. "... Mom?" She says after a moment, looking at the older woman a little helplessly.

As if understand Paula nods, passing Zatanna a final tissue before she braces her hands on her wheels. "I'll go get some more ice, Darling." She says quietly, one hand brushing the other girls tangled hair over her shoulder in a comforting gesture before she makes to leave.

She can hardly even wait until her mother's out of the room, the few seconds it takes for the older woman to shut the door behind her feeling like half a century. "What happened?" She repeats, finally getting the courage to approach the bed. "Zatanna?"

In response the other girl sniffs again, reaching for the tissue box Paula's just deposited on her night table. "... Sorry." She mutters after a moment, blotting at her eyes and tucking her knees up to her chest. Her lip is so swollen the words sound oddly thick. "I was such an asshole last night."

"Zee—"

"And I know you're mad at me." The other girl continues, pressing the tissue to her mouth for a second and staining it crimson. "And that I shouldn't have come here—"

"Zatanna." She says firmly, cutting the other girl off and sitting on the edge of the bed. "I don't care about that right now, okay? Tell me what happened."

For a long moment the younger girl seems to hide behind her tissue, a wreck of tear stained skin and matted onyx hair; when she finally emerges she shakes her head, pressing a hand to her clammy forehead. "I was stupid, okay?" She says finally, sniffing again. "Kaleb wanted to go to an after party and I said yes, even though I knew you were mad. So we ditched everyone and Owen drove us to this weird party off of 7th street—"

"Owen drove?" She exhales, feeling her brows furrow. "Zatanna he was—"

"Drinking, I know. Skip the lecture." The other girl sighs, shaking her head. "I said I was stupid, okay?"

She doesn't get the sense that saying anything else is going to help things, and rather than upset the other girl anymore she bites the inside of her cheek, shifting her weight until she's slouching against her wall. "Okay."

"Okay." Zatanna huffs, and it seems to take her a moment to find her thread in the story. "And this party was—Everyone there was older, and rich, and... I don't know. It was fun for a while, I guess. But then... Well, Kaleb and I were fooling around in a bedroom and... Well, you saw him. Owen's an idiot. And I guess he was upset that things didn't really go well between you two, and that Kaleb still had a date and he didn't and... A couple people told me that he was doing lines in the bathroom."

She can't stop herself from scoffing. "He was snorting cocaine? God."

The other girl nods. "Right. So Kaleb and I came down stairs and... I don't even know how it happened, I had drank so much. But before I even knew what was going on Kaleb and Owen were out on the lawn brawling and— and I couldn't think of h-how to stop them, so I tried to pull them off each other. And Owen—"

She can feel her blood chilling, an unspeakable amount of anger flooding through her; she can picture it now. Kaleb and Owen fighting, duking out punches on the lawn. And Zatanna, drunk, probably panicked and not sure how to speak frontwards let along backwards... Zatanna, whose hand to hand skills have always been okay, at best...

She can picture it. The younger girl screaming, lunging forward, trying to get them both off each other— the two nice boys she met at the country club cursing at her, cursing at each other. She can see her, pulling them apart but then getting caught in the thick of things. And Owen... That asshole, Owen, so hopped up on drugs that he doesn't have a clue what he's doing, decking her...

Zatanna makes a choking sound, as if she's trying to chuckle. "... He was wearing his graduation ring. It cut my lip."

Her stomach seems to have migrated to somewhere around her ankles; despite not wanting to she can't stop her eyes from scanning the cut on Zatanna's lip, the bruises along her shoulders. Now that she's looking she can see the impression of too strong fingers inches from her clavicle, yellow bruises staining her milky skin and making it obvious where she was pinned and beaten in the dirt.

She can feel a well practiced coldness beginning to run through her veins; closing her eyes she deliberately keeps her expression blank, voice measured. "... Did Kaleb get him off you?"

"... No." Zatanna admits, seeming to shrink down further behind her knees. "He was out cold. But... I don't know. Owen knocked some sense into me and I just... I don't even know what spell I said. I just got out of there."

There's a pause in which all she can think to do is nod, feeling so furious that she can hardly feel her fingers as they clench onto her knees; as if taking this for a bad sign the younger girl makes a strange choking noise. "... I'm sorry." Zatanna repeats again. "You were right— those guys were such jerks, you and Dick were both... I know you're still mad at me, but— I just needed someone, okay? I needed somewhere safe, with people who wouldn't... Here was the only place I could think of. Paula let me in."

She feels herself inhale and exhale mechanically, oblivious to the anxious look on the other girl's face. "I'm not mad." She says, surprised that she means it. Unconsciously she slouches forward, pressing her hair behind her ears out of habit, thinking hard. "I mean— maybe at myself, a little. When did you get here?"

"Couple hours ago. Took me forever to find my way back to the Cave and get to the zeta tubes."

Finally she opens her eyes again. "... Have you slept at all?" She asks, watching as the other girl shakes her head. "Crash here. I'll go see how Paula's doing with that ice." She tries to say as warmly as possible, reaching forward to prod the other girl in the shoulder when she doesn't lie down. "I'm serious, go to sleep. You look awful."

Zatanna snorts when she stands, the half smile making her lip start bleeding again. "You're sweet."

"Sure." She says vaguely, reaching for her door to close it; before she's fully out of the room she pauses, sending the other girl one last look. "For future reference... I mean, I've had a few shitty nights myself." She says dumbly. "... If you ever need someone else to call... Well, Dick's a lot better at answering his phone."

The other girl blinks, but doesn't answer; deciding she doesn't want to look at her anymore she closes the door.

* * *

"Zatanna's sleeping." She tells Paula as she passes through the kitchen, not stopping. "I told her you would bring her some more ice. If we don't bring down all that swelling soon she might need stitches."

She can hear her mother's wheelchair squeaking across the kitchen tiles but she doesn't stop moving beyond kicking her sandals off her feet, bending to grab her sturdy combat boots from their usual place beside the door. Rather than argue she hears the older woman sigh. "Poor girl. Split lips are no fun."

Rather than say anything back she slips her bare feet into her shoes, crouching and tying the laces deliberately too tight. "You're going out?" Her mother asks.

She shrugs, not looking at the older woman as she reaches for her hoodie, removing it from a nearby hook. "I'll be back in a few hours. Something I have to do."

She makes it as far as opening the door when Paula surprises her by chuckling. "Give him hell, Darling." She says, already wheeling away from her. "It's what all Crock women do."

* * *

Her hand clenches inside her hoodie pocket, fingers framing the outline of her cellphone as if to test the vibrations; she counts four rings before the caller gives up, once again not leaving a voicemail.

She's hungry now; her hangover has faded into all around weakness, her stomach begging her for water and food. She doesn't know how long she's been here, waiting. All she knows is the early evening light is growing soft and she has never been more hungry and thirsty and exhausted in her own life. Tea with Wally seems like days ago.

Her phone vibrates again, signaling a text message; pulling it out of her pocket she ignores the clicking tongue of a passing woman, no doubt another club regular scandalized by her outfit.

 _(SMS) Text Message: Received at 9:02 pm_

 _From: Baywatch_

 _Everything OK_

She shifts against the fine brick wall she's leaning against, the movement ruffling the ends of her sleeping shorts; when she glances up she catches a disapproving looking from the driver of a rather shiny looking convertible, attempting to disguise his fascination with her bare legs under the pretense of the turning of his car towards the gate of the country club. She slouches.

 _(SMS) Text Message: Sent at 9:04 pm_

 _To: Baywatch_

 _yeah. have fun at movie night_

She means to say more, but somehow the words aren't coming to her; after nearly minute of wanting to write something, anything, substantial she hits send, giving the whole thing up as a bad job. Shoving her phone in her pocket again she straightens from her position near the gate, boots smacking against the sidewalk as she takes a few paces closer to the entrance of the club parking lot.

She's sure she's been here for a few hours now, loitering and habitually rounding the corner to double check the amount of Mercedes and Corvettes still parked there— in the past hour the number of car has dwindled down completely, only a few stragglers tying up their golf games beginning to now.

She bites the inside of her cheek, reopening the wound she's been making worse all day. She's not even sure if Owen's in there, what she wants to say to him. All she knows is that _—_

Is that she sees him. Coming from the club, walking into the parking lot— even from a half block away she recognizes the distinctive curly blonde hair, places his pacing as he walks towards his car, a golf bag slung on his shoulder. He doesn't even look like he's hurting from the last night, like anything out of the ordinary even happened.

She watches as he raises his hand the way all obnoxious pretty boys do, fingers clicking a car starter that sends something silver and too-fast looking flashing. He calls something back over his shoulder, teeth glinting into an obnoxious smile.

"Tonight then." He shouts out to his friend; by now they're the only two people left in the parking lot, everyone else either leaving or still inside celebrating with a scotch. "At Derek's place. Bring some girls too _—_ Kaleb set me up with this fucking bitch last night, remind me to _—_ "

The wrinkle pops up over her nose, and before she knows what she's going to do she yanks her hood up and starts moving.

He's not paying attention, still laughing and talking, not realizing what's about to happen; she watches as he clicks the trunk of his car open, swinging his golf bag off his shoulders; distantly she can hear his friend give a shout of surprise, of warning, but it's too late _—_

He makes a stupid sort of yelping noise when she lunges at him, his clubs swinging off his shoulders and clattering against the ground; she can hear the panicked noises in the background, his friend shouting and no doubt running to help as she slams him into the dirt, ramming Owen on his back and not letting him even feel the air as it leaves his lungs with impact. Without thinking she punches him as hard as she can, her knuckles cracking as she feels his bones yielding under her fists.

"What the fuck!" He swears, the cuss not even fully out of his mouth before she slams another blow into his skull, then another.

She must clock him in the jaw six times before it happens; she catches him at a good angle and suddenly his lip bursts open, a mess of blood and phlegm that splatters across his face so thickly that he nearly chokes on it _—_

She gasps out when someone else knocks into her, the impact of an awkwardly shot punch knocking her in the side of the head; it's enough to unseat her for a moment but in an instant she's on her feet again, already snarling as her own expertly honed upper cut finds its mark on another opponent's chin. With a certain amount of satisfaction she watches as Owen's unknown friend's head tosses back, the whole of his weight knocking backwards as she kicks him in a stomach, his feet tripping over each other before he sprawls on the pavement.

It's too easy to be satisfying. Figures two pretty boys wouldn't be much of a challenge.

Owen's being unbelievably pathetic about it, whimpering and clutching his face at her feet and not even trying to fight back; for a long moment she stands there, breathing raggedly, waiting for one of them to get up and try her again. But the rebuttal doesn't come, not really. "What the fuck?" She hears Owen repeat to himself.

It's not enough, standing there and watching as his words grow muddled, whining turning water-logged with tears; before she thinks twice on it she starts scanning the ground, looking through the mess of golf clubs and balls Owen's spilled there. Picking the sturdiest one she covers her hands with her sleeves, seizing it.

She hardly registers the sound of Owen's groaning as she starts swinging, doesn't even hear his pleads for her to stop above the sound of his car alarm beginning to go off, the ringing of shattering glass and denting metal filling the otherwise peaceful silence of dusk; she needs to move quickly, she knows that the police are probably going to be called in a matter of seconds. Again and again she swings, feeling her muscles popping and shoulders aching, slamming the golf club into his rear view mirrors, along his windows, the middle of his hood.

Finally, only after she's out of breath and his airbags have popped open from the force of her beating, does she walk a lap around the car, admiring the damage from every angle. "What the fuck?" Owen repeats, blood oozing down his chin and she stops mere feet from him.

She doesn't say anything back; she knows her voice will give her away. Instead she takes care drop the dented club beside him.

Then, like a real Crock woman, she runs.

* * *

 **AN: I have about a hundred of you shouting at me in my inbox and in the reviews, so let me share the good news with those of you who don't know it** — **YOUNG JUSTICE IS RETURNING. For a third season and hopefully many more!**

 **Wow, I just... I don't even know what to say to express how happy this makes me. We did it guys! We really did it!**

 **Onto more pressing things, however... I've gotten this question over a dozen times in the last few days, and I figured I'd post an general reply here. Part of the reason this update has been so delayed is because of finding an answer has proved a little more difficult than I thought it would.**

 **Q: What's going to happen with this story now that we're getting a season 3?**

 **A: That's... complicated. And to be honest, still very much up in the air. Season 3 doesn't premiere until 2017 sometime, and I have no idea what sort of content they're going to give us. A continuation after Wally's ceasing? Something to fill the gap between the two seasons? No clue.**

 **Because I have no idea what kind of content is canon or not, and I'm aiming to be as close to canon as possible... Well, you see the dilemma. I have a notebook full of planning and a whole subplot that suddenly feels like it might be less accurate to the series and more me grasping at straws.**

 **To be honest guys, I have no idea what's going to happen with this story. But I will tell you this** — **as long as you guys are still reading, then I'm going to try to keep writing Parenthesis as long as I can, and if it so happens that I need to end it prematurely I promise to tie up all my loose ends. And regardless of where the writers choose to take it, I promise I'll be there to tell Artemis' side of the story. No matter what, new stories will spring forward because of this.**

 **... Finally, I want to thank everyone who filled my inbox with the good news, especially those of you who immediately got scared that I would quit this story cold turkey. I don't know how I generated a following like you guys, but I thank my lucky stars that you're all so supportive and into what I'm putting out.**

 **You're the best! Please Read and Review!**


	31. Through This Metamorphose

**AN: Another chapter up and running! Enjoy the update.**

* * *

She runs, hard and fast and without any real direction; in the back of her mind she hardly registers shoulders buffeting against hers and distant half-shouts of people she's colliding with. She doesn't feel like herself, or maybe she's so used to feeling nothing that feeling something is strange—alien, even, to be suddenly aware of the tightness in the pit of her stomach, the anger throbbing in her mind. Another person swears as she passes, but she can't hear them— she tastes the ragged breaths she's drawing in and feels her lungs ache, phlegm coating her throat and forcing her to spit.

 _When was the last time she ran like this? Pushing herself to the limit, determined to outrun any possibilities that might be chasing her..._

 _She used to run more. Like this, hard like this. Why_ — _Why doesn't she run like this anymore?_

 _... Has she changed, without noticing?_

She begins to lose track of the blocks, of how far she's moved; as the adrenaline floods through her the number of steps she's mentally tracking wavers and fades, becoming nothing more than the slapping sound of her boots on the pavement. She cuts down an alley, out of breath and finally slowing to a stuttering jog that sends the scarred muscles in her thigh twitching in a way they haven't in a while.

Nobody's coming after her now. She's too far.

The heel of her boot skids, her thigh now aching in a way that forces her to stop; her lungs feel like they're about to burst, her throat raw as she tries to breathe. The air in the alley is stale, stinking of something rotten; she can sense mice scattering out of sight around the garbage cans, hidden in the dusk settling around her.

 _Nobody is coming._

She makes a noise, halfway between a groan and something else as she doubles over, hands braced on her knees. Her phlegm is choking her and she spits again, watching as her saliva drips cleanly onto the stained pavement; her adrenaline won't let her be still the way her leg is begging her to, her entire body aching to get moving again.

 _Keep moving, keep moving._

Her heart beats, loud and unfailingly alive in a way she's not used to.

 _Breathe_.

The knuckles on her right hand are stained with Owen's blood, the skin beneath it tender and split in places. It looks strangely stretched around the bend of her knee, warbled and blistered as if it doesn't belong to her.

... She's missed this, even if she can't figure out what _this_ is; after a long moment she straightens, muscles shaking and diaphragm quaking as she struggles to limp onwards, struggles to keep going. It reminds her of the old days, before Wally, before the Team, before Paula even; getting into trouble and having to bail herself out, outrunning cops and winning whatever fight she's gotten herself into. This kind of rush is different than anything she's tasted on the Team— it's the best kind of high: the mixture of adrenaline and satisfaction, an intoxicating combination of the thrill of the fight and the length of the run. It seems to flow through her veins like morphine, drugging her, making everything hazy yet vivid.

 _... Why did she stop doing this again?_

Her phone vibrates once more but she ignores it, instead giving in to the pain in her leg; inhaling again she reaches out a hand to clutch at the brick-backed wall of the building she's behind, fingers digging hard into the edges of the grout as she peels her sleeping shorts up her thigh, curious.

... The scar's faded now, after all these months. For a while after Metropolis she never thought it would; perhaps it's a trick of the light, but even as she runs her forefinger over it she knows the bullet sized fissure is less raised, although still stark white against her Vietnamese skin. But Black Canary had been right, warning her not to push herself too quickly... The wound never did heal quite right.

 _A lot about her never did._

 _(But a scar is stronger than normal flesh_ — _having quite a few of them she should know. She knows that when you are broken it hurts. But when the sinews and flesh of a wound stitch back together they do so with the intention of never being hurt that way again. That moment of pain is the moment healing begins; the moment the fibers of your being begin to sew together once more that is the inkling of healing, of progress, of_ — _)_

Her adrenaline is beginning to leak out of her system, and with the fading of its sharpness she's slapped with a dull realization: she shouldn't have done this. Going after a civilian, even an asshole like Owen, and attacking him... If the League ever finds out she knows she'll be in trouble.

 _But it needed to be done._

She exhales, testing her weight on her leg again; although the muscles along her thigh seem to quiver slightly she stands, finally releasing the wall. She still doesn't know why she did it, what good it was supposed to do. Owen had already gotten to Zatanna, nothing she just did will fix that, but— But it was the right thing to do, she knows it was. It's what you're supposed to do when someone hurts a person you care about... You're supposed to protect them, to avenge the hurt they had to bear. Coming after Owen had been the only way to let him know that he couldn't get away with treating her like that, that him throwing a few punches at the girl who for these last few months has been like a sister to—

Jade. Her sister.

... Jade had done something like this once.

It takes a few seconds, standing there and breathing raggedly, for the full memory to come back: She's eight. Maybe nine? And there's a boy... The son of one of her father's friends. She narrows her eyes at nothing, thinking hard, trying to find something, anything to cling to; a name, she can't remember his name...

She exhales hard, willing herself to focus, but the name still remains long gone, something just beyond her memory that she can't place. But... But there are other things. A tuft of boyish blonde hair. Skin so pale it could be blue... The feeling of too-cold lips pressing nervously against hers, ignoring her hands as she had tried to shove him off...

It had been kid stuff. A boyish claim on a first kiss she hadn't been willing to give up.

... God.

It had been stupid. And she had cried after, the way a little girl could only cry when they lose that last bit of pathetic innocence she had been trying to preserve in the backwards world she was living in. Her father had laughed and told her to be grateful he hadn't wanted anything else... And Paula had told her she was going to be a heart breaker.

But Jade... Jade had gone after him. Tracked him down, roughed him up. She remembers her father yelling after, remembers the throwing of furniture and talks of the breaking of unwritten rules. There's was screaming, and beatings and... And other things that she doesn't want to remember. But Jade had seen her crying, and she had done what she needed to do.

 _... Did she learn this from Jade? This... Weird sense of justice?_

She's no longer out of breath, cheeks still flushed as she mulls the thought over... She can't remember the last time she thought about her sister.

For some reason the smell in the alley grows worse, the stink growing so sour that suddenly she can hardly breathe. Her legs scream out when she forces them to move again, heels pounding loudly into the pavement as she breaks into a sprint.

* * *

The high works its way out of her slowly as she climbs the stairs of the Gotham apartment, the sirens outside wailing and breaking the silence.

The thought of her sister seems to follow her home, taking the stairs two at a time to match her pace; how many years has it been since Jade last walked these steps? How long has it been since she called the apartment home?

 _Why couldn't she leave her in the back alley where she belongs?_

Her legs continue to ache, twitching and angry with her as she trips on her usual step; somehow even the pain in her toes can't numb her mind... When was the last time she saw Jade alive? It takes her too long to retrace the last few months on her fingers, too long to tally the absence. Athens. It had been Athens, the first time, when the two of them had been trying to fight to the death.

The last time she saw her sister she had been trying to kill her.

Since then she's only heard from her through Roy who... Has also been gone, she's now realizing, since before she went to Quarac. What had he told her the last time? That Jade had left all those years ago to protect her?

Where are the two of them now?

 _... Are they safe?_

Her mind is too exhausted to process her thoughts, the questions she wants answers to seeming to rise inside her skull and float there, unsupported.

* * *

The night peels off her in layers, starting with the blood coating her knuckles; she stands naked in the shower for a long time, watching as droplets of water coil down her shoulders, finding familiar patterns over the arcing muscles of her arms, finally curling off her fingers in small delicate waves. The water stains copper as it disappears down the drain.

... She expected it to feel better, hitting Owen.

Or at least that the satisfied feeling would last longer; or maybe it's still there, hidden inside her—some kind of sickness that hasn't hit her yet. Is that what she thinks of feelings now? As a disease? Is that as screwed up as she thinks it is?

 _(For the first time in the longest time she wishes she could talk to her sister.)_

The blood disappears but Jade lingers; more than ever in the last few months she can sense her memory here, as if on the other side of the shower curtain she's lurking, waiting to be noticed.

… She had thought it would feel better, hitting Owen. It had seemed like a good idea—and it was, right? He had hit Zatanna, so she had hit him. It was a good idea. She's beginning to doubt herself, beginning to question her similarities to her sister, her mind trying to think itself in circles yet too exhausted to do anything other than bombard her with unanswerable questions.

... It's been so long since she thought of her. After what happened in Athens she had felt so lost, so... So gone, as if she no longer existed. Or maybe she's simply been wishing she didn't.

But she had thought of her tonight. Thought of old memories, the old Jade. Thought about the older sister who had once done everything in her power to protect her...

 _Why is that she always thinks of her when she's at her worst?_

She can feel her stomach churning uncomfortably, the too-hot water scalding her skin as she scrubs soap into her hands yet again, double checking that all the crimson underneath her nails is coming clean. She knows that what Roy told her, between the spaces of his words, is true. Jade had left all those years ago to try to bait Lawrence away. Jade had left in some twisted way to try to save her...

 _But it hadn't worked._

Her muscles are beginning to ache, the old scar on her neck feeling oddly tight as she tilts her head more surely under the water. She's still not used to washing such short hair, not used to the way it sticks to her cheeks, the ends of it water logged and sending thick lines of water rolling off her in unpredictable places.

... Jade had left, and found her way back. But the last time she saw her... She had told her she wanted her dead.

She feels hollowed out by her own exhaustion, standing there under the water, watching beads of moisture roll from her chin down her clavicle before disappearing under the swell of her breasts. Jade had left to try to save her, had opened up a debt she's been too stupid and too steeped in her own denial to realize even existed.

... But what is she supposed to do, anyway? How to you repay someone for something you never asked for?

Is she supposed to go after her? Find her? Drag her back home?

... No. She can't. Jade isn't Jade now. The Cheshire Cat isn't her sister.

She can't stand here thinking about this anymore; the water is beginning to run cold—well, not cold. But not hot enough for her taste. She leaves her blood stained clothes in a rumpled pile in the corner of the bathroom, instead taking her mother's bathrobe off the hook on the back of the door.

As if it knows she's been thinking about her sister the outline of Jade's old twin bed seems to draw her eyes as she enters her bedroom, accusing and blaringly loud as she loops the knot of Paula's bathrobe around her waist. As the door shuts behind her she registers the sound of blankets rumpling, and although the room is too dark to see she can imagine Zatanna raising her head from beneath her blankets, voice cracking and exhausted across the room. "Artemis?"

"Hey." Her own voice sounds hoarse as she keeps her back to the other girl, crossing the room to her dresser.

"Hi." There's a pause where the other girl seems to listen hard to the sound of her drawers opening. "... I wasn't sure if you were coming back."

Even though it's so dark in the room she still hesitates after extracting an old tee shirt and some ragged sweats. "Well, I'm here." She says plainly. She keeps her back to the other girl as she dresses, water dribbling off her hair and clinging to her shoulders, making the cotton of her clothes stick to her skin.

For a moment it's too intimate for her taste, being naked in the dark; she can sense Zatanna trying to find her, squinting and trying to read her silences. She finds she can't think of much to say, thankful for the distraction of dressing to avoid the swirl of annoyance and anger still burning in the pit of her stomach.

Apparently the awkward silence is too much for Zatanna to handle; there's the shift of bedsprings as the other girl rolls onto her back, gathering the courage to speak. "I didn't know if I should stay, or... Move to the other bed?" She says awkwardly, listening as the floorboard squeaks as she crosses the room to hang her mother's damp robe on the back of her door. "Your Mom said I could but... You know. It's your sister's bed."

She feels a pang run through her stomach; Jade seems to scream louder than ever in the back of her mind, a reminder that there's still unfinished business between them. For a half moment her head swings to where she knows the matching twin bed is shoved against the wall, the Alice in Wonderland poster above it invisible yet still mocking in the darkness.

She swallows down some feeling she doesn't understand and looks away. "... Move over." She says firmly.

"What?"

It takes several seconds for Zatanna to realize she's being serious; by the time she reaches the edge of her bed it only just occurs to the other girl to move. "Tomorrow I'm stripping the sheets and getting all of her old stuff out of here." She mutters, settling into the warm spot on the mattress that the other girl's just vacated. Her wet hair presses hard into the side of her cheek as she flattens herself against her pillow, keeping her back firmly turned away from Zatanna. "After that... I don't know. It can be your bed, if you ever want to stay somewhere other than the Cave."

"Artemis?"

"Go to sleep." She says, yanking her sheets over herself.

There's another stunned silence where she can sense the other girl's bewilderment; for several long seconds she can feel Zatanna's gaze boring into the back of her head. "... Did something happen?"

She doesn't say anything, but accidentally lets an annoyed breath out before she can stop it; the other girl doesn't buy her poor act of pretending to be instantly asleep, and she can feel the mattress beneath both of them quake as she rolls closer to her. "... I'm sorry, okay?" She whispers. "For last night and... And dumping all this on you. You can kick me out, you know."

She swallows, hating it when the other girl reaches out to touch her on the shoulder. "You're staying." She says fiercely, rolling onto her back to glare at the other girl. _You're staying because I need to protect you._ "... But if you ever do anything this stupid ever again—"

"You'll kill me. I get it."

She scowls, but the other girl doesn't see it in the darkness; the mattress quakes and Zatanna rolls to face the wall.

* * *

July begins to roll by, the days long and hot in a way that makes her appreciate her too-short hair.

The next morning she rises early, ignoring the way Zatanna's legs have tangled with hers in the night; she strips the sheets from her sister's old bed and removes old sweaters from the closet, emptying all Jade's belongings and books from the bedside table into a box she found in the hallway closet.

The Cheshire Cat seems to watch accusingly as all this happens, but soon he and the box containing Jade are shoved unceremoniously underneath her own bed.

 _She never wants to think of her sister ever again._

Her and Zatanna don't speak of the night before, or of July 4th at all. They spend several days being too polite too each other until finally they loosen into their usual banter. Zatanna brings her own sheets and makes her bed, and soon the empty spaces on her book shelf are filled with magazines and perfume bottles rather than the holes in her life that Jade left. Paula says nothing of the new arrangement, although she suspects that the older woman likes the apartment so full; one day she catches her mother mumbling an old Vietnamese tune under her breath, smiling as she brews tea for three.

Once again things seem slow around the Cave, as if the usual suspects are also being lulled into relaxation by the warm weather as much as they are; in the weeks that follow after the fourth of July they're only called out once or twice to low-ball missions that don't really amount to much other than sitting around in silence.

For once, however, the familiar itch for action seems to keep itself at bay, and after the tedium of all night missions like these they're all much more content than usual to spend the day dozing on the beach; in fact, they all seem to gather there regardless of what the day has in store for them. Gradually her skin, already dark from Quarac, seems to settle into a deep caramel hue from laying around in lounge chairs with Zatanna, a faint burst of freckles erupting on her arms that she knows will disappear when the leaves fall in the autumn.

When the day fades into evening they tend to split off from each other; Kaldur and Tula seem to lounge in the water long after sundown, and Dick and Zatanna will retire into the cozier parts of the Cave to argue. On the few nights they don't return to Paula for dinner she'll sit on the sand and read until the darkness is so heavy she can't see the words on the pages.

Although it's still difficult for both of them it is on these nights that Wally finds her; he always seems to catch her just as she returns to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, or just as she curls into a chair in the common room. At first these meetings are a bit too-brief, just a few minutes of light conversation, but eventually they begin to turn into hour long affairs filled with laughter and talks about nothing that leave her feeling lighter, almost happy.

Her mouth is still aching from smiling as the two of them disappear behind their cups— he's been telling her an old story she's heard before about his Aunt Iris, but she doesn't tell him that; she likes the way he talks about the unknown woman, the way his eyes crinkle with laughter and his voice seems warmer, happier than normal. She's had the foresight to make tea for two this evening, and by the time Wally had made one of his appearances she'd gotten his prepared the way he likes it. She watches for a long moment as he swallows, finally lowering his cup to press against the arm of the couch they're occupying opposite ends of. "... You heard anything else from Meg?"

She feels the smile she's wearing waver. "Not really. I don't even know if Connor got there okay. You?"

Wally shrugs, stretching out a leg towards her; he's so tall the tips of his toes can almost touch her bare ankle. "Nothing. I tried calling, but... Well, you know. Service is spotty."

She nods, not sure how he knows this; for a moment she wonders if she told him this after the call with M'gann, or if he perhaps tried to call her while she was gone. She supposes knowing the answer won't help things. "If something was wrong we'd know." She say reasonably, disappearing behind her cup again.

It's his turn to nod, watching her sip her tea; she can feel him memorizing parts of her, the look so accidentally intense that she's suddenly aware of every atom in her body, from the skin along her hips being cut into by her denim shorts to the straps of her tank top sitting precariously, about to slip down her shoulder.

She clears her throat and Wally blinks, the corners of his mouth quirking. "Your hair is getting longer." He says vaguely.

As he says it she becomes aware of the hair behind her ear, of the way it brushes the middle of her neck; she suspects in a month's time she'll finally be able to pull it back into a pony tail. Rather than say anything to this she smiles, changing the subject.

* * *

She turns on her heel, the muscles in her shoulders popping as she reaches for her quiver; all around her the quiet of the Star City air is broken by the sound of knuckles colliding with bone, skin slapping against skin as punches are thrown, the alarm of a nearby bank sounding shrilly and sending her ears aching—

Her abdomen aches as she twists, marking her quarry just as he breaks into a run, intent on taking her mentor by surprise; her gaze finds Oliver's familiar eyes under his mask for a fraction of a second as she thumbs her arrow tips. "Down!" She snarls, notching her arrow against her finger and aiming a mere inch over his shoulder.

His eyes widen, and she's sure that for a second he's convinced she's aiming for him; despite this he doesn't hesitate, blind trust leading him on as he reacts at the last possible second, palms slapping against the pavement just as she releases— she has enough time to register the sound of metal slicing through the air and the explosive smog that signals she's found her target before an unfamiliar hand seizes a fistful of her hair, dragging her backwards by the scalp.

She's thrown off balance by someone much larger than her; she can sense the burly fist flying towards her jaw before it comes and with a guttural noise in the back of her throat she rocks out of the way, ankle rolling. Ignoring the pain that shoots up her calve she swings her bow around, slamming her quarry in the middle of his back, her opposite leg kicking out to find his diaphragm.

She watches as his body crumbles, the muscles underneath his ragged black clothes going slack; before she can finish the job properly there's a cry as Oliver sends the target of her arrow flying forward, the goon's body skidding through the dirt, knocking out his fellow and sending the two of them colliding into the tall grey walls of the bank building, unconscious.

"Good work." Oliver tells her after a moment, his voice sounding slightly ragged with exertion the way it always does after small skirmishes like these. "Caught me a little off guard with that arrow though."

She shrugs, grinning at him as she reaches up to feel the empty spaces in her quiver. One explosive, two pointed gone. "Maybe you're just getting old." She teases.

Oliver's face grows sour for a moment before he grins, moustache bristling; she can hear sirens in the distance, hardly there under the howling of the bank alarm still sounding after these idiots attempted a robbery. "Speaking of getting older." He says smoothly, gesturing for her to follow him towards the attempted robbers, no doubt under the pretext of making sure they don't come to and start squirming again. "It's your birthday in a few days, right?"

For a moment she mulls it over, mentally trying to track the days; the laziness of summer has made it difficult to feel the passing of time, all the days she's spent on the beach at the Cave all blurring into one. "Sure. 20th of July."

"You doing anything special?" When all she does is shrug Oliver's brows raise, hands going to his hips as they come to a stop beside the mass of black she knows to be unconscious criminals. "No parties? Not doing anything with your friends?"

She feels her stomach twist as the sirens begin to grow louder. "... M'gann would usually throw one." She says shiftily, one of her feet jutting out to prod the boot of one of the guys they've just downed, watching as his ankle rocks against the force before flopping back to it original position. "It's just... It's not a big deal."

She can sense him looking at her a little too hard and rather than meet his eyes she makes a show of collapsing her bow, twisting her wrist and clipping it to her belt. "Come on. Sweet Sixteen?" Oliver counters, tone much too light for the critical look behind his mask. "You have to do something to celebrate."

Again she shrugs, not really sure what to say as she looks up at him. "... I booked my driver's test for that day. Does that count?"

In response Oliver makes a scoffing noise. "That's it?"

"Yeah."

"Artemis." Her whines, and she catches herself wincing at the tone— the overlong drawling, the scoff at the end, the expression on his face that seems to tell her she's not catching on quick enough. "I'm your mentor, remember? That means making sure you're adjusting well, on the battlefield and off—"

The sirens are close now; at the mention of _adjusting well_ her nose wrinkles, and as if settling the matter she cuts him off, not wanting to hear the lecture. "It's fine, okay?" She says firmly. "It's not a big deal to me. I spent last year reading alone in the kitchen, getting my driver's license is more than enough excitement."

The police cars are pulling to a stop around the, sirens dying but still painting them in shades of blue and red; Oliver frowns but doesn't say anything back, instead raising a hand to call the new arrivals' attention. "No plans with your Mom?"

"She's working."

"Zatanna? I hear she's been spending a lot of time round your place."

She decides against asking how he knows this. "Probably not."

She watches as his mask wrinkles around his eyes, hand finally lowering. "... Then let's do something, you and me."

"Oliver—"

It's his turn to cut her off, speaking out of the corner of his mouth in a tone that lets her know there's no point in arguing. "I'll drive you to take your test, how's that? And if it goes well, lunch after."

The men at her feet begin to stir, and deciding there's no point in saying no she shrugs once more.

* * *

On the nineteenth of July the temperature rockets to a boiling 86 degrees, the hottest the city has been in years; that morning she wakes to sweat clinging to her bones and a view of Zatanna's back as she races to the free air conditioning of the Cave. She lies there for a long time, sweating, before she moves.

Although they've been near constant companions since the beginning of July she finds she doesn't miss the other girl leaving; it's been a long time since her and her mother were alone. Despite the boiling heat her and Paula make a game of it, racing from room to room, opening windows and plugging in fans, but between the weather and their non-existent air conditioning the tiny apartment remains stifling. Even though neither of them can stand the heat it still makes for good fun; for the first time in the while they have something to talk about.

"That used to be my spot, you know."

She jumps slightly, not having heard her mother roll into her bedroom; in an attempt to stay cool she's climbed over her night table and taken a seat on the window ledge, feet dangling about the grate of the fire escape. "It was?" She asks, turning her back on the Gotham light illuminating the smoggy evening sky, rattling her lamp as she turns to face her mother.

In answer Paula nods, rolling closer. "After I used to put you and your sister into bed." She clarifies, and unwillingly both of their eyes are drawn to Zatanna's unmade sheets for a moment. "... Even then July was hot, I used to hope it would be cooler out there. Never was, of course."

"Not much better now, either." She shrugs, smiling slightly.

Paula nods, and for a half second she looks at her with a strange look on her face. "Zatanna's out for the night?"

"The Cave has air conditioning." She offers as an explanation, rattling the lamp on her bedside table as she maneuvers back into her bedroom; pushing her hair back behind her ear she straightens. "What do you think, too hot for tea?"

"… How about we skip the tea this evening?" Paula says after a moment, considering her carefully. "It's your birthday tomorrow. How about we celebrate?"

The offer intrigues her, and when she follows her mother back into the kitchen she's surprised to see two small glasses already set on the table, filled with a sparkling liquid that seems to make her salivate when she inhales it. "What's this?" She asks, picking the chunky bottom glass and raising it to eye level, examining the ice cubes floating in the marigold colored liquid.

In response her mother gestures for her to take her seat. "One of my old favorites." She says genially, looking pleased when she takes her usual chair around the kitchen table, clutching the glass until the coolness seems to seep into her fingers. "You're probably too young to appreciate it, but I thought… Well, it's not every day a girl turns sixteen."

Again, it's that strange sentiment, the instilled belief everyone else seems to have that her birthday is supposed to mean something; rather than argue she does her best to smile as she watches as her mother raises her own glass, gesturing for her to do the same before taking a sip.

When the mysterious liquid seeps down her throat she feels as if she's being gagged by a burning floral sensation, the alcohol flooding through her and making her mouth water for more. It's a strange taste, not quite pleasant but not quite anything else either; she can feel herself swallowing several times before the flavor seems to disappear, dulling on her tongue while the floral scent seems to linger. Paula, for her part, smacks her lips appreciatively. "It's nice." She says, not quite lying.

Her mother seems to know the truth and smiles at her knowingly; after only a few sips she's gotten a strange pink flush rising high in her hollowed out cheek bones. "You will grow into it." She tells her kindly, taking another swig. "It's Vietnamese rice wine, very strong. I thought it would be nice to celebrate your birthday tonight—I'm sorry I couldn't get the day off work tomorrow."

"It's fine." She takes another sip, still not sure if she likes the taste. "I don't really... I mean, it's just like any other day. I was just doing to go down to the DMV and get take my driver's test, Oliver said he'd take me."

Paula's brows raise, and this time when she sips the rice wine she seems to let it linger in her mouth a bit too long before she swallows, as if she's mulling over what to say next. "Oh." A strange pause. "I didn't know you even wanted to get one."

She can feel an uncomfortable squirming in her stomach, not sure if it's the conversation or the liquor— after July 4th she's been off put by alcohol altogether, stomach still remembering the bitterness of vomiting too much of it up. "Yeah, well… I don't know why I'm really doing it." She doesn't mention Marie. "I just thought I should get it out of the way."

Paula nods and takes another sip, this time much larger than the others. When she sets her nearly empty glass down on the table she sighs, a strangely sad smile crinkling her eyes. "… Oh, Darling." She muses, reaching across the table and taking her hand in an odd burst of affection. "You're growing up so fast."

She can't think of anything to say and instead makes a funny shrugging movement, smiling awkwardly. Paula looks at her for too long, hesitating before she squeezes her hand, continuing. "… I could apologize a thousand times and it will never be enough." The older woman sighs, her lower lip beginning to tremble. "Those years we lost each other… You will never know how much I regret them. How much I regret what I did to you."

Paula's hand is like iron on hers as she shifts in her chair, wishing the conversation would end. "It's okay, Mom." She says mechanically. "It's… I mean…"

She's never been good at this sort of thing and trails off before she finishes, feeling helpless; Paula for her part pulls her smile tighter, trying to stop the emotion trembling there. "You always were sweet." To her relief her hand is released and she promptly hides it under the table. "… I just want you to know… I love you, Darling. I don't say it enough."

She doesn't know why she feels as awkward as she does about this, taking another too large mouthful of rice wine; by now both their glasses are nearly empty. Before she can manage to say anything back Paula is shifting in her chair, gesturing across the table to a small wrapped box she hadn't noticed before. "Open it."

"Mom." She starts, feeling uncomfortable. "You didn't—"

"Open it." Paula repeats, sounding more insistent as she reaches across the table, dragging the small wrapped parcel towards her.

She's never been fond of presents— she knows that money is tight, that any present her mother could give her would be bought with money she can't afford, or be found with time she can't spend between work, and doctor's visits, and rehabilitation. Under Paula's gaze it's impossible to hesitate, impossible to say no, and more to please her mother than anything she extends a hand forward, unravelling the ribbon and pulling back the wrapping paper.

At first she isn't entirely sure what she's looking at; the tiny amount of fabric inside is folded, ragged. Feeling her brows furrow she fumbles with the wrapping for a moment, unfurling the small scrap of Kevlar, eyes raking over the familiar burnt orange and black. Then she recognizes the symbol emblazed on it, the familiar paw print, the mess of claw marks that's burned permanently in her brain—

Huntress. A piece of her uniform, her emblem, her colors.

The last piece of Huntress.

She's immediately seized by the urge to throw the old scrap of her mother's uniform across the room; she wants to burn it, wants to shred it, wants to destroy the fragment of what her mother murdered in, was almost murdered in. Rather than do any of these things she watches as her fingers tremble, all the strength coming out of her arm as she flattens the Kevlar against the table top until the symbol emblazoned there is unmistakable.

"It's an old piece from my Huntress uniform." Paula says quietly, providing clarification even though she needs none; she can feel the older woman examining her face very carefully, watching as her cheeks go pale and something about her mouth sets into a tight, almost painful line. "... I couldn't find the whole thing— your father, of course, but— but I found this."

She knows she's supposed to say something but she can't; she can feel herself growing dizzy, her lungs aching for air that she can't quite figure out how to give them. It takes several seconds for her to register the silence in the room, her mind too preoccupied with remembering the last time she saw her mother wearing it, remembering the how the bullets had sliced through her, how her legs had crumpled and her body had seemed too small when it was being trampled into the pavement...

"Oh." She hears herself say, voice sounding very far away.

Paula seems to understand that something's wrong; almost immediately she feels the older woman's fingers sliding through her own, gripping her hand tightly. "... I'm so proud of you, Darling..." Her mother whispers, and she registers the sound of squeaking wheels as she rolls closer. "Every day I watch you make the world a better place, watch as you do so much better than I ever could. My greatest achievement is calling myself your mother."

Her face feels waxy as she turns it towards Paula, skin seeming to crack as she clangs it into a smile. "... Thank you." She forced herself to say, wanting to run and hide in her bedroom.

Paula squeezes her fingers again, and this time when she speaks she can sense emotion stirring under the surface again. "In Vietnam it's tradition to pass down an heirloom when a child comes of age. Something that belongs to the family." Her mother whispers. "I don't teach you enough about home, and I... I wanted to remind you of where you came from. I've made so many mistakes." She sighs, suddenly sounding a tenfold older; she feels her mother's free arm curl around her shoulders, warming her where she's suddenly gone cold. "And I just wanted you to know... If you decide to keep going down the path you're on, and if the time comes... I would be honored if you took my name. Huntress. It would make me so happy if you put something good under that mantle."

For a long moment she remains stiff, eyes unblinking as they stare at the old Huntress emblem. Beside her Paula shifts closer, resting her chin on her shoulder. "... You want me to be her?" She breathes, lungs aching as she begins to come back to herself. "... You want me to be Huntress?"

"The better Huntress." Her mother corrects her, words rustling her hair as she speaks. "... And only when the time is right. It would... Mean a lot to me."

The familiar burnt orange and black seems to glare at her before she blinks; even when she looks away she can sense the colors burning at the backs of her eyes, not willing to be forgotten. "... It would mean a lot to me too." She breathes, the words tasting like vomit as she forces herself to say them, to mean them, the way Paula wants her to. "I— Thank you, Mom."

She doesn't want to look at the scrap of uniform, let alone touch it, but somehow under the influence of Paula's gaze she reaches towards the fabric, splaying a hand across the imprinted claws and blackened stripes still clinging with small threads to the emblem. She feels the wetness of tears beginning to stain the shoulder of her tee shirt, and she wonders how long she'll have to sit like this.

It's too much: this gift, the meaning attached to it. She's not Huntress, she never will be— that had been the point of joining the Team, hadn't it? It had been about escaping the weight of her past, of outrunning the monsters ingrained in the fibers of her being— And if she hates it so much, why does it... Mean something to her? Why does she suddenly feel a tightness in her chest, an unknown emotion stirring in her throat?

It's all too much to think about, sitting confined and too-close around the table. She needs to move, needs to be alone, needs to either sort out or shove aside the feelings and the tension now settling in an unfamiliar tightness about her shoulders.

Her mother straightens, running a hand along her cheek before smoothing her hair back behind her ear. The scrap of Huntress seems to silently snarl at her, unblinking.

Neither of them look, but the clock on the microwave clicks to midnight.

* * *

The next morning she wakes to the sound of her cellphone buzzing, the rhythmic vibration rattling against the top of her bedside table.

Groaning, she burrows more surely into her sheets, determined to slip back into unconsciousness; she listens as her phone continues to stutter before finally jolting over the edge and onto the floor, one final vibration sounding before it clicks into voicemail.

It takes a moment or two before her consciousness takes notice of it: the passing of time, of moments, of her life. Slowly she opens her eyes, eyelashes fluttering against her pillow case.

 _("Sweet Sixteen." Wally says, grinning.)_

Now that she's awake it's very difficult to ignore the morning light, and even more the heat of the day that's already beginning to build; when she rolls onto her back to face the ceiling she can feel sweat pooling in the bends of her knees, the folds of her elbows. When she glances towards the bed Zatanna's been occupying the last few weeks she's unsurprised to find it still empty.

She feels exactly the same as she always does— not that she had believed the lie that she would wake up and feel any different. She listens as her phone stats going off again, and this time rather than let it clang against the hardwood she sighs, sitting up and leaning over the edge of the bed to find it; groping for a moment she hardly glances at the caller ID before she flips it open, shoving her hair out of her face. "What?"

"Happy Birthday, Sweetie."

She can practically hear the smile in Oliver's voice; feeling sticky and annoyed she flops onto her back, huffing so loudly the sound fills the speaker. "Thanks."

"You said your test was at eleven?"

"So?"

"It's nine thirty now."

She huffs again, filling the phone speaker with a the sound of rushing air. "Nine thirty? In the morning?" She repeats, glaring at the ceiling despite the fact that he can't see it. "Why the hell are you calling me so early?"

Rather than scold her for her language Oliver chuckles. "I figured you'd want to spend a little time in front of the mirror this morning." He says teasingly. "You know, look nice for that photo they're going to be taking when you pass your test."

She snorts. "Yeah, well. I think the odds of me passing are pretty slim if I fall asleep at the wheel."

She hears him chuckle, one note of laughter sounding before he silences it; despite her mood he seems to be enjoying her snark. "There's the positive attitude. Come on, get up and look pretty. I'm picking you up in an hour."

In typical Oliver fashion he hangs up before she can argue or swear again, and feeling slightly ill tempered she tosses her phone away, listening hard as it bounces off her bed and onto the floor again. She supposes he's right— she should get up.

The apartment is empty: her mother is already at work and Zatanna's probably still sleeping in her bed at the Cave. Yawning, she wanders into the bathroom, already thinking of breakfast and her usual morning cup of tea.

And she doesn't mean to, but when she finishes splashing water on her face she can't stop her eyes from lingering on her reflection in the mirror. How strange it is, this person looking back at her, how different she looks from the girl she used to be, how different her life once was... Has it only nearly been one year since her mother came home? And even less than that since she joined the Team? Since she met Oliver?

 _Since she met Wally?_

She doesn't look at all like the child she was last year— her hair is too-short and tangled from sleep. Her skin is weather beaten and dark. Her eyes seem to stare at her, deeper and more set in her face, cheek bones more hollow.

And even more, she doesn't feel like her anymore either— a child, young. Sometimes, in rare moments of happiness the realities of her youth will slap her hard— how she's supposed to be feeling: free, light, unburdened, will seem louder for a second before it fades, and she will be reminded again of how weighed down she is, of how the fact that these emotions sound strangely in her stomach is a mark of trauma, of abnormality of— how had Oliver put it?— _a lack of adjustment._ This past year seems to have aged her a thousand times over, crammed a dozen lifetimes into one. Is that what's it's like to be a hero? To live this kind of life? Does everyone feel like this?

... So much has happened. Too much. And more is coming; the Huntress emblem, still splayed flat on her kitchen table from the night before, is proof enough of that. And before she can blink very a strange feeling overwhelms her— it's a strange sensation, like the drop in the pit of her stomach that hits before a downward swoop on a roller coaster, and suddenly it feels as if her life is spinning onward, moving forward without her.

Life is slipping by and people are making decisions for her— they're all living, and planning, and she's just breathing. Breathing hard, as she stares in the mirror. Breathing hard as she stares at her reflection. Watching, waiting. Wondering why she didn't say no when her mother presented her with Huntress.

 _Why didn't she say no?_

That water from the tap is still running. She sighs, feeling ancient, and does her best to leave her weariness behind her.

* * *

Her eyes still sting from the flash photography; between the splotches of light clouding her vision she can still see her picture imprinted on the back of her eyelids. Hair sticking out oddly from behind both ears, the ends fraying out in a frizz, lips bitten from concentration and from remembering all the little things Connor had once yelled at her to correct between his swearing...

She hardly hears herself as she gives the older woman behind the counter her address; when she turns to leave she doesn't really see the waiting room around her, filled with dozens of other teenagers looking nervous in the last few minutes before they take their road test.

She does notice Oliver; she can see him through the window, waiting around in the parking lot and looking oddly young as he leans against the hood of a too-sleek silver car. He'd seemed more nervous than she was when he picked her up, quizzing her on last minute things she's known for weeks now, missing the turn into the lot when they had driven up. Even now he's fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing his arms, fiddling with his moustache, head turning to follow the sirens as they pass. She wonders if Gotham makes him uneasy.

She can't stop the grin that bursts across her lips as the door to the DMV closes behind her; at once Oliver straightens off the hood of his car, looking expectant. "Well?"

She doesn't answer for a long moment, instead taking pleasure in the tension between his eyes as she takes her time crossing the lot. Oliver manages to repeat his "Well?" three more times before she reaches him, grinning as she slaps the folds of the crisp piece of paper open onto the top of his windshield for him to read. "Passed."

He hardly seems to read the words on the paper, which are bolded and severe and make it clear that it's a temporary license, and that the official scrap of plastic is on its way in the mail; instead he lets out an exasperated noise of relief, reaching to pull her into a hug. "Oh, thank god."

"Excuse me?"

Oliver ignores her the fakeness of her offended tone and the way she tries to shove him off; after a moment of him smiling into the top of her head he pulls back, both hands grasping her by the shoulder. "I'm kidding. Knew you could do it, Sweetie."

He's smiling at her the way a father would, and suddenly she can't stop herself— can't stop the smile aching on her cheeks, or her stomach from jumping and twisting because _she did it, she actually did it_ ; her hand seems to move of its own accord to grab her permit again, turning the paper over in her hands, voice trembling and high pitched and beginning to talk over his congratulations so quickly she reminds herself of M'gann. "My actual license is coming in a few weeks—you were right, by the way, everyone looks awful in those things—"

She trails off, shaking her head in disbelief as she reads the paper again, as if not really believing what's happening; strangely she's suddenly seized by the wild impulse to hug him again and for once indulges it, hesitating only for a second before she surges forward, throwing her arms around his middle for an extra second. She still can't believe it's really happening— she's so used to things like this blowing up in her face; she hardly registers the bristling of his moustache in surprise before she pulls back again, flushing. "I don't even know if this thing allows me to drive or anything, I just know it means I passed— _I passed!_ "

Rather than look surprised by her strange bout of affection Oliver takes it all in stride, the smile when he looks down at her now so wide it's ruffling his moustache at an odd angle. "Yeah, yeah, I'm proud of you. Makes what I'm about to say a little less terrifying— you know, for my insurance company and pedestrians everywhere." Before she can even follow what he's saying he's pulling back, digging in his pocket for a moment.

"I got you this car."

For some reason she doesn't quite process the meaning of the sentence—in fact, the only thing she's aware of for a long moment is the key ring he's just extracted that's now dangling in front of her face.

The light catches the startling silver of the key ring and she blinks like an idiot. "... What?"

He seems to be expecting this reaction, moustache twitching as he shakes the keys a little impatiently; she immediately notices a long sterling silver charm dangling off the ring, a delicate-looking chain wielding a pointed arrow head. That alone has to be worth more than anything in her apartment. "The car." He repeats, lowering the keys. "This one right here? I bought it for you. A little Sweet Sixteen present from me to you."

She feels her mouth fall open but she doesn't do anything to stop it, instead following the jerking of his head towards the vehicle in question to stare at it with wide eyes. She doesn't know a damn thing about cars, beyond the fact that she's sure this one is expensive: leather interior, a sleek silver finish, sparkling rims that seem to catch the light no matter how she tilts her head.

Oliver seems to watch very carefully, the corners of his mouth twitching when she finally closes hers; for some reason her tongue is suddenly very dry. "... It doesn't have to be this car, of course." He says after a moment, apparently reading the shock on her face for something else. "I just thought—well, it was what I pictured you in. We can pick out another one together, if you want."

All the pride that's been sounding in her stomach seems to fizzle out, muddling into a dribbling puddle about her knees. "… You want to give me a car?" She croaks, palms accidentally creasing the slip of paper still in her hands.

"As a birthday present." He clarifies. "I got Roy one when he turned sixteen. Only fair that you get one too."

He's not even finished the sentence before she's shaking her head. "You can't give me a car."

"Why not?"

"Because, Oliver." She mumbles, not wanting to look at the silver exterior anymore. "It's— that's too much, okay? With Roy, God, I mean— when he was sixteen you'd already been mentoring him for how many years?" It seems to take a few moment before she can put the confusing feelings in her stomach into words. "I— I don't deserve something like this—"

Before she can really get into a proper stride Oliver's scoffing. "Enough, Artemis. Most people just say thank you."

"And—and how am I supposed to pay for gas? Or insurance?"

At this it's Oliver's turn to look a little disbelieving, smile still wide at her reaction. "Please. Look at who you're talking to."

She feels her face crumple in a glare. She hates hand outs— how long has he known her? Shouldn't he know this? "… Where am I supposed to park it?" She says after a moment.

He doesn't even consider this, waving off her concerns quickly. "At the Cave. Or at my place, should you want to visit. Hell, I'll even build a private parking garage near your place, if that's what it takes." She opens her mouth to argue and is promptly cut off when he reaches for her, grabbing her wrist and forcing her to take the keys. "Come on, Sweetie. I'm making up for sixteen years of missed presents. Let me spoil you, as a favor to me."

She can tell he really means it, and for a moment she bites the inside of her lip before she gives in, fingers curling around the keys halfheartedly. "... Fine."

Oliver seems pleased, or at least satisfied enough to finally release her, still grinning as he rounds the front of the car. "Now, I want to make myself clear. This car is strictly for fun." He teases, voice trying and failing to sound as if he's giving orders. "No missions, no hero stuff—I'm giving it to you under the impression that you'll be getting into lots of trouble with it."

She doesn't know why it's so hard to smile back as he folds his arms atop the roof, teeth glinting at her as he sends her one last teasing smile. "... Okay." She says mechanically. Her hand doesn't even feel as if it belongs to her as it tightens around the keys.

"Come on then, birthday brunch. You're driving."

* * *

"I'm not supposed to give too much away," Oliver starts later, when her stomach is practically bursting from all the pancakes she's eaten, "But I would make a point to pop by the Cave today, if I were you."

Her mouth automatically frowns as she spears a strawberry on the end of her fork. "Why?"

Oliver fumbles with the edge of his napkin, unfurling the fabric and wiping his moustache once. "Can't say."

"God." She mutters, popping the syrup soaked berry into her mouth and narrowing her eyes at him across the table. "The car wasn't enough? You're making the Team throw a party? What, is MTV going to be there filming too?"

Oliver snorts at her tone. "Well, you've certainly got that teenage attitude up and running." He says, at at once she feels her face break; before she apologize, or back-track, or try to explain that she's still rattled from getting a car she didn't really want he's cutting across her, waving off the guilty look she's wearing. "Besides, who says the surprise is just for you?"

This quirks her interest, brows raising as she frowns again. "... What?"

"Just trust me." Oliver says in a strangely guarded way, looking pleased when she leans into the back of her chair, the waistband of her shorts now uncomfortably tight. "But I think you'll be happy if you go. Really happy."

She jerks her head moodily; after such a large meal she not much up for anything except perhaps a nap. Grinning, Oliver gestures to a passing waitress for the cheque. Her eyes can't help but linger on the platinum of his credit card, suddenly feeling about half an inch tall as he pays for her meal. "... Take the zeta tubes there this afternoon. I'll make sure your car beats you there."

* * *

When the disembodied voice finishes saying her name she's expecting to be practically bulldozed by people and sound; it's with a certain amount of wariness, however, when she takes her first step forwards into silence.

Not just into silence, but into emptiness—nobody has coming forward at the announcement of her arrival, or is in the process of burling towards her; in fact, in the nearly half minute she stands there nothing happens at all, only the sound of her feet finally stepping forward breaking the unnerving quiet.

She's not entirely upset about this less than rambunctious greeting, just slightly unnerved as she crosses the room and hears her own feet as they echo against the white tiles, head swiveling to look around at the lack of, well, _anyone_ around her as she rounds the familiar hallway that leads to the kitchen. "… Hello?" She calls after a moment, half-expecting a reply, or an ambush of people.

Once again, silence. She knows her Team— the joke has gone on long enough now. If anyone had been around to hear her they would have already announced themselves.

... Okay. Maybe she is a little disappointed. But she supposes after her mother's gift of Huntress, and Oliver's car... Well, maybe she's had her fill of surprises anyway.

Today has been so... Not what she'd been expecting. Not that she had been looking forward to turning sixteen; she's never really understood the sentiment behind Sweet Sixteen, never really wanted all the attention or the presents or the expectation behind it. It's just another year, another trip around the sun. Nothing special.

Or at least that's how she'd seen it. It's everyone else who's making it... Uncomfortable for her. First her mother, telling her she wants her to become Huntress, as if she'd want to be the demonic creature that once killed people for money, who tortured anyone who stood in her way. How is she supposed to bring any good to that mantle? How is it fair to have that responsibility on her shoulders? She still struggles with her own demons enough, how is she supposed to tame someone else's? Doesn't her mother get that that kind of pressure... It's just too much?

... And the car. Oliver's car, that was just... Ridiculous. Getting her license was ridiculous too, she admits; it had been a promise to a dead woman, something she needed to do to... What? Prove something to herself? Prove that she could be independent? And he had just... Spoiled it. Accidentally of course. But... Why did he even need to get her that expensive thing anyway? She's sure that car cost more than her whole apartment building, what's she supposed to do with that? And they've known each other for less than a year now, what has she possibly done in that amount of time to be worthy of that? How is it fair to give her something that big? She'll never be able to reciprocate, never be able to pay him back for that. Now there's expectations to go along with it— that she'll use it, that she owes him. She didn't want that, she didn't ask for it...

... She's probably being childish, she knows she is. The sentiment, behind the Huntress emblem— and the car. Oliver had only bought her it because he had wanted to treat her, to make her feel... Something. Normal, she supposes. She's just not sure how she's supposed to wrap her head around these things, the— absolute fucking _abnormality_ of being told she's supposed to want to be Huntress, or the extreme _normalcy_ of being presented a car... She feels as if she's being told to be two completely different kinds of people— and that's just it, she's being _told_ , not _asked_ —

— It's just too much. Huntress, the car. It's too much too quickly, too many demands being asked of her. A few days ago she didn't owe anyone anything, now she's juggling expectations and promises and legacies and debt— _it's too much too fast_ , why would they think she'd want that? Do they even know her at all?

When she reaches the common room her Teammates' absence is suddenly explained—through the window she can see perfect rays of sunshine, a cloudless sky and a perfect day for the beach. She's sure they're all outside, no doubt enjoying the weather; stretching her arms above her head she wanders aimlessly towards the window, wondering if she'd rather go join the lounging outside or sneak off to her bedroom for a nap.

 _Kid Flash. B03._

She lowers her arms so quickly that she accidentally knocks her elbow against the glass, a sharp twang of pain running up her arm; distantly she hears the sound of footsteps against vacant tile, moving quickly towards her. "Honey, I'm _ho-ome!_ " Wally shouts, voice sing-song and teasing in a way that makes her sure he's not calling for her.

She's clutching at her elbow awkwardly when he rounds the corner, clinging to the door frame and flinging himself into the kitchen as if he's expecting a whole crowd to be there; feeling strange about responding to the greeting she blushes. "Uh, hey."

Even from across the room she can see his ears going off, the exaggerated grin on his face faltering slightly when he realizes it's just her; at once his posture seems to shrink with embarrassment. "Oh." He blanches; as if to cover the sticky moment he opens to door to the fridge, letting it wobble on its hinge for a moment before he shuts it again. "Hi."

It feels a little pointless to greet him again but she does. "Hi."

There's several seconds of awkward silence in which Wally's ears only seem to grow more red; finally he seems to gather some nerve, one hand clapping to his neck. "... Sorry." He starts, avoiding her eye as he takes a few tentative steps towards her. "I— Kaldur called. Said he wanted everyone to come to the Cave."

He seems encouraged when she smiles; after a moment's hesitation the tentative footsteps grow more sure as he crosses the room towards her. "Yeah." She nods. "That's what Oliver said too. You know what for?"

"Nah, didn't say."

For some reason she can't quite look at him as he comes to a stop at her side; it feels so strange to be near him again, at this spot she once thought of as theirs. It's very hard not to remember how many times they've stood here, sat here, screamed here. She can see all the moments in her mind now; how they sat here with their legs and their minds tangled, watching spring unfold over the ocean. How the heat of their tea had steamed the glass. She remembers bickering over their homework and fights for the last cookie in the package, can feel the cool glass against the back of her head as he had tilted her jaw towards his.

They were only together for a few months. God, it doesn't feel like that little amount of time. Somehow the weeks feel as if they've bled into years, as if she's lived a dozen lifetimes with Wally. The freezing evenings of the New Year spent beneath blankets were followed by the first sun rays of spring, and in those few months they had together she felt for the first time that she was actually living.

... How things change, and so quickly too. In less than a year of knowing this boy she's hated him, tolerated him, loved him and hated him all over. But people grow up. And people change. Who knows what her sixteenth year will hold.

Although there's less distance between the two of them now she can still sense the miles between them, the careful sterility despite the intimacy of the room— the way his gaze lingers then leaves her, the clearing of throats, the measured foot and a half that finally separates them.

She is so tired of this. So tired of needing him both close and far away.

She doesn't say any of this, of course; instead she goes back to looking out the window, trying not to think of better times when being around Wally was easy, not a mess of toeing across barriers and peaking around lines. "... Me neither." She says. "I kinda thought— I don't know. A... Birthday thing or something."

It's odd; the half second it seems to take for this information to click in his head feels oddly forced. "Oh, yeah." He chuckles, turning to grin down at her. "Yeah. Happy birthday, Blondie."

She's not expecting it when he reaches out to wrap an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to him in not quite a hug but not quite anything else; for a moment the warmth of his muscles curling around her seems to singe through the thin fabric of her tee shirt, sending flames through her body that ignite her cheeks. Before she can properly figure out what this is supposed to mean or how she feels about it he's pulling away. "Thanks." She mutters, thankful when her hair flops forward to hide herself from him.

Wally's ears are burning again. "So, good birthday so far?" He asks, voice a little wobbly but otherwise cheerful enough. "Sweet Sixteen everything you want it to be?"

Instead of answering properly she lets out a vague sounding hum, shrugging as she tucks her hair back behind her ear. "Yeah. It's been— Yeah. Good."

It's not really much of an answer and she's not surprised when Wally seems to read through it; at once he's glancing down at her, one brow raising. Before he can say anything else she shakes her head, not looking at him but silently telling him not to ask. "We should probably track everyone down, huh? Figure out why we're supposed to—"

She feels her eyes narrow, voice cutting off and not finishing her sentence; at once Wally's eyes follow hers, gazing through the window. "Weird." He says for her, brows furrowing. "... I've never seen a green bird before."

It's a little thing, with about the same features and sizes as the birds from the grove of trees she knows so well. Despite the openness of the beach and the heat of the day its is perched along the ledge just beyond their window, twittering and hopping around the grout of the small and nearly invisible balcony railed into the side of their mountain. "Yeah." She says vaguely, squinting through the window. The bird keeps squawking through the glass, as if trying to attract her attention. "Me neither."

The little bird has Wally's attention too; as they stand there watching the little thing seems to chatter at them, occasionally taking flight in a small dithering circle before touching back down to the ledge of the balcony, hopping excitedly and flapping its almost leafy looking wings. "Looks almost like a sparrow. Or a robin."

There's something odd about the way he says it; despite pointing out the similarities she can tell he knows as well as she does that something's off, something's not quite right about that innocent looking bird; the two of them continue watching, spines straightening and eyes narrowed.

Even though she can't hear it she knows the bird is chatting at her; everything, from its eyes to its beak, is painted the same verdant green. "Yeah." She mumbles, brows furrowing. "Hold on."

"Artemis?"

She can't explain why she beelines around him, heading towards the exit; something, some strange and overwhelming instinct is swirling in her stomach, telling her something, something she can't understand...

The door to the ledge clatters behind her, Wally catching it a moment later as he follows her; the day is balmy, the kind of hot in Happy Harbor that immediately sticks into her skin and seems to melt there, coating her in a pleasant humidity that she doesn't stop to enjoy. She can hear the shrill chirping, the wild flapping of wings sounding oddly distorted by the echoing of waves against the edges of the mountain, her legs stuttering as she struggles to follow the sound. The metal of the railing burns her hand as she follows it, clinging to the curling of the balcony until she back tracks to the hidden viewpoint of the window.

"Artemis— don't." Wally says from behind her as she stumbles towards the bird. "I'm serious, there's something not right about—"

The bird lets out a shrilly whistled song as she approaches it, one stray hand moving to make a shooing movement; behind her one of Wally's palm closes around her wrist, trying to pull her back.

There's one more long sounding whistle before something happens; there's a strange stretching noise, the sound of muscles ripping and bones crackling to life and the unpleasantness of fibers of flesh stretching beyond their means, and in a movement that's almost too quick for her eyes it happens— at once the little bird seems to dissolve in front of her, the feathers turning stiff and the beak retracting into a skull; and she can hear, it, the sound of skin ripping open and a body being amputated and life being pulled out of no where and at once whatever it is it burling towards her, a mess of atoms and genetics and the unknown; her heart seems to simultaneously halt and hammer to life in her chest, brain hardly registering when Wally pulls her back towards him, a single foul word firing out of his mouth as he yanks her back against his chest, one palm clutching at her shoulder as if ready to sweep her into a run—

It happens almost instantly, the whatever it is twists and stretches as it curls in the air towards them, malleable one second and then the next—

She gasps when she feels a familiar weight collide with her stomach; at once her instinct to claw and strange is cut short, her ears placing the sound of a delighted and childish laugh as it fires through the air, no doubt amused by the fear on their faces.

"Artemis!" Garfield Logan cries out, every inch of him green as he winds his arms around her waist.

* * *

 **AN: There, another chapter up and running. I've had people in my reviews and PMs for a week now yelling at me to update quicker** — **sorry guys, but I'm currently enduring typical end of semester assignments and soon I'll be in finals. You're all at the mercy of my schooling and stress, same as me.**

 **I hope the update was worth the delay. I'm going to try to get the next chapter up a bit quicker this time around and then I think I'm going to go on a brief hiatus for the holidays** — **I need to unwind from such a hectic semester and spend some time pumping out some chapters for this thing.**

 **Read and Review, please!**


	32. Dark and All Too Quiet

**AN: I ended up accidentally taking a bit of a break to catch up with the holiday season, but now that that's over... Enjoy the update!**

* * *

Her elbows dig into the kitchen island, the heels of her palms pressing hard into her eyes and sending strange warbled colors to the front of her vision. They've been over this at least three times now and she feels no closer to understanding what's happening or why, her brain feeling as if it's about to dribble out of her ears as she swings her head up, glancing to her left. "Okay." She say slowly, mind buzzing and trying to grasp at what she's only half sure she knows. "So... So when you gave Garfield the blood transfusion... You altered his blood cells?"

M'gann sighs as every eye in the room is pulled towards her, her green frame looking oddly small as she perches on an island stool; the energy in the kitchen is so tense, so confused, that anything as normal as her birthday feels long gone from everyone's mind. "... I don't know what I did." She admits, sounding miserable.

Someone hisses, low and annoyed at the suggestion; feeling frustrated she sweeps her palm over her forehead, the other slapping against the counter and crossing the few inches between them to entangle in the other girl's fingers. "You saved his life, Meg." She murmurs, low and forceful, as if wanting to remind the other girl as much as everyone else in the room, whose thoughts are no doubt as muddled as hers. "...That's nothing to be upset about."

There's the usual encouraging nods around the kitchen, the majority of the Team squished amongst the counters and appliances with the intention of helping the Martian think this out. Rather than respond to their insistence the other girl shrugs, a pained looking smile adorning her lips as if she understands they're all pretending not to be as shocked or confused as they really are.

M'gann sighs but still says nothing, simply casting a forlorn look at the speckles darning the island counter; despite herself she lifts her eyes to meet Wally's, exchanging a worried look. Being alone in Quarac has done something to M'gann— the lines about her eyes have a deeper, more carved in quality, as if she hasn't slept properly in weeks; even her artificial appearance, usually so meticulous and perfected, seems off, uncharacteristically ruffled, what with her hair more dull and the ends scraggly, dry patches of skin flaking off her elbows and knees.

 _(She looks older and not in a good way_ — _it's as if the Quarac sun has drained years of her life away, the childish joy and optimism she once possessed rotten and buried miles beneath the sand.)_

The seconds pass and nothing more is said. But she takes it as a good sign when M'gann's hand shifts in hers, clinging to the spaces between her fingers like they're tethers to the earth, the only thing stopping her from floating miserably away.

The silence in the kitchen doesn't last long, as it never does when there's this many of them gathered together; across from her Dick exhales, heels knocking against the counter he's sitting on and scuffing the surface with dirt from his shoes. "She can't have altered his blood cells." He starts, rubbing the tired eyes beneath his glasses. "We were there when it happened. You only morphed your own blood so you would be a suitable donor—"

Wally cuts him off, hand rubbing at his neck. "Which means there's a possibility the effects could be temporary." He mulls, although she can tell the thought is more half-baked, a theory his scientist practicality won't allow him to really believe but rather something he's saying more to comfort M'gann. "... The human body will have regenerated entirely new cells in seven years, this could very well be something he grows out of when he hits his teens, but— I mean, he's not really just human anymore..."

"And how do we know M'gann's cells won't regenerate inside him?" Dick counters, glasses glinting. "There's never been a mixing of Martain and human blood before. Our own government's studies of Martian Manhunter's cells is inconclusive, how do we know they won't multiply and regenerate in a human host—"

"That's a stupid question, they're already regenerating enough to turn him _green,_ Rob—"

"Guys." Zatanna cuts their bickering off, laying a hand on M'gann's shoulder and glaring at the two of them. "Now's probably not the time to be arguing about this."

"Agreed." Kaldur says across her, effectively stepping between the matching glares firing from one side of the kitchen to another; instantly all the under-the-breath hissing ceases, all their backs stiffening the way only Kaldur's authoritative tone of voice can make them. "But Garfield is here. Decisions must be made. And we must talk about it."

Her fingers are now screaming between M'gann's painfully tight grip but she doesn't even allow herself to flinch, instead returning the pressure in what she hopes is a comforting way; in the thickness of the silence between them all of their eyes are draw to her and Wally's window, to the startlingly different backs of Connor and Garfield as they stand, overlooking the beach. "... The temperature of the human body is much higher than a Martian's." M'gann croaks after a moment. "... Connor and I thought— the stress of being in such an inhospitable environment must be making them multiply faster than his. Plus..."

The other girl trails off, glancing at her a little helplessly; feeling her throat go dry she nods, finishing for her. "... His mother died." She mumbles, hating that everyone is staring at her now. "He went into shock not long after— we couldn't break his fever."

Her voice breaks and with it some restraint; for the first time she feels the whole weight of her guilt, the heaviness she's been trying not to think about since she returned home. Feeling her throat tighten she drops her eyes to her and M'gann's interwoven fingers, staring hard at her white knuckles and focusing only on the pain, on what she deserves...

 _This is her fault_.

 _(It all comes down to her, as it always does. Her running, her denial, her screw ups_ — _she is a never ending storm of hurt to others, of pain. She had run away to Quarac, chasing the untied end that was her father... And even though she has no proof she knows it was Lawrence who did this, who killed Marie; it's always him, always, just like it's always her fault, all her fault_ —)

 _((And even if it wasn't... She ran away. She left M'gann alone. And she's horrible, horrible, she's just like her sister_ — _))_

She can sense Kaldur's eyes lingering on her, and sense the way his gaze focuses on the tightness around her eyes. He's seeing through her, as he always does— or maybe it's just the fact that he's the only one who knows her secret, the only one who she confided in...

 _Sportsmaster. It all comes back to her father, and to her, and the fact that she's let her past hurt too many people in this room._

She swallows, hand going numb; it's the not knowing that bothers how. The not know why Lawrence went after Marie, not knowing why he would take his need for revenge as far as Quarac. But he had been seen there, he had been close— and she knows this is her fault, even if the League nor Kaldur can prove it for sure she knows the fact as well as she knows her own heart beat— this is her fault. _Everything is always her fault._

"... The heat would have triggered it." Wally says gruffly after a moment, arms crossing as he leans against the counter; when she glances up at the sound of his voice she locks eyes with the familiar apple eyes, tight around the corners, before he looks away. She's just realized the kitchen has gone silent again, everyone lost in thought. "His fever probably send the Martian cells into overdrive, what with trying to stay alive in such a hostile environment. That's why his appearance has changed so much."

More quiet, in which Kaldur frowns; to her surprise he seems to not even notice Tula as she winds her fingers between his. He's got a strange look on his face, something thoughtful and severe that she associates with strategy, with the sort of deep level problem solving and plan making that only their more dangerous missions require. "Have we any idea the full scope of his powers?" He asks suddenly, voice void of emotion and strictly business.

"I have no idea." M'gann answers, shaking her head. "By the time I got him out of the hospital we were being watched, not just by the Quarac government but by the Bialyans too. I was afraid it would attracted too much attention to test—"

"Of course." Kaldur amends, continuing to look serious. "But has he shown any aptitude for your telekinesis? Telepathy? Density shifting?"

M'gann swallows, her hand going slack in her palm; doubling her own grip on the other girl's fingers she glares at Kaldur. "How about we ease up, Kal? She's been here all of five minutes—"

To her surprise M'gann talks over her, waving off her objections with her free hand. "Just shape shifting— all his clothing has to be organic now, it's the only thing that will respond his mental commands."

"Makes sense, I guess." Zatanna mumbles.

"But there are limitations." The Martian sighs, shaking her head again and looking troubled. "Garfield has to know the entire bone structure and anatomy of anything he wants to transform into— he has to study it, know it literally from the inside out. That's why he's latched onto animals; after living in the sanctuary his whole life he knows more than most of us ever will."

A Pause. "But what about people?" Dick asks, saying what they're all thinking. "Could he transform into one of us?"

She watches as M'gann shakes her head. "People are more difficult—there are variations between races, men and women, even bone structures can be different with deformities or injuries. And even then…" She pauses, smiling that strange weary smile she first greeted her with that afternoon. "He can't get rid of the green skin. I don't know why, but he can't."

There's a long silence where they all mull this over; absently her gaze drifts out the window again, her teeth biting hard into the inside of her cheek. Before any of them can ask the question that's been lingering in the air for the past hour M'gann sighs, leaning forward to press her palm to her forehead. "... I'm sorry." She murmurs, voice wobbly. "... I don't know why I— He's mine now. And I don't—" Her stomach sinks as M'gann's voice breaks. "I can't even figure out how he's going to go to school— I mean, _he's green_. I-I just needed to get him out of there before something even more awful—"

M'gann hiccups, cutting herself off and blinking very quickly; before she can do anything more miserable Kaldur moves forward, extracting himself from Tula and occupying the stool beside her. "Hush." He mumbles in his low and soothing tone; it seems to have an effect on the kitchen as a whole, all of them going still and quiet. "The Cave is your home and it will be Garfield's too, as long as you both may need it. No crying, M'gann."

"Yeah." Zatanna murmurs, smoothing the other girl's hair back behind her ears before she wraps her arms around her shoulders. "It's going to be okay."

A clanging noise tells her Dick's resuming the swinging of his legs from the counter. "We'll figure something out. Talk to Batman, rumor has it he's got a soft spot for orphans—"

"Or we could always keep him around here." Wally suggest after a moment. "We could always use another pet."

It's not funny, all of them turning to glare at Wally; M'gann however lets out a watery sounding chuckle, her fingers scrubbing hard at her lashes for a moment before she emerges, red-eyed and blotchy cheeked. "Sorry." She says thickly, shaking her head. "I just— Oh, Artemis. It's your birthday, and here I am crying—"

She feels her cheeks color. "Oh, Meg— Don't be stupid, it's fine—"

She's cut off when the other girl seizes her around the neck, dragging her into a rather wet hug. "No, it isn't. I baked you a cake this morning— someone call Gar and Connor back in—"

"You don't—"

Whatever she's about to say she doesn't finish, voice dying when the other girl stops her from pulling back, cool palms clinging to her skin. "Happy Birthday, by the way." She whispers, cheeks wet as they press against her temple. "... I missed you."

* * *

By the time her cake is placed in front of her she's not in much of a mood for celebration; feeling oddly blank she lets the rather hasty chorus of "Happy Birthday" wash over her, impervious to the cheerful pink of her icing.

... This is all her fault. And maybe she's been avoiding thinking about it on purpose— after talking to Kaldur however long ago, after realizing he had no answers for her... She had buried it. Let it be shoved into the blackest parts of herself, as out of sight and mind as Garfield and M'gann have been these last few weeks.

... Marie was killed because of her. Because of her father. And now Garfield is motherless, and M'gann's falling apart, and it's all her fault.

 _(She ruins everything.)_

She shifts uncomfortably on the couch cushions, not paying attention to the movie she insisted they put on to disguise her foul mood; it's late now, the last glimmers of evening light fading through the old window. She can't remember wanting her birthday to end this quickly in her whole life, every second the clock keeps her on the 20th of July heart wrenching, almost painful.

... She supposes it's not really her birthday anymore, anyway— the party broke up fairly quickly after she blew out her candles, what with her mood becoming so sour after they had discussed what to do with Garfield. M'gann had stayed of course, wanting to babble and catch up, with Connor and Garfield staying ever present by her side... But that hadn't lasted long.

 _(And if she ever found out why Marie was killed, M'gann would hate her...)_

Her stomach twists uncomfortably, glancing around the room at who's left; overlooking the heavy breathing of M'gann and Garfield she locks eyes with Connor, stick straight and as alert as ever, before twisting her head to survey the rest of the group. Kaldur and Tula are in bed, Zatanna gone too; Dick, awake and scrolling through his phone, and— she doesn't look for him in the darkness, instead listening to the sound of a watch clanging gently against the side of a popcorn bowl. Wally. Eating as usual.

... Nothing worth sticking around for. And besides, she'd rather be alone.

Extracting herself as gently as she can out from underneath Garfield she ignores the few glances that stray in her direction as she makes to leave; she knows she's supposed to say thank you, say something to her friends but... But she can't. Not with her stomach twisting and guilt threatening to bubble up out of her throat— she can't trust herself not to blurt out what she's thinking, can't trust herself not to confess that it's her fault Marie is dead...

She gets as far as rounding the corner out of the kitchen, thinking only of Gotham City and her mother, when he calls out to her; feeling her stomach sink lower inside herself she winces at the sound of his sneaker squeaking against the break in the tile. "Hey." Wally calls after her, rounding the corner and stopping short when she glances at him over her shoulder. "You leaving?"

She shrugs, one hand tugging self-consciously at the hem of her shorts for a moment. "Yeah." She says stupidly, hesitating. "Sorry. I— Yeah. I'm going."

His brows furrow slightly, and she not surprised when he reads right through her, can tell just by her muddled words that she has too much on her mind. Between her mother, Oliver, and way Marie is haunting her... She just wants this day to be over.

She's not lucky enough to avoid his questions; for a second Wally's eyes flicker between hers, as if wanting desperately to see through the iron grey of her eyes."... What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She mutters too quickly, wincing. "I just... It's been a weird day. I kinda just want it to be over."

Wally nods, gripping the doorframe and back tracking a step, almost like he's about to leave and go back through the kitchen; she frowns when he seems to change his mind mid-step, rolling his weight around the corner and releasing the wall, as if he's finalized a decision of some sort. "Bitter Sweet Sixteen?" He asks knowingly.

She hears herself sigh, wishing he would just leave her alone. "No." She mumbles, crossing her arms. "It was fine. Sixteen was fine."

There's a silence where Wally sends her a knowing look, crossing a few paces down the hallway until he's right in front of her; it hits her again how tall he's gotten in just a few weeks apart, his chin dropping significantly to look her in the eye. And she hates it— the looks he's sending her, how she can't help but notice the thickness of his jaw, the muscles of his biceps as he crosses his arms, the playful tugging of his lips as he silently tries to pull her out of herself, read through her, get her to spill all her secrets for him—

The few moments where neither of them speaks unnerves her, her stomach twisting, and before she can stop herself she cracks. "... It was just weird." She repeats, feeling stupid as she blushes, fingers automatically smoothing her hair behind her ears. "Everyone kept on making these grand gestures that I... You know."

She doesn't know how Wally understands what she's trying to say when she doesn't have a clue herself, but still— it's comforting when he nods, hands shoving themselves in his pockets as he looks down at her. "... You wanna go for a walk?" He says after a moment.

An almost foreign feeling of relief passes through her, an emotion she can't place and isn't sure there's a name for; suddenly she's caught between saying yes and making some sort of excuse, not sure which one wins out as her eyes meet his with a dry look. "... How about a drive?"

* * *

" _You're kidding_." Wally says for the fifth time, circling the glinting exterior of her car. "... You're kidding."

She shakes her head, the same way she's been doing for the last two minutes, her keys flexed tightly in her fist. "If you say that one more time I'll get in there and run you over."

His mouth opens and then closes, as if knowing she'll deliver on the threat, before he walks another few paces around her vehicle, parked pristine and shining in the hanger as Oliver had promised it would be. "A car." He finally says, voice breaking. " _Green Arrow got you a car_."

She shrugs, watching as he finally rounds the hood, fingers dragging along the metal and smudging the shine slightly. "I can see that, Wally."

"He's crazy."

"That's what I told him."

" _A car!"_ Wally bursts out, flapping a hand accusingly at the vehicle in question before running it through his hair. "I mean, I don't know a damn thing about cars but—"

She cuts him off, rolling her eyes. "I know, Wally." She sighs, feeling annoyed that he's enjoying the gesture more than she did. "It's a nice car."

Ignoring her enthusiasm Wally shakes his head again, ducking past her under the pretext of bending to examine the glinting chrome of her rims. "Of course you get a millionaire for a mentor. You know what Flash got me when I turned 16? A pack of condoms."

She snorts. "That was hopeful of him." She teases.

At once Wally's ears go off, vivid red even from behind before he straightens, a mock glare crossing his features. "Those came in handy, if you do recall."

It's a sticky moment, both their eyes narrowing at each other a little too closely; she's sure that they're both remembering their first time together, how they had fumbled and been clumsy and not sure what they were doing. Feeling a strange jumping sensation in her stomach she's the first to look away, firmly shoving whatever that is aside and listening hard as he clears his throat. "You got a car for your birthday... And you're not excited at all."

She slouches over her crossed arms, thankful when he goes back to examining her rims. "... I don't know." She mutters. "I am, I mean— Yes, I am." She forces herself to say, squirming. "I just... It's a nice car."

"Uh, yeah." Wally interrupts.

"... But it's worth more than my apartment. And everything in it. Combined." She huffs, fists tightening around the silver of her key; out of the corner of her eye Wally straightens, looking curious at the change in her tone. "How am I— I'm never going to be able to pay him back." She grits out through her teeth. "I'm always gonna, like, owe him for it. It's always gonna be a hand out and I— I didn't do anything to earn it."

To her surprised Wally snorts, looking slightly bemused at the expression on her face. "It's was a gift, Artemis." He says slowly, as if she's stupid. "You don't have to pay someone back for a gift. GA got you this because he wanted to, okay? He didn't do it to, like, make you owe him something."

Despite his reasonable tone she feels her annoyance flare up. "You don't get it." She scoffs, waving him off. "You've always had money, okay—"

"So has Oliver." He counters before she can finish, crossing his arms. "He probably wanted to just get you something nice because he knew it would make you happy. And if he knew how freaked out you were about it he'd probably be sick over it—"

"Wally—"

"Oliver's not playing games with you, Artemis." He says over her, any argument dying in her throat as he stares her down, jaw thick and apple eyes glinting with an unsaid challenge. "Stop overthinking it."

It's said with such a finality that almost at once she believes him, the anxious and suspicious buzzing in her head dulling slightly; still, she bites the inside of her cheek hard, glaring at him for nearly half a minute before she sighs. "... You're right." She mutters, shaking her head as she looks away. "Sorry. I'm just not— I'm not used to people being nice to me for no reason. And that whole thing with my mom just—"

She doesn't mean to let the last slip part out, cutting herself off before she can finish; she's not fast enough for Wally through, whose brows instantly furrow. "What whole thing with your mom?"

"Nothing—"

 _"Artemis."_

When she glances at him again he's looking at her a little too closely; taking a page out of his book she sets her face. "I— I don't wanna talk about it, okay? It was nothing, I swear."

She knows he doesn't believe her but she's thankful when he looks away, taking a few steps around her vehicle in silence. "... Where are we going?"

"What?"

" _Where are we going?"_ He repeats in that slow, over-pronounced way she hates; when her brows only bristle in confusion the corners of his mouth perk up, coming to a stop on the passenger side of her car. "You said we were going for a drive. Where are we going?"

To her annoyance he actually opens the door, getting inside her car before she can answer. "Wally, I wasn't being—"

"It's okay if you can't think of anything." He interrupts her before she can even figure out what to say. "I actually found this really cool place when I was out on one of my runs— it's not too far, maybe twenty minutes if traffic isn't bad."

Yanking her own door open she bends at the waist to glare at him. "You're an idiot." She tells him, scowling when he reclines his seat. "Get out of my car."

"I'll get out when we get there."

"Wally."

"Artemis."

"Wally."

 _"Artemis."_

Sensing they're not going to get anywhere arguing like this she sighs, straightening for a moment to tap her fingers along the car roof and seriously debating shoving her keys into his eyes. "... I hate you." She grits out after a moment, getting in.

Looking annoyingly smug when she buckles her seat belt Wally grins when she starts the ignition, ignoring her scowl as he reaches forward to mess with the radio. "Nah." He chuckles.

* * *

She's clutching the wheel so tightly that her knuckles are beginning to cramp, a muscle in her cheek twitching as a high note fires clumsily out of his mouth; the street light switches to green and she seriously considers swerving into oncoming traffic. "Are you going to tell me where we're going?" She shouts over the music.

Instead of answering right away Wally spews out some lyrics, making a soppy face at her from the passenger seat and ignoring her when she rolls her eyes. "Right at the next set of lights."

"You're an idiot."

Although at one point she must have told him this multiple times a day Wally looks genuinely hurt when she shouts it at him, his brows furrowing as he reaches to turn down the volume completely. "Relax, Blondie." He snorts, staring moodily out the window for a moment before looking back at her. "... What's your problem? I'm trying to be nice."

Her fingers clench around the wheel, the car warbling for a moment before she follows his directions and turns. "Well, stop." She mutters, scowling through the wind shield.

She doesn't look at him but she can sense the way he glances at her, eyes squinting and critical and wondering why she's so tense. "Alright." He says after a moment, voice no longer teasing. "Fine. I won't be nice."

His tone sounds strained, untrustworthy; when she gets the nerves to glance at him again he's rolling his window down, not stopping until the warm evening breeze is rolling through the car, filling the silence with the strange walnut scent that seems to linger too long around her cheeks, sending her blushing. "... What?" She says after nearly a minute, hating the quiet. "What, you're not talking to me now?"

"You're not talking to me."

"Am so! I just asked you for directions."

"God." He huffs, one hand running through his hair. "I can't be nice, I can't _not_ talk— I didn't realize this car came with a weird list of rules—"

Feeling the wrinkle popping up over her nose she glances at him, glaring. "You can talk if you're not singing, Wally, because your singing is—"

"Shut up."

"Only if you will."

It feels like old times, back before the two of them got together, before there were all these feelings and a history lingering between them; without wanting to she remembers doing this with him for hours, following each other around and picking fights. It had been a game between the two of them, a way to hide how they were really feeling...

But they're older now, and the rules of the game have changed. And suddenly there's no hiding from Wally, the one person in the world who knows her too well, the one who can see through her glaring and her white knuckles and figure her out. And he's doing it right now; she can sense his eyes on her as he dangles a hand out her window, can sense the way he's reading the slop of her jugular, the angles of her collar bones, the stiffness of her shoulders...

She hears him sigh. "You'll feel better if you tell me about it. Whatever happened with Paula, I mean." He tells her plainly, eyes scowling out the window; still, she doesn't miss the way the corners of his mouth twitch upwards when she glances at him, as if he's just been remembering the old times too. "You're acting like a brat. I know you're thinking about it."

" _Wally—"_

She doesn't have anything to add after saying his name, and as if covering for her he pretends to interrupt. "Left up here, and follow the road for a bit."

She bites her tongue, flicking her signal and thinking hard. She hates when he does this, how he can undress her thoughts with just a look. She hates even more that this is the second time he's done it tonight. Flexing her fingers around the wheel she takes the turn a little more sharply than she means to, following the road he's leading her down. "... Paula wants me to be Huntress."

It's blurted out badly; she doesn't blame Wally for turning his head abruptly towards her, her lips fumbling when she tries to back-track. "N-not like that. The other night she just... She gave me a piece of her old uniform, like it was a family heirloom or something. And she had this weird speech prepared, telling me how proud she was, and— And she told me she wanted me to be her. Like, if I ever went into the League."

"Do you even want to join the League?"

She winces. "That's not the point— Well, I don't know, maybe it is. But she just shoved this huge thing at me, like it was my responsibility to take her old name and fix all the fucked up things she's ever done and—" She hesitates, long enough for Wally to drop his jaw to look at her more severely. "... I mean, I saw Huntress kill people." She says quietly, the words so low it's as if she doesn't want them heard. "I don't want that on me."

She can tell it's not what Wally had been expecting, can read his silence just as easily as he read hers; before he can figure out what he wants to say she keeps talking, afraid now to stop once she's started. "And I said that I would do it, because— I mean, what else was I supposed to say? After all that I couldn't tell her I didn't want that, that I didn't—that I don't want another link to my shitty family, to all the awful things they've done. That was why I joined the Team in the first place, to get away from all that, and lately I just feel like— Like it's closer than ever. Is that stupid?"

 _(And she doesn't know how to put this feeling into words, the one that's been lurking, unexamined inside her; how all she can feel lately is her past and her future pressing so painfully hard on either side of her that there's no room for the present, for her own decisions, no room for her to screw up or think or even consider what the hell she wants_ — _)_

She's rambling, her breath coming short, beside her Wally shakes his head, speaking too slow. "... Of course it's not stupid." He says quietly.

It's not enough; exhaling loudly she presses down harder on the gas pedal, the road they're following fading into an empty stretch of highway. "And I know I was acting like an idiot about Oliver giving me the car but— but it just felt like another huge promise that I wasn't sure I could keep. And I wasn't even on the Team this time last year, and now I have all these people who are like— _relying on me_ , and invested in me, and—"

"Artemis." Wally cuts her off, voice warning; at once she releases the gas pedal, watching as her speedometer slips back down within the speed limit.

She swallows. "Sorry." She mutters gruffly after a moment, mouth dry. "I— Sorry. I don't know why I said all that. You're just—" She glances at him, not sure what she's about to say. "... You're just easy to talk to. For me."

She doesn't know why she adds the last part, dragging her eyes back to the road and not wanting to see the surprised, almost tender look that crosses his features; the road beneath them is beginning to turn more rugged, the sleekness of the paved city roads fading. "Hey." He says after a moment, voice soft, too quiet. "... I get it, okay?"

When she doesn't say anything back Wally sighs. "Artemis, all that stuff—"

For some reason she can't stand to be comforted, and before he can say anything more she reaches for the radio dial, allowing music to drown him out.

* * *

With the absence of the city lights the darkness of the highway feels all encompassing, too thick; as if silently understanding that she's done talking about it Wally cranks her music almost painfully loud, humming along to the choruses of songs she doesn't know as she clicks her headlights on.

"Here." He tells her nearly ten minutes later, twisting the volume down until it's quiet enough to be yelled over, directing her towards a roughly hewn path away from the street lamps on the highway. "Right down there."

The grass here seems overgrown, the road dirt covered and wide enough for only one car. When he finally tells her to stop it's because they've run out of road; all around them are empty fields full of too-long grass and rocky hills that slope underneath her tires. "Come on." He tells her, already opening his door before she even gears into park. "Leave your keys in, okay? We need the head lights, it's so dark."

This sounds strange, and bad for the battery, but rather than argue she sighs, switching her music off and taking her time opening her door. "Are you going to tell me why we're—"

Her question is answered before it's even really asked; gripping the edge of her door she looks out at the glinting lights of Happy Harbor, beyond Wally's silhouette as he marks a few feet in front of her car, staring out at the city they both have a home in. She doesn't ask how he found this place, the top of a lonely hill and that feels as if it's on the edge of the earth itself, Happy Harbor blossoming out in front of them, nothing but a mess of lights and ocean in a valley level with the horizon.

She doesn't close her door; she's never been more sure in her life that it's just the two of them, alone in the countryside and in the darkness. The grass seems to ripple around her bare calves as she makes to follow him, her hair stirring about her chin as she gazes, unblinking, towards her favorite place in the world. "Okay." She breathes, crossing her arms at the hint of chill in the air. "Never mind."

Wally looks pleased when she comes to a stop beside him, glancing at her once before going back to staring at the twinkling city lights. "Found this place while you were gone." He says vaguely, and for the first time she senses no hurt behind the words. "I used to run up here to think. You can see pretty much the whole city from here. Look— the Cave. It's a little hard to see in the dark, but if you look close you can see the outline of the mountain against the water."

She squints, following his hand as he extends it; although she knows it's there she can only just see it, more a figment of her imagination than anything else. "This is..." She starts, not finding a word to follow it.

Wally fills in the blanks, as he always does. "Worth the drive?"

In the glow of the headlights he grins at her, and despite herself she smiles back— how they can go from fighting to moments like this is so baffling to her, so strangely reassuring in its abnormality. It's so quiet out here, so still that when he chuckles lowly in the back of his throat it very well might be the first sound she's heard in years. And she's spent so much of her life in silence, the awful kind, that feeling the quiet blossom between them now makes her want to drink it in, swallow it whole, keep a part of it inside her forever. It's so peaceful here, with the distant scurries of mice, the low hum of crickets; it's so far away from the city, from the lapping of the water on the sand, from everything...

But that's the thing about silences, she supposes. In all the quiet, you sometimes hear things you wish you didn't.

"There's..." She trails off with an exhale, finally tearing her eyes away from the beauty of the view in front of them. "There's something else, actually. That's bothering me."

When he glances at her something in her expression must tell him this is more important than anything else she's revealed tonight; at once his smile is sobering, wavering into seriousness and growing older in the half light. "Okay."

She hesitates. "... But it stays between us, Wally. You have to promise me."

"Artemis..." His brows furrow, jaw tightening; he knows how she feels about promises. "Of course. Promise."

It's childish, making him swear to it; already beginning to feel ashamed of herself she drops her eyes to her sneakers, skin beginning to prickle in the evening air. "I've been... Worried about something. For a long time. And I just... I can't ignore it anymore. And I talked to Kaldur and— and we both think it might be a possibility Sportsmaster killed Marie."

She doesn't look at him, doesn't wait to see his reaction; instead she rushes on, addressing her feet in a hushed voice. "At least there isn't any evidence to suggest otherwise. But we know he was in the area just before we got there—a-and... And I just— _I know he did it._ I know he wanted to get back at me, or control me, or... I don't know. But I was there, and Marie was killed, and now Garfield is M'gann's problem and—" Her voice breaks and she abruptly seals her lips, refusing to indulge in the weakness of crying. "—And I just wanted to hear what you thought. Because I know you, and I know that— that whether I like it or not you read the mission report of what happened. And you're smart. And you can help me plan my next move."

It's lot to ask: of his secrecy, of his trust, of his mind. But she knows him— and he knows her. And if there's one person in the world who she knows will up her figure this out it's Wally.

He's quiet, too much so for her taste; she may as well have said everything to the Happy Harbor skyline for all that she's getting back. Hissing lowly in the back of her throat she finally jerks her head up, glaring at him. "Well?"

To her annoyance Wally isn't even looking at her, instead staring out with furrowed brows towards the ocean. "Well what?"

"Well, what are you thinking?" She hisses.

She watches as he shakes his head, his tongue firing out a low clicking noise that cuts through the quiet. "I'm thinking you don't have a next move—" And he pauses, long enough for her stomach to plummet to her knees, "—because Sportsmaster didn't kill Marie."

She makes a strange choking sound, as if she's just tried to swallow despite her throat not working. "You don't know that for sure."

"He didn't kill her." Wally says plainly, voice flat; she can tell he's trying very hard to be rational, logical. "I don't need to know a damn thing for sure, it— it doesn't make sense. I don't even know why you would... Artemis, it doesn't fit his profile at all. I mean, when he went after me that one night... He did it to hurt you. And it only hurt you because you knew it was happening, right?"

Her brain feels as if it's moving oddly slow. "I guess." She admits, not quite trusting him.

Wally shakes his head again. "So there wouldn't be a point in killing her if he didn't make it known that he was the one doing it— he'd lure you out there, or leave something behind so you'd know it was him, so you'd have to feel messed up about it. Otherwise you're just left wondering what might have happened and not linking it with him directly. That's not his style."

"But what if he wanted me to drive myself crazy thinking—"

"God, Artemis." He sighs, and for the first time since they've known each other she realizes he's beginning to lose patience with her; turning away from the view he runs a hand through his hair, walking a few paces back towards her car. "You've got to stop thinking everything is your fault, okay? I read the report. Marie's body had no javelin marks, no signs of bruising, nothing. She got in the car and drove off the cliff."

She feels anger burning inside her for the first time. "Marie wouldn't have done that." She says lowly.

"Fine." He spits out shortly, kicking a rock absently before sitting on the hood of her car. "But whatever happened didn't have anything to do with you, okay?" Although it's meant to be comforting it sounds harsh, unyielding in the loneliness of the highway. "You're beating yourself up over something that never even happened instead of trying to help M'gann, who actually has to deal with it." A beat. "God."

It's brutally honest, almost mean in the way he can spit her own flaws back at her so quickly; even though she knows he's right, knows very suddenly that she's acting childish and pathetic and _as fucked up as she's always been_ she can't help but hate him for recognizing it when she's passed over it blindly.

 _(He's right. Kaldur had said it himself; they couldn't rule Sportsmaster out, but they couldn't link it directly to him. Her father hasn't even done anything and she's afraid of him_ — _weak, pathetic, damaged, scarred, haunted_ — _)_

 _((Selfish.))_

 _And why does she always need Wally's opinion anyway? Why can't she figure this stuff out on her own? When is she going to stop needing him, when is she going to outgrow him, outgrow her fears, why why why_ —

She wishes she had something to say to defend herself with; wants to shout something at him, to demand answers to the questions rolling inside her head: How can he always be so sure of everything? How can he believe in her? How can he, again and again, drive her crazy with his dependability, for his unfailing ability to believe the best of her when she knows she doesn't deserve it? She wants to hit him, to scream, to do something to quail all the feelings inside her— instead she stands, fists clenching, mulling over the words he's just said and wishing they didn't comfort and infuriate her as much as they do.

She can tell he's angry with her now, probably itching to spew a few well chosen swears at her; feeling slightly reckless she turns back to where she knows he is, squinting and not quite able to make him out in the glare off her headlights. "What's your problem?" She hurls out, glaring.

Even though she can't see his expression she can sense the annoyance in the way he pauses, can practically feel his ears radiating in the dark. "My problem," he starts, voice cutting and annoyingly slow, "is that I'm trying to be nice, because it's your goddamn birthday, and you're too busy _feeling sorry for yourself to notice_ —"

"I didn't ask you to do this." She snarls, unfurling her arms and allowing her fists to clench at her sides. "I didn't tell you—"

"Shut up." He huffs. "You asked me, Artemis, the night before M'gann's birthday. You told me you wanted me to do something for you too. _So here I am_."

She feels the old memory tug at her, and despite herself she deflates; he's right, of course. Still, unable to quail her bickering now that it's started she shifts her weight, feeling like an idiot. "... We broke up, Wally." She says harshly. "You didn't—"

"Yeah, I did."

It's said so dismissively that she doesn't argue, instead flexing her toes angrily in the dirt. It takes a long time for her shoulders to relax, for the tense and bothered muscles in her back to unclench, for parts of her to unwind. _She's very aware that she's being an asshole._ "... Thank you." She says gruffly after a moment, teeth gritting together as she hesitates. "And sorry for being... Yeah."

It's not an apology, not really, but they both know the fact that she's even trying is progress; as she squints through the headlights to find him she can see him shifting his weight uneasily on the hood of her car, overlong legs rustling up the loose dirt on the ground. "Whatever." He says, voice still rough. "... Come here."

She holds back for a moment, unable to see him the darkness, before finally moving blindly towards him; raising one hand to block out the light she moves clumsily over through the overlong grass, stubbing her toes on unseen rocks. "Are we going?" She asks, patting her pockets stupidly, searching for her keys before she realizes they're still in the ignition.

For some reason Wally doesn't say anything for a moment, simply watching her get closer, his heel catching on her bumper as he shifts his weight again. "Sit."

She ignores this, not wanting to be bossed around; rather than follow the order she stops less than a foot in front of him, his bent knees inches from her stomach. "What now?" She asks peevishly, wanting to go home.

And it's strange, this silence between them, more thick and angry than it's been in a while; neither of them feel like celebrating anything anymore, sporting matching glares as they stare each other down, stubborn as always. Finally Wally sighs, as if sensing she's not going to actually sit beside him, and shifts his weight again.

He fumbles with his pocket for a moment, rolling his eyes at her and sending her a look that seems to say a thousand things at once— annoyance, tenderness, something bigger than the two of them. Like always she's not brave enough to see what he wants her to, her cheeks flaring up before she can stop them and her eyes dropping to the several inches she's placed between them, glaring hard at her feet. "... Can we just—" She starts, intending to ask him to let her take him home; she's distracted when her eyes catch movement, glancing up despite herself to watch as his hand, still adorned with her elastic, as it places a small velvet box on the swell of his knee.

"What—" She starts, blanching slightly; it's about the last thing she wants to see: another present, this time wrapped clumsily with ribbon. Feeling annoyed she looks away, hissing out a breath that ruffles her hair. "Wally, come on—"

"Open it." He insists, picking it up off his knee and holding it out to her.

She glares, blowing a piece of hair out of her face as he waggles the tiny package tauntingly in the empty space between them. ".. You didn't have to." She grumbles, feeling ill-tempered as she snatches it from where he's waving it, inches from her face.

"I did, okay?" He mutters, beginning to sound annoyed again. "Just open it."

Deciding there's no way around it she bites her tongue, finally indulging him; slipping the ribbon off the box she flicks the top open, an odd feeling to foreboding sounding in her stomach.

It's tiny, too delicate for someone like her to wear; she must make some sort of noise, a small intake of breath or something else stupid sounding because at once Wally laughs, the sound almost brash and too-loud with the sudden ringing of her ears. "Wally." She mumbles, knees wobbling and fingers reaching out to press against the delicate gold chain, the light glinting off the dainty looking "A" it's woven through. "... God. You— You didn't—"

Her throat tightens, caught between still feeling upset and now caught off guard. She can't figure out what she's trying to say, thumb and forefinger removing the fragile little necklace from the box to hold it up in front of her; for some reason her mouth's no longer working, her silence only making him grow a mixture of annoyed and sheepish in front of her. "I bought it ages ago. Meant to give it to you after Prom." He mumbles, hand predictably going to the back of his neck. "I-it's probably meant for girls with names like Ashley, or Alexa, or something normal, or whatever, but... I don't know. I thought it would look good on you..."

He trails off when she places the empty box back on his knee, not noticing the way he blushes as she unclasps it. The metal is cool as she clips it around her neck, the tiny "A" fitting perfectly into the dip of her collar bone; when she doesn't do anything beyond reaching up to press the chain against her neck, as if wanting to make sure it stay there, branded, forever, Wally makes a nervous tittering sound. "Do you like it?"

 _(... God.)_

She keeps her head ducked, hiding behind her hair and not sure what to feel. Her mouth still isn't cooperating, her fingers still frozen as they press the necklace into her skin; already the metal has adjusted to the warmth of her skin, seeming weightless as it curls around her neck, already a part of her.

 _(She's not supposed to be wearing this. Girls like her wear their mother's old uniforms; they are given gifts crusted with blood or melted from steel. She is carved from muscle and sinew and arrow heads. She is not supposed to be wearing a necklace.)_

 _((But she doesn't take it off.))_

... A small part of her, hidden, might cry if she was a different kind of girl. If she were Ashley or Alexa she would do what she wants to right now— she would follow the strange mixture of annoyance and emotion swirling inside her. She would reach for him, pull him in, kiss him the way she's been longing to. She would cling to him, broken and vulnerable, and whisper something predictable: "You're an idiot." She would sigh, more tender than before. "You are an idiot and I can't stop pretending I don't love you."

And he would be there. And that would be enough.

But she isn't Alexa, or Ashley. She is Artemis, and she isn't ready.

 _(Tonight has only proved how broken she still is, how tangled her insides are; she isn't ready for something like this, for the words she wants so badly to speak. "I love you," can't be a part of her vocabulary right now, now when her heart is pierced by broken glass so sharp others are ripped open when they touch it.)_

 _(But she wants to say it, for the first time she wants him to know. And that has to mean something_ — _that has to mean something good.)_

The "A" is too tiny, too delicate between her fingers; when she closes her eyes she can imagine the feeling of the letter getting lost between the seams of her skin, a memory of what Prom night could have been a part of her forever.

... It's good, she decides, that they aren't together. It's good for both of them.

Her and Wally... They never could get the timing right. That was their problem, she sees it now; distantly she wonders how things might have turned out: if they had went to Prom, if she had let him kiss her on New Years Day, if he hadn't tripped over his own feet that first day they met. Her thumb finds the chain, skimming the metal and thinking hard, pressing the souvenir from the boy she once loved into her skin as the man he became sits in front of her, growing nervous.

... She loves him, she knows she does. And he loves her. There's a reason people like them find each other. Maybe it's fate, some sort of higher calling neither of them believe in. Whatever it is it isn't an accident, this pull between them that brings them back to each other, again and again...

But right now, this moment... The timing isn't right. Not when she's not sure who she's supposed to be, not sure what kind of girl Artemis is. And she's done with letting him try to fix her, done pretending what's wrong with her is something anyone but her can deal with. There's a war inside her head, her heart is learning how not to be small, and she needs to learn how to stop destroying herself before she can let anyone as perfect as Wally near her again.

And right now, to try to love him like this... It isn't worth it. There were the good times, she supposes; the ones where he would laugh and the familiar wrinkles would crease his forehead and she would forget to be numb. There were moments where Wally's arms once meant invincibility, safety, the kind of warmth she's never understood being pressed into her skin.

But she can't, not right now. Not until she learns to be okay on her own. She is too broken, and the pain of loving someone when she doesn't love herself is too much. It's crippling, it's terrifying, the idea of losing herself in another when she's so lost in herself. She's tried it before and it had left her shaking, left her in fear of how vulnerable she was, of how much she had tied up in another person... She's spent so much time being along, being scared, being empty, and as much as she might want him... There isn't room for him in her heart right now.

 _(And she'll wear the necklace_ — _a_ _souvenir of what has happened, and a hope for what's to come_ — _)_

One day her heart won't be so full of the worst parts of herself. One day she will understand why she's so broken— and then they'll be together. And when it happens for the two of them again... She knows that will be it. Wally and Artemis, her and him— that's the way it's meant to be. He had said that to her once, hadn't he? The two of them, together. That's what it comes down to. _Her and Wally_. She can feel tears prickling her eyes but she doesn't indulge them, blinking rapidly as she looks at him; his ears are burning in the darkness, looking earnest as he watches her face, boyishly nervous.

"I—" She tries to say something, voice breaking. She'll have to wait, like he is now. She'll have to wait until she's whole enough to love this boy, until there's room in her heart to do it properly. She won't hurt him like she did ever again.

... There is love is holding, in clutching, in clawing to be together. But there is also love in letting go.

Although she wants to hug him she doesn't, instead raising her head to look him in the eye. "I love it." She croaks, keeping her hands to herself.

* * *

 _((It's past midnight now, no longer her birthday. The hood of her car doesn't hold the heat of the July day inside it anymore as it hums beneath her back, the engine rolling softly as her headlights bathe the few feet in front of them in yellow light. There's no noise out here, no talking between the two of them. Her and Wally have had their share of silences but this is by far her favorite one._

 _The night grows thicker, darker. Soon the twinkling of Happy Harbor fades into the stars, a mess of city and sky and quiet; this kind of thing, this kind of silence, should not be experienced alone. Wally shifts on the hood of her car, his arm warm as always as it brushes against her._

 _(... She thinks of the early summer, of the first few days when the sun blazed over their faces; she thinks of Wally's sunburnt nose and the new freckles that would blossom on his back, of her fingers trailing between them, connecting the dots, tracing the tiny stars and moons and galaxies that held him together...)_

 _That's the thing about summer, she supposes. It makes you realize that you can love something immensely and profoundly for a moment, a limited amount of time, without it having to continue forever. She loved Wally before she knew how to love herself. But that moment is gone, their summer is over, and forever is never promised. And the seasons will change, and her and Wally will find their way back to each other as they always do, but right now it is her autumn— her time to change, to grow, to die, before she can find him in the spring._

 _She's tired now, the kind of exhausted that makes her more vulnerable than she would want anyone other than Wally to see; her knees knock together as she struggles to stay awake, eyes catching a glimmer of an unknown something in the distance. "... Shooting star." She mumbles, hand stretching out above them to point._

 _Wally tilts his head until his chin is brushing against her temple, trying to follow the path of her forefinger. "... Satellite." He corrects her._

 _"No."_

 _"Yes."_

 _She's too tired to argue. "It's my birthday." She tells him, even though the last time they both checked his watch it was almost one in the morning; still, as if this settles it he goes silent, a twitching about his jaw telling her that he's smiling._

 _Again quiet stretches out between them, the kind of quiet with Wally that she's always liked; she doesn't know how long they sit like that ,sprawled backwards in the warmth of the summer evening. For the first time in a long time it feels like it once did with Wally—this ease, the comfort of friendship. Nothing forced or fake about the moment—just two people, alone in the dark._

 _The silence envelops them, soft and smooth as always; slowly her eyes slip out of focus and the night sky seems to blur together in one glimmering mass, a mixture of starts and city lights so beautiful it almost doesn't seem real. Dimly she registers the sensation of his breathing, the inhales and exhales that keep him alive, the occasional twitch of his muscles as his body starts protesting at the stillness._

 _She waits until the darkness is thick enough to hide behind. "... You're my best friend, Wally." She whispers._

 _He doesn't hesitate. "You're mine too."))_

* * *

Sixteen, as it turns out, is not entirely different from being fifteen; other than the driver's license there's almost no difference.

The time passes, as it always does— the remaining days of July begin to fade and with it summer begins to waver; although it's still unbearably hot the evenings occasionally have a new chill in the air, the early morning breeze rolling off the Happy Harbor ocean somehow more crisp, cooler. She rises early most days, running before the heat of the days sets in; it feels good, the familiar pounding of earth beneath her feet, the stickiness of the sand as it clings to her skin. Life seems settled, sturdy. Simple, at last.

Most mornings she finds M'gann, the two of them trying their best to talk about the easy things rather than all the horribleness of the last few weeks. Wally's right, of course— it wasn't her fault Marie died, and thinking so had been little more than a distraction— but it doesn't stop her from feeling guilty: for running back home after it happened, for not being there to help. She's not sure if anything she will ever do can fix her abandoning M'gann, but she wants to try. Oh God, she wants to try.

"I still don't know what I'm going to do about him." M'gann sighs one day, no longer paying attention to the magazine she's been flipping through; marking her place on the page of her book she props herself up on an elbow, following the other girl's gaze to where Garfield is laughing loudly, floundering around in the ocean water with Wally and Dick.

By far the biggest change of the last week or so has been having Garfield around. The little boy is endlessly amusing; during her free afternoons the two of them go for long walks down the beach and through the grove of trees she used to hide in, and he makes her laugh with his uncanny ability to transform and mimic each one. He's learning quickly— it's only taken him a few days to master the swallows and robins and wood peckers, save for the exact shade of green as M'gann's skin that he still can't figure out how to get rid of.

As if reading her mind M'gann sighs again. "... I don't even know what I'm going to do about getting him into a school. I mean, he's green..."

She exchanges a look with Zatanna lying on her other side and does her best to don a reassuring smile. "We'll figure it out, Meg. Don't worry."

Despite her saying it she knows that the other girl has been doing nothing but, her mood seeming permanently damped and her silences more tense than usual. She has a right to be worried, if course. It became obvious, the first time they took him on a tour of Happy Harbor, that Garfield's skin made him a stand out in crowds; that day they had been bombarded with stares, with whispers, with disgusted glances that had made the little boy go from excited to upset in a matter of minutes.

"It will be easier in the Fall." Zatanna says helpfully, and she knows at once they're all thinking of hiding the little boy in hoodies and jeans.

She does her best to keep Garfield entertained, taking him for car rides and basically anything that will give M'gann a break. Although she thinks it must be quite boring for the little boy he seems endlessly thrilled by the prospect of simply haunting the Cave, the long hours filled with her showing him things like the training room and the common area, the wall of souvenirs and the stories behind them. Despite the monotony it's all a little too much for him, after being a fan of the League for so long, and although his laughter quickly changes from infectious to shrill she does her best not to get too annoyed—she remembers the unsettling silence in to Quarac all too well, and is in no mood to hear it ever again.

... Summer edges onward and the Cave feels different. She can't explain why; the feels just lurks there, unnoticed but present, like the ever-passing nature and the knowledge that they're all getting older. She tries to explain this feeling exactly once, picking perhaps the worst audience to do so; when she tries to explain how she feels to Connor she receives a dry look in response, his head swinging back to the television to stare at static.

Huffing slightly she goes back to her book, missing the way his eyes glance back at her after a moment, gaze drifting down to where the golden glint of metal is shimmering about her collar bone. "... Nice necklace." He says stiffly.

She blushes.

* * *

On the last day of July she starts the day by seeking refuge in the library, wanting some peace and quiet; after so long of nearly constant company she's anxious for some privacy, to hear her own thoughts or at the very least her own voice repeating written word in her head. She's just on her way to the shelf she's left off at—she's made her way out of the non-fiction now—when a movement catches her out of corner of her eye.

"Kaldur?" Her feet automatically change their course down the main isle, turning towards him and down his row of shelves—he's passing through the classical section, nothing but aged spines detailing ancient myths, old texts by Homer and other long dead Greeks, pausing once on a row of shelves that she's never looked at, the volume all much older than she can imagine, written in languages long dead to the living ear. "What are you doing in the library so—"

In response he raises a webbed hand, glancing once over his shoulder as she approaches; following his line of sight she can see Tula, slumped back in her chair in sleep, stirring slightly at the sound of their voices; with a twitch of his head Kaldur steers her by the shoulder further down the aisle. "Apologies." He says quietly when they're out of range from the other girl. "Tula and I spent the night here. We were doing some research."

"Research?" She half-snorts, grinning up at him. "Some romantic night out, Kal."

Rather than look annoyed he grins, one of his rare ones that shows all his rounded teeth. "You are too impatient to appreciate such things." He tells her, an air of teasing surrounding his tone. "Come. Care to help me until she wakes?"

It's not exactly what she wants to do, but Kaldur's always been good company; since returning home she's spent hardly any time alone with him, just the two of them, beyond their fighting and hasty making up. Thinking distantly on their once frequent afternoons on the beach she turns smiles, leaning against the shelf he's led her to. "Things are going well with her, huh?" She smirks.

Kaldur glances at her once, hesitating; he must understand that he can't hide much from her especially when the dull purple blush begins rising up his neck. "Very. I cannot recall ever being so happy, not since..."

He trails off, and she doesn't push him; instead she lets whatever else is hidden in his sheepish grin remain so. "What am I supposed to be helping you looking for, anyway?" She asks, turning back towards the shelf and squinting at the titles, all written in something older than Greek and unreadable to her eyes.

Again Kaldur pauses, although this one is of an entire different nature; she can tell she's being measured, the half-second of quiet between them signaling his own marking of how much to trust her. She's not sure what to make of the short, hardly there silence before he continues. "I am searching for early Mesopotamian myths." He tells her, eyes returning to the shelves. "… Perhaps early Babylonian ones as well. I am particularly interested in articles detailing the ancient god, Marduk."

She makes a low humming noise in the back of her throat, thinking as she glances at the shelf. "Does this—" She starts before stopping herself, watching as his webbed fingers scroll along the spines of several books before pausing, extracting a particularly thin volume with interest. It doesn't take much to put two and two together, and taking a page out of Zatanna's book she cuts straight to the chase. "You've been gathering information about the tablets he stole." She says, watching his expression carefully. "Sportsmaster? From Sandsmark's museum feature?"

He glances at her, and she takes care not to let a flicker of any emotion, not even anger or disgust at her father's mantle, pass over her face. "You are correct."

She swallows, turning back to the shelf and pretending to look critically at a title she can't read. "… You shouldn't be looking here." She tells him frankly, shaking her head. "Doctor Sandsmark was an ancient Greek historian, she worked in Athens. Anything she dug up would have had to be Greek in origin—"

"Not necessarily true." He counters, as if sensing the beginnings of her stubbornness setting in and wishing to head it off. "You are not familiar with Greek history, are you?"

She shrugs. "Amusing, considering your name." He says vaguely, and although it's meant to be teasing she narrows her eyes, unamused. "The Greeks were not the beginnings or the end of ancient civilization, although they paint themselves as such. Before the Greeks there were the Babylonians. Before the Babylonians there were the Mesopotamians. Before them there were the Minoans."

"So?"

"So it is impossible for so many generations and cultures to walk the land without leaving their presence behind." He tells her frankly, with the air of explanation. "Just because one culture dominates another does not mean the old one is lost. They leave imprints of themselves in religion, myth…"

It's taking her longer than usual to follow his train of thought, and after several seconds something clicks. "So the Doctor dug up something more ancient than ancient Greece?" She asks.

He doesn't immediately answer, flipping through a few pages of the book he's extracted before replacing it back on the shelf. "From what she has told me the artifacts detail the rise of an all-powerful god doing battle with a demonic entity."

She bites her tongue. "So it's old." She says stupidly, watching as his brows raise. "... Really old?"

"The word does not begin to describe it." He chuckles, voice levelling out after a moment. "The inscription names the god Marduk— if I am remembering the Atlantean archives correctly, he originates from the Mycenaean era. Tula and I were simply trying to find more of a record of his existence within their religion, and of the demon he did battle with. It is difficult, of course... The Myceneaeans conquered the Minoans, and altered their myths to suit their own needs... Perhaps his legend is older than the Minoans themselves..."

She feels her brows raise, sensing his thoughts drifting away from her; it feels as if he's deliberately being vague, unfocused.. For some reason an odd feeling swoops through her, a strange pang of jealousy and wistfulness for the days when she had been his confidant rather than Tula... Ever since the other girl arrived she's felt as if there's something wedged between them, the other's girl's influence on him so profound that there's no room for her to be his friend anymore, no room for the closeness they once shared when it's being marred by another person's thoughts and feelings. "... Why bother?" She asks, brows furrowing as she tries to reclaim his attention. "You don't think Marduk was actually real, do you?"

It takes him a second to get out of his thoughts, no doubt getting caught on research or words exchanged from the previous evening. His shoulder twitches into that strange half-shrug all Atlanteans are prone to as he looks down at her thoughtfully. "... There have long since been debates about whether the gods exist, in both the surface world and Atlantis. Even Superboy and Red Arrow have opinions... There have even been debates about figures like Superman, and Wonder Woman, and how close they are to immortal..." He muses, still lost. Finally he blinks, irises clear as he looks at her. "— I am curious. That is all."

"But..." She trails off, thinking hard and feeling as if she's missing something. "Okay, let's say you find out Marduk is real. Would that make... I mean, that would mean the demon he fought was real too." She mulls over, watching his face very carefully for some indication that she's following the right path. "And that means the Light is gathering artifacts that have something to do with them."

There's a pause in which Kaldur's eyes glance between the shelf and her several times, finally resting on her face with a strange expression she can't recognize, his brows and jawline oddly thick as he surveys her. "... As I said before: I am simply curious." He says carefully, looking stern. "I do not believe learning as much as I can would be... Forgive me." A little too much must be showing on her face; as if suddenly thinking better of the conversation Kaldur shakes his head, looking solemn. "You did not come to the library to listen to my theories." He says kindly, turning to her. "Perhaps I can help you find a book?"

The way he says the last part is too light, too easy for the conversation they've just been having; it feels as if the cogs whirring in her head have been forced to come to a halt, her brows furrowing as she reads the mocking easiness of his expression. "... What?"

She's not expecting him to but for some reason Kaldur sighs, still trying to keep his face unreadable. "Apologies." He mutters, shaking his head. "I am worrying you over half thought theories. They are nothing."

"Nothing?" She repeats, eyes narrowing.

And suddenly she understands what's happening, the weight of all the secrets between her and Kaldur feeling oddly heavy as it settles in the swell of her shoulder; vaguely she can registers the flickering of old memories in her mind: her feelings about Wally, Kaldur's attachment to Tula, the own fears about her family...

There's trust between them, the kind that would prompt him into telling her as much as he has, but not enough to tell her his every thought; no, those days are long gone between them, wedged and separated by the girl currently sleeping several shelves behind them. But despite this newfound... Rift, between them, she knows him far better than he would like. She knows him well enough to understand that he's onto something, following a thread to the end of a path he's not sure of. And although they are each other's secret keepers, and although she would trust her life to Kaldur... He can't tell her everything. Not until he knows himself.

She's disappointed by the change in conversation, wanting to know more about what he's thinking— but she knows Kaldur. He'll tell her when she needs to know. In response she shakes her head, feeling slightly sour as she straightens off the shelf. "I don't really need help." She tells him, but none the less gestures for him to follow as they loop around another row of books, further away from Tula where they can talk in normal volume. "I just… I don't know. Felt like being alone for a bit."

"Ah." He nods back. "You have been spending too much time with Garfield?"

For some reason she grinds her teeth, feeling instantly guilty over the fact that he's nailed her so quickly. "… Not too much. Just…" For some reason she can't think of what to say next, her voice trailing off as they round the corner to the row of shelves she's left off on.

"… It is just that you like being alone." Kaldur clarifies for her.

She grimaces, wincing at the suggestion. "Well…"

She doesn't say anything more but Kaldur seems to understand; nodding again he pauses at the end of the isle, jaw dropping as he surveys her progress further. "Hm."

The noise is too thoughtful, too vague; at once her eyes leave the path she's marked on the shelf, no longer searching for the place along the row that she's left off on and instead finding their way back to him. "What?"

Kaldur shakes his head, taking a slow steps towards her. "I had a favor to ask, but perhaps—"

 _"Kal."_

He seems to understand that she's done humoring his excuses, his attempts at being tactful; for a moment he considers her, and feeling herself losing patience she leaves him to his thoughts for a moment, finally finding her spot on the shelf and reaching for the next book along the row, a thin volume bound in burgundy. "… I was considering asking you to train Garfield." He says suddenly, blurting out the words almost uncharacteristically.

She makes a stupid sounding noise, a ridiculous half-snort mixed with an obnoxious sounding exhale that immediately cuts off as she glances at him, reading the alarming seriousness of his face. "... What? Why?"

If Kaldur notices her nearly drop the book he doesn't say anything, instead coming to a stop beside her. His posture has changed, no longer relaxed and slouched but alarmingly straight, hands folded seriously behind his back; at once she feels herself straightening in response, very suddenly aware that he's no longer addressing her as a friend but as a leader. "We still do not understand the full extent of his powers." Kaldur says reasonably. "Although I believe there is some potential for… After Athens, even Metropolis, I have been considering the advantage of having a larger group of Team Members at our disposal."

She blinks at him, still feeling entirely caught off guard by the proposition, let alone what she's hearing right now. "You're considering letting Garfield join the Team?"

"It seems prudent." Kaldur tells her. "M'gann certainly brought him into our inner circle—not that I am against it. And I do believe that with the right training he could be an asset."

She mulls this over for a long moment, thinking hard and fast— Garfield on the Team? Garfield, fighting someone? Garfield, maybe, possibly, getting hurt? "… M'gann should train him." She says, throat rough sounding. "He got his powers from her."

"Of course. But what of combat training?"

"Connor."

She expecting him to at least consider this; as if he's ready for the counter offer he lowers his jaw, scrutinizing her. "I am asking you."

For some reason her mouth goes dry, mind buzzing and anxious in a way it hasn't been in a while. It takes a moment or two to place the sudden panic clawing at her, but at once she can see flurries of memories flashing at the back of her mind: her father, putting her through drills. Her father, beating her senseless. Her father, cutting into her, screaming at her, breaking her in ways children aren't supposed to—

 _She can't. She can't do this._

As if he can see what's going on inside her mind Kaldur reaches out to clap a sturdy hand on her shoulder; despite not wanting to she can feel her knees buckling underneath the weight, toes flexing into the carpet and grounding her firmly. "Garfield likes you." He says lowly, voice not sharp but rather smooth, reassuring. "He will perform best with someone he trusts."

"... I'll hurt him." She blurts out, blank façade fading for a moment, exposing a flash of some emotion she can't explain.

 _(She's afraid of turning into her father_ — _of pushing for too much, too soon. Of tearing down a child and molding them into something monstrous, irreversible, of breaking them the way she was broken_ — _)_

Whatever it is Kaldur understands it, his fingers tightening around her. "We both know you will not." He tells her firmly. "You will teach him what he needs to know to protect himself— that is what you are best at, Artemis. Protecting people."

She doesn't know why he says this, what it's supposed to mean; for a moment she can see herself, wild and impulse as she sprints forward beside the waterfall, fighting with everything she has to stop Garfield from seeing Marie's dead body. The memory makes her sick, its manipulation from his mouth twisting inside her, tasting ugly.

"... He's too young." She says after a moment, shaking her head. "He's not like Dick. He can't do this."

For several seconds Kaldur stares at her, and she senses it again; the silent debate, the question of how much to trust her. Once again he decides quickly, the fact that he still even has to think on the decision bothering her more than it should. "... It is the only way." He whispers after a moment. "You do not know the full details—"

"Then tell me."

Another pause, this time longer. "I cannot." He says solemnly, wincing when her eyes narrow. "... Garfield is being watched by the Bialyan government. To release him into the world, unprotected... It would be risking his life. Putting M'gann in danger. Exposing the whole Team." His throat bobs before he continues. "I am asking you to train him— if he can earn a place on the Team he will remain safe. Please, Artemis."

She can't think of anything for a long moment, instead looking away when Kaldur takes his hand back. "…If M'gann wants me to—"

"Of course she does. But she will not ask—she does not want you to feel obligated."

"It's putting a little boy's life in my hands, Kal, how can I not—"

She's interrupted when he raises a hand, cutting off the loudness of her voice as it carries around the library. Distantly she can hear Tula stirring, several pages of books creasing as she shifts in sleep. "… M'gann is at a loss as to what to do with him." He whispers after a moment. "She is considering leaving the Team to care for him. Finding him a place here will ensure both of their futures and their safety. Garfield will face Black Canary and the rest of the Team when he is ready, and you are to prepare him."

As if he can sense her about to get angry with him he shakes his head, looking far more stern than she's ever seen him. "I am asking you because I trust you." He whispers, as if afraid the other girl will hear. "I know you will not give up until Garfield is ready. And he is safe."

He always does this; words things so smoothly and says them so firmly she can hardly say no. "... Okay." She mumbles, clutching her book painfully tight as an idea hits her, spurring the words out of her mouth before she can stop them. "But you owe me— I want to be kept in the loop with this whole artifact thing." She says stubbornly, waving the book at him angrily before she folds it into the crook of her arm. "... Spartsmaster is my father. I deserve to know what the hell he's planning."

For a long moment they stare at each other, his jaw tightening and gaze too shrewd as he looks at her; she can tell he isn't fond of the idea, isn't fond of forcing her father and her together more than either of them can stand it. Still, it takes nearly half a minute before he nods. "Deal."

And she opens her mouth to say something— something she's not sure of, the words not coming to her as easily as they once would. Is she trying to thank him? To tell him she misses him? To tell him that despite the fact that they're not as close as they once were that his secrets are safe, that they'll be kept safe until she dies, because, like he just reminded her, they can trust each other—

Before she can figure out how to say any of this Kaldur nods once in dismissal. She's left holding the burgundy bound book alone.

* * *

"Arms up." She says, pausing to press her hair back behind her ears before she raises her own fists, knees bending into a proper stance.

 _(She has her father's hands, a fact that she's just become aware of in the last few days: weather beaten so often that the rough skin has grown smooth. Now more than ever her eyes are drawn to them in moments like this, when she's waiting to strike, staring at the cracked and wrinkled rivers mapped down her blistered knuckles. She hates them.)_

Garfield for his part continues to look wary, the same way he's been looking for the past hour or so; almost reluctantly he raises his tiny green fists for the umpteenth time, thumbs curling inside his fingers the way she's scolded him for doing twice now. "You'll break your thumbs, Gar." She tells him, trying to be patient as he makes the correction.

It's their third afternoon of training now—it had taken most of the first two sessions to calm Garfield down, to get him to stop morphing into animals at the slightest impulse and clambering all over the expensive training facility. She's not the best teacher, and she knows it; their second afternoon she had snapped at him, losing patience when he had kept interrupting her training with questions she didn't want to answer— _how had she learnt these things, who had taught her, was her father a hero too? Is she actually related to Green Arrow? Or is that some sort of lie?—_ and she had shut him down too quickly, to snarling.

... Cutting, the way her father would.

 _(She can't do this.)_

 _(Don't be a baby.)_

But she's learning. They both are.

"Better." She tells him when he gets himself pulled together, making the correction and adjusting his feet until he's mirroring her. "Let's do the combination I taught you, okay? And this time I'll counter-attack, so be careful to dodge too. Slow at first?"

Garfield's face sets, fists tightening for a moment. She can tell he's still not sure why they're doing this, why they're continuing with training long after it's stopped being fun."Okay."

It takes a few seconds for him to realize she's waiting for him to move, embarrassment flashing on his face for a moment and his first punch coming at her a little clumsily; ducking around it she makes a show of moving her arm unrealistically slow, countering the move with a cross of her own—

Like Wally he's a fast learner; bending at the waist she easily misses, one of his fists upper cutting her in the abdomen the way she's shown him. He's so small, he'll take plenty of people off guard by this, but he's not really hitting her—just touching her, tiny bones barely imprinting on her diaphragm. "You actually have to hit me, Gar." She says forcefully, taking a few steps back as if she's just been hit and setting up the opportunity to reset the approach.

"Okay, okay."

"Faster now." She commands, already flying at him again.

 _("Faster now." Her father had once shouted, not allowing her time to brace herself before his fists had come flying her at, broad knuckles knocking against her jaw and clobbering her backwards. She is ten, maybe eleven, screaming for him to stop, to let her think, too young and afraid to anticipate his movements; stumbling over her own feet she had tried to outrun him, hair ripping from her scalp as he had caught her by pig tail. "Faster Baby Girl, or you won't survive out there...")_

 _((Her nose is bloodied and her lip is split, and he only stops when she is shaking on the floor, crying for her mother_ — _))_

It goes on—the first few times he misses a step to the combination, or adds in new punches and blocks. Despite the mistakes it's improvement, better than what she's been expecting from only a few sessions, but—

Garfield aims a kick about the backs of her knees, forcing them to bend—it's one of her old moves she used to favor when she was smaller, and using the momentum she falls hard on her back, legs whipping round to roll her upright, shoulders bracing against the ground—and he's not expecting the sudden change in maneuver, the fist flying towards him but he still digs his heels in, as if determined to—

 _(("Stop!" She had whimpered, elbows bracing round her skull, trying to block out the dull pounding bruising her limbs. "Dad_ — _Stop_ —" _))_

Her fist freezes of its own accord, a sudden and unexplainable bolt of pain bursting out from the ghost of the old scar on her neck; it happens in a second, too quick for her mind to understand, only her body stuttering and muscles freezing with terror. It's so fast that it hardly alters the pace of their sparring, and before she can even figure out _what the fuck that just was_ she registers the familiar squelching sound—

Her heart is pounding, muscles spasming with adrenaline she doesn't know the cause of, and before she can brace for what's about to happen the mass of green shifts as it bounds towards her, her fists failing and forearms raising in defense as she's suddenly face to face with the snarling teeth of a wolf—

"Garfield!" She hisses, dodging out of the way of the animal and landing in a somewhat awkward roll, her shoulder hitting the ground funny and twinging her whole arm as she hurls to a stop. "I told you—you can't always turn into something when you're caught off guard—"

The ugly squelching sound drowns out her scolding and at once the little boy is standing across the training room from her, grimacing. "Sorry!" He whines, green cheeks blushing an odd pink. "I didn't mean to…"

Annoyance is throbbing in her temples, the entirety of her back contracting and trembling with fear; trying her best not to sound shaky or frightened she struggles to pulling in a breath, strange black lights bursting at the edges of her vision. Her old scar, sliced off by Jade, is suddenly throbbing with pain.

Her not responding is worrying Garfield, and as much as she wants to understand what's just happened she forces it to stay buried, instead standing and breathing hard through her nose. _She won't yell, she won't become her father._ "I know, I know." She sighs, rubbing her injured shoulder, sneaking a few fingers beneath her shirt to probe the old scare tissue— no longer warbled and ugly, she traces the familiarity of the new scar Jade left her, finding nothing different. _What the hell?_ "... At least we know your training with M'gann is going well."

Garfield isn't impressed by the compliment. "Why do I even have to learn how to fight?" He whines. "You hate training me, I hate training— and I have super powers now! What's the point?"

"I don't hate training you." She mumbles, eyes narrowing in annoyance at his honesty as she pulls her fingers from her scar, doing her best to ignore the pain still lingering there. "And you'll do it because we tell you to. Connor still trains almost daily with Black Canary, and he's _Super Boy._ "

She exhales the last part as if annoyed, fingers splaying across her face to press her hair back behind her ears— _(Vietnamese features that belong to Huntress, the golden hair of her father. She can't do this, she can't do this_ — _)_

She seems to catch him on this, his lower lip jutting out childishly for a moment. "Yeah, but his powers are different. I can turn into any animal I want to—"

"If you know the animal's physiology." She corrects him, beginning to come back to herself when he makes a frustrated noise. "What happens if you're in a climate that none of the animals you know are adaptable to? What if you get an inhibitor collar slapped on your neck, _beast boy?_ " She tries her best to tease, crossing the room to clap him on the shoulder with as much normalcy as she can manage. "Even M'gann knows enough to get her out of trouble, Gar. Are you telling me you know better than your sister?"

"Fine." There's a grumbling noise before Garfield sends her a lop-sided grin. "But if I get it right we go for a drive— and we get milkshakes from the drive thru I like. And—

She exhales normally this time and does her best to send him a shaky smile. "Again." She tells him. "Arms up."

 _(("Again." Her father snarls, ignoring her crying as the blisters on her fingers burst, dribbling blood over the string of her bow. "Again, Artemis!"))_

* * *

The heat swelters onward, the entire country reaching a feverish burning point that can only felt at the final high point of summer; even Gotham is hot, the air muggy and pollution seeming to cling to her skin.

"You're going for a run?" Zatanna asks her sleepily, eyes barely cracked open as she lies in what she once thought of as Jade's old bed. "When it's hot like this?"

"That's why you go early, Zee." She says impatiently, yanking an old tee shirt over her sports bra. "Beat the heat."

In response Zatanna yawns, rolling over until she's facing the wall. "You're crazy."

The sidewalk beneath her feet seems to already positively radiate from the five am sun, the streets mercilessly empty as she pounds over them. It's true, she supposes—the only people up this hour are either crazy or drunks leftover from the night before, and seeing as she hasn't had anything to drink…

She rounds the corner, habitually dreading this street; although one of the safer ones on her route it's always a bit of a gamble, what with the local bar open so late. Despite the fact that the place usually clears out by three the drunks all tend to linger until the early morning sun slaps them across their faces, asking for change and yelling at girls on their way to their morning shifts. It's unpleasant, sure, but it sure as hell beats getting—

"Hey!" A straggly voice yells at her as she passes; resolutely she keeps her eyes fixed forward, ignoring the figure as he continues to shout after her. "Hey! Sweetheart!"

 _Fuck._

Experience has told her not to look back, not to humor any guy in Gotham; judging by her own experience it only leads to getting trapped in darkened alley ways, the kind of cornered that would be trouble to someone who wasn't like her. Despite the heat bothering her she picks up the pace of her strides, pushing herself and doing her best to ignore the man still calling after her, a flurry of movement behind her telling her she's being followed—

"Sweetheart!" He slurs again, somehow managing to keep up with her; surging forward and trying to put the bar stragglers behind her she rounds the corner off the main street, listening to the sound of sneakers pounding behind her— this guy isn't giving up easily—

As she runs as catches flashes of other men leering at her, making snide remarks as she passes, eyeing her legs— "Hey!" The voice snarls at her, much too close this time; before she has time to brace herself a calloused arm is grabbing at her shoulder, throwing off her stride.

It's too early for her to be messed with, her run not even half-over. Her ankle twists against the pavement and with a surge of weary annoyance she snaps backwards, losing her patience too quickly; ignoring grubby fingers as they pull at her shoulder she yanks as hard as she can at the unknown man's forearm, yanking him forwards and pinning his arm behind his back before he can even whimper anything incoherent at her and taking care to ram him as hard as she can against the brick wall beside them.

There's the usual struggle, the sound of skin being scraped open as she grinds his bare cheek against the edge of the wall, the words he's trying to say to her sounding muffled, not understandable. "Jmmfh— 'sus Christ, Artemis. What the f— mfh—"

It takes several seconds for her to realize he's saying her name, and seizing a fistful of grubby hair she yanks his head backwards. "How do you know who I am?"

For some reason the guy laughs, bitter and brash sounding. _"You're fucking crazy."_

"Roy?" She hisses, instantly releasing him; save for his voice he's unrecognizable, only vaguely resembling what she remembers. His hair is filthy, hardly copper anymore and faded into a dingy brown color with grime, skin pock-marked and dull. "What the—"

He swears, stumbling as he struggles to remain upright. He looks rough; hair overlong again, cheeks scraggly and unshaven, sinister purplish circles under his streaming eyes."Don't call me that." He says through a clenched jaw, breath reeking of alcohol as he exhales, sounding haggard.

"Red, then." She mutters, fist uncurling as she watches him stretch out his shoulder, checking to see that she didn't dislocate anything."… You're drunk."

"And you're crazy." He counters, scowling and finally releasing his shoulder to check the damage done to his cheek; she's left an angry looking scrape on his face that's beginning to bleed. "How come whenever we see each other you try to kill me?"

She feels her nose wrinkle, serious considering throwing him against the wall again; when he doesn't do anything other than look at her for a moment she feels her spine straighten, scowling. "… You in Gotham to see Jade?" She asks stupidly, feeling uncomfortable.

Roy shakes his head, one hand scrubbing his filthy hair from his face. "No. I, uh, actually was hoping to find you."

"Me?"

"Yeah." He shrugs. "I knew you lived around here from… Before. Couldn't remember exactly where but figured I might catch you on your way towards the zeta tubes or something. Got a little side tracked last night though."

The last part is said with a strange, almost out of character chuckle, another warm wash of alcohol stinging her nostrils. "… What do you want?" She asks suspiciously.

Roy seems to hesitate, shrinking slightly under the scrutiny of her gaze. "Just to ask—you haven't, uh, heard from your sister lately, have you?"

It's about the last thing she's been expecting, her surprise showing on her face. "Jade?" She asks stupidly, as if she needs clarification—at once a scowl returns to her face. "That last time I saw my sister she was clogging my throat up with mud. I don't think we're on speaking terms."

Roy shakes his head. "… I figured." He says seriously, the lines around his eyes that she's never noticed before seeming suddenly more defined, more visible in the early morning light. "I just thought… I haven't heard from her in nearly two weeks. She usually… She would have dropped in. I'm worried about her."

She's getting tired of this conversation, rubbing once at her fist before turning away. "So Jade disappears on you and you fall apart?" She scoffs, glancing at her feet to check her shoe laces. "That's a bit pathetic, Red."

"Everyone's pathetic when they're in love."

She feels her face crumple, not expecting this answer as she turns back to glare at him. "You're wasting your time. Jade's a big girl, Red." She says firmly. "She's more than capable of handling herself."

"I know that." He says harshly, as if she's implying that he's being an idiot. "I—she was leaving on some big deal with the Shadows. I just wanted to make sure she wasn't in too deep—"

"Jade's fine."

"—and I know that if she was in trouble she'd call you first." He talks over her, glaring. "She's still your sister, Artemis, and she—"

She feels bile rising in her throat, a flash of anger crossing her face before she can tame it. " _She's not my sister_." She says as savagely as she can, the wrinkle on her nose popping up with severity. "She stopped being that a long time ago."

As if he can sense how bothered she is by this Roy snorts, looking amused at the fury behind her eyes; before she can sprint away from him he's seizing her round the bicep, forcing her to look him in the eye. "I can see you're going through something." He sighs, the words sounding gloating as they roll off his tongue. "Join the club. My point is, if you see her—"

"I'll kick her ass in your direction." She snarls, ripping herself from his grip.

* * *

 **AN: Happy Holidays everyone! Hopefully this slightly longer update serves as a bit of an apology for going MIA during Christmas. I promise I'll be back in the New Year with more frequent updates.**

 **(I got a question asking what Artemis' hair currently looks like at this part of the story. Unfortunately I don't really have a visual reference beyond that of what's in my head, which is pretty much as described in the story: it's hitting her just past jaw length right now, still _not quite_ long enough to pull back in a pony tail that will stay.)**

 **Read and Review please!**


	33. Aching to be Warmed

**AN: I've been fussing with this chapter for the better part of two weeks, and after some humming and hawing I'm proud to finally show you the _longest_ work I've ever uploaded to Parenthesis- over 26,000 words! Enjoy it.**

 **This chapter is rated M.**

* * *

 _(She's doesn't like where they're sitting; the booth in the diner is coated in a strange plastic film that sticks to the backs of her thighs with the early spring heat. She shifts uncomfortably for what feels like the thousandth time, the skin exposed beneath her academy skirt peeling off the booth in a quietly gummy way._

 _Wally smiles at her despite the scowl still on her face, setting down his burger and instead picking up a fry from his plate. Even with the finality of their last conversation still hanging in the air he's surveying her almost thoughtfully, his black eye twinging as he glances back at his food. "… You ever think about college?" He asks her suddenly._

 _It's a far cry from his father, or his eye, or Alice in Wonderland, or anything else they've talked about this afternoon. Feeling skeptical she shrugs, her pony tail trailing in a long line down her back as she leans forward to sip her milkshake. "… You do."_

 _The way she says it is almost challenging in her sureness, her brows raising demurely to watching his face. Wally, for his part, indulges her with a smirk and a quick roll of his eyes before popping the fry in his mouth. "That wasn't the question, Blondie."_

 _"_ _So? What do you think?"_ _She's deliberately not answering him properly, a fact that she's sure he's noticed_ — _a_ _lthough he pretends to scowl she can see the expression on his face softening for a moment, taking his time to chew his fry before he answers._

 _"I dunno. A lot of things, I guess." He says vaguely, leaning back. He raises his hand unconsciously to scrub through his hair, fingers lingering about his black eye for a second too long. "… Dad is kind of obsessed with it. Wants me to start getting serious about applying."_

 _She scoffs. "You're only in the 11_ _th_ _grade."_

 _"_ _Yeah, well… Rudy thinks the earlier I apply the better." Wally shrugs; at the mention of his father he gets a sour look on his face, gaze wandering briefly out the diner window to stare vacantly as a passerby strolls down the sidewalk. "He's got it into his head that I'm going to Harvard, or Yale, or_ — _"_

 _"_ _Stanford?" She guesses, ticking off the only other prestigious school she can name off the top of her head._

 _The corners of Wally's mouth twitch, his eyes finding hers again. "Yeah. But... I have the grades or whatever. And if I did some extracurricular stuff next year, or joined a few clubs... I might stand a chance. And sure, studying Physics would be..." He trails off, not finishing; after a long moment he drops his jaw, surveying her seriously. "I was just wondering… You know. What you were thinking."_

 _"_ _About you going to school?"_

 _"…_ _About your plans. For… The future. And us."_

 _She feels herself swallow, brows raising. "You're serious?" She hears herself say, eyes widening._

 _"_ _Course."_

 _She's not exactly sure if there's a polite way to say this; she feels her hands slide back underneath the table, her thighs sticking again. "… Wally." She sighs, shaking her head. "… I haven't heard from you in… Like, a week. And you just show up here with a black eye, telling me to be normal, and—"_

 _He cuts her off before she can get too far. "Just answer the question." He tells her frankly, looking annoyed. "You ever... You know. Think about that stuff?"_

 _"Look_ —"

 _He must be able to sense that fact that she's intent on avoiding the subject; with a huff he throws himself against the back cushioning of the booth, arms crossing childishly. "Whatever." He mumbles. "... If you don't want to tell me that's fine."_

 _As he exhales the words she catches a wisp of walnut scented breath, the whole of the diner seeming to fill with it; suddenly she feels so small sitting there, next to someone with their whole life planned out and her, hardly counting on living until tomorrow. "... Do you ever think about it?" She asks too quickly, not looking at him. "I mean... You're a planner. Am I... Part of the plan too?"_

 _She doesn't know why she asks it, more wanting to turn the question around on him than know the actual answer; when she gets the courage to look at him again she's taken aback first by the crimson glowing of his ears, and then by the sheepish smile he's wearing. "Babe..." He exhales, voice sounding slightly exasperated as he leans forward, voice dropping as if he's telling her a secret. "You are the plan."_

 _Immediately she feels her whole face heat, mouth twisting into a strange mixture of horror and something else she can't quite name; as if he's expecting the reaction Wally leans back, chuckling loudly and grin straining the blackened mark around his eye. "... Wait here, okay? I got the cheque." He tells her, as if what he's said should have more no significance than that afternoon's weather forecast._

 _She's left gaping at his empty seat across from her as he vacates it, stomach dropped as she stares in shock at the ugly red vinyl_ — _how can he be so casual about this, about building his life around her, as if she's somehow important or valuable or irreplaceable or_ —

 _Loved?_ — _)_

She's not sure what wakes her in the morning; the whole of her body feels hazy, almost intoxicated as she rolls onto her back, letting out a hum of breath that blows the hair out of her lashes. The Gotham air is warm around her, sheets tangled between her legs; her eyes open, seeing only peeling paint and water stains on the ceiling. Before she can realize she's smiling the dream fades, leaving only a lingering twisting in her stomach.

 _(She won't understand why, later— why all day she feels as if she's misplaced things, left a part of herself behind— she checks her pockets again and again, searching for an unknown something she knows is lost.)_

She rolls over, Wally's necklace settling neatly into the dip of her clavicle, sleep pulling her under again.

* * *

Her eyes find the clock on Black Canary's wall. She's been sitting here for nine minutes.

For nearly twenty seconds she watches the fastest hand spin round, running past the numbers in its routine fashion. _1, 2, 3_ — She looks away, back to her feet. The red nail polish adorning her toes is now chipped and peeling and nowhere as nice as it was when Zatanna had painted it there nearly two weeks ago. She can actually hear the hand on the clock tick past another minute, the straps of her sandals straining against the tops of her feet as she flexes them into the floor, willing herself not to get up and leave the way she's been itching to for—

 _10 minutes._

"Artemis?"

She tries to look up at Dinah and instead fixes her gaze on the potted plant on her desk. The silence ticks on and she counts twenty-one leaves.

When she doesn't do anything beyond wringing her hands more firmly together on her lap Black Canary sighs, leaning forward in her desk until her blonde hair is dripping over her elbows. "I'm trying to be patient, Artemis." She tells her not unkindly. "... But I can't help you if you don't say anything."

This time she's brave enough to spare the older woman a glance, watching as her ruby coated lips roll together— restraining a smile— before she looks away.

It's not much, but Dinah seems to take this as a good sign, finally unclasping her wiry hands and glancing down to the thick wad of papers she can only assume is her file. "Okay." She mumbles, pausing for a moment to read whatever's written there. "Well, if you won't tell me what's going on then I'll just have to start with what I know."

She goes back to staring at the clock as the older women looks her dead on, brows furrowed and eyes scrutinizing. "It's been a long time since we talked. The last time you were here..." There's a pause that feels fake, Dinah's hands rifling through her papers feeling more for show than anything. "We had talked about your father. Do you remember that?"

This is putting it politely; vividly she remembers what happened months ago: being terrified of the news of Lawrence's escape, running away, and eventually ending up here, snarling the meanest words she could imagine at Oliver. It's not a moment she's proud of, and feeling slightly surly she sinks lower in her leather chair.

Black Canary must take this for a yes. "Not a fun day for anyone." She muses, dropping her eyes tactfully back to her file. "... But a lot's changed since then, hasn't it? You've been to Quarac and back. Fought your father head on. Ended a relationship with a Teammate."

She feels herself scowl and lifts her legs, hiding childishly behind her knees.

Dinah must get the sense that she's onto something; not one to be thrown she continues, voice low but kind as she ploughs on. "I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time, Artemis." She tells her. "And I'm not the only one— a few of your Teammates have said things to me. Kaldur, Zatanna, even Wally—"

It's borderline treachery, knowing they're talking about her behind her back; she accidentally breaks her silence with a loud exhale, her knees knocking together. For a moment the older women goes quiet, as if waiting for her to finally say something. She counts nearly half a minute before the Dinah tries again, sounding more serious. "... But you never came to see me."

More quiet, and this time she hears the distinct sound of the exaggerated riffling of papers, as if the older woman wants her to know that she's going through her file again. "On July 25th you talked to Kaldur about starting up our counselling sessions again." She tells her, as if she doesn't know. "And today, the 27th, you were in here waiting for me without setting up an appointment."

Despite herself she feels her resistance crumbling; when she peeks out behind her knees Black Canary is surveying her, the smile about her russet lips looking slightly tired. "... It's silly to sit there and act like you don't have anything to say, Artemis."

As the older woman stares at her she feels her stomach twist uncomfortably; for the first time since she entered the office almost— she glances at the clock— fifteen minutes ago her mouth opens, lips raw and chapped as she exhales, trying to find what she wants to say. Now more than ever the words seem lost inside herself, what's wrong with her slipping through her fingers and remaining unknown, intangible.

She closes her mouth again, then opens it. "... Sorry." She blurts out, shaking her head behind her knees. "I can't figure out what I want to tell you."

It's a bit of a lie; she knows what she wants to say. She wants answers, wants to know how to fix herself, wants to know why the things that come so easily to others— _like love, like happiness, like closeness_ — feel so hard for her. Why she's spent months denying that she's broken, that something's wrong with her, that she's not as tough as she's pretending to be. But how is she supposed to say that? How is she supposed to get the words out without sounding more damaged than she is? Without wanting to die at the embarrassment of it all?

Instead of being impatient Black Canary straightens her spine, still smiling. "That's okay." She says quietly. "Do you want me to tell you a few things? About you?"

She's not entirely sure what that's supposed to mean; peeking out behind her knees again she stares too long at the older woman, trying to figure out what's about to happen. "... Okay." She mutters warily; without meaning to her one hand reaches up to press the chain of her necklace against her skin, hoping the pain will help her think.

Dinah keeps smiling the same too-kind smile, the one she's starting to think isn't fake. "You are Artemis Lian Crock." She tells her, glancing down once at her file to confirm her middle name. "I know you as Artemis. You are sixteen."

She suspects this is some sort of therapy tactic; grounding the patient with the facts so they feel steady enough to spill their guts out. Even though it's a bit cliché she keeps her eyes on the older woman, silently willing her to continue and get the worst over with. "You grew up in Gotham City. You live there now with your mother, who you love very much."

Her stomach squirms and she doesn't know why, her knees lowering as she struggles to sit up straight. Dinah's face is growing more serious, watching sharply as she adjusts, looking for signs of weakness. "You save lives with your bow and arrows, which were a gift from your mentor Oliver. He loves you like a daughter."

 _(The words hurt to hear, and she doesn't understand it.)_

"You have not lived an easy life." Dinah says in a hushed, too calming tone. For some reason she can feel sweat beginning to press against her temples, clinging to the lower part of her back. "You've been through a lot more than children your age. It has made you scared of trusting, of caring, and—" She hesitates, long enough for her to feel all her muscles tensing in her chair. "...of _abandonment."_ As the older woman says it she feels a strange surge of anger running through her, her feet flexing against the floor as she's forced to listen to what are now presumptions being made about her—

As if she can sense she's misspoke Black Canary hesitates, changing course. "But it has also made you very brave, Artemis. And empathetic. And incredibly strong." She feels her eyes narrow at the compliments, suspicious. "I don't know very much about you." The older woman amends, nodding respectfully in her direction. "I don't have a right to tell you any more than this about yourself. But I know you came here today, and I know you want me to listen... Would you like to share anything with me?"

Her feet are screaming as she tenses her muscles into the straps of her sandals, pressing as hard as she can into the floor. She can't run. She came in here because she owes it to herself— she wants to get better, _she wants to get better—_

"You can start with your name, if that helps." Dinah suggests after a moment.

She inhales, fingers clenched and feet aching. She keeps her eyes on the clock— she's been here nearly twenty minutes. She can feel the ancient claws of unknown hands as they try to pull her back into silence, invisible fingers working their way around her throat. "I'm Artemis." She says croakily. "Artemis Lian Crock."

* * *

The first few days of August trickle by slowly, the heat once again growing unbearable in what she's sure has to be the summer's final grueling blaze.

Although she doesn't want to she can't help but think of Jade; August had always been her sister's favorite month. She remembers watching her perch on the fire escape, the place she knows now is something sacred to all Crock women. Without wanting to she can picture the wind rustling her ebony hair and the moonlight catching the milkiness of her skin... Jade had loved the beginnings of Autumn in Gotham, the way the crispness would slowly return to the air, the way the sludgy perfume of the city would be cut through in the evenings, marking the beginning of summer's fading and winter's arrival.

... She wonders where that girl is now.

 _(Wonders where she went that first night, when the city was unparalleled before her and memories of her family were left locked in the Gotham apartment, hidden...)_

More than once she hears Black Canary's words hissing at her, digging into the scar on the back of her neck and latching there— _"afraid of abandonment_ — _"_

She's not afraid of Jade leaving her. It already happened and she survived just fine. Besides, that girl now... That isn't her anymore. Cheshire isn't her sister.

... Despite these hardened thoughts she can feel the etching of worry digging into her skin, scarring her; like an addict craving a cigarette she dwells on old memories, half-remembered sensations and longing for the girl she stopped knowing years ago. She should know better— mourning someone who doesn't exist anymore— but her encounter with Roy has left her glancing over her shoulder, rethinking things he said in passing. _"She's still your sister, Artemis... If she was in trouble she'd call you first..."_

Is that even true?

... As much as she doesn't want to believe it she can't help but linger on the thought, on what Roy had meant when he said it. The Jade she knows is more memory than a person, more whisperings of her past than solid. She's Cheshire now, not Jade, and— and Roy knows Cheshire better than anyone. Would Cheshire come back to her?

... Even more, if Cheshire needed her... What would she do? Try to help?

 _(She thinks the question over repeatedly, unable to figure out an answer.)_

She's provided plenty of distractions, at least— the Cave seems busier, as if the usual suspects are trying to remind them that the leisurely days of summer are coming to a close. Between training Garfield, her teeth-gritting sessions with Black Canary, and running out at all hours of the day and night for low-ball missions there's hardly a moment to herself anymore, save the few minutes before sleep when she fights against the questions that bloom up at the back of her mind, unwelcome.

It's not just her who seems distracted; the number of people routinely haunting the Cave at regular hours seems to drop drastically, as if they're all getting ready to go back to school or get back to a more routine life. Even then, when they're together it sometimes feels strained, foreign, as if they're all suddenly strangers again rather than the few people in this world she would trust her life with. The amount of bickering and squabbles seems to increase a tenfold, be it from stress or not seeing each other enough, and on the tenth day of August she gets in a yelling match so violent with Dick that he leaves the Cave in a flurry of curse words and obscene hand gestures.

"Do you even remember what you were fighting about?" Wally asks her when she accidentally corners him in the kitchen, the last few minutes spent unwillingly ranting to him after he had made the mistake of asking her what her problem was.

She narrows her eyes; the question is asked between a mouthful of crackers he's just shoved in his mouth while raiding the Cave's fridge. Rather than snap at him for the few crumbs he's sprayed in her direction she sighs, instead making a grab for the box when he tosses it to her and scrounging around the insides. "That's not the point." She says defensively, passing the crackers back to him. "He's been acting like a total ass the last few days. Like, when he found out Zatanna was seeing that new guy—"

Wally glances at the box before apparently giving it up as a bad job, tossing it back towards her before he resumes his ransacking of the fridge. "This is Ben, right?"

"No, he's the old one. We're on Jacob now."

Over her mouthful of crackers she hears him make a vague noise, watching as he emerges from the fridge with what must be the entire contents in his arms. "Oh, him. I thought she already dumped him?"

She takes a final handful of crackers before sealing the almost empty box, placing it back in the cupboard for someone else to deal with. "She did, because she started seeing Ben. But Ben turned out to be..." She trails off, frowning at him as he takes a seat around the island. "I think he was boring? Or... I don't know. There's been about five of them now, I can't keep track."

Wally shrugs, reaching for the bread bag on the counter and dragging it towards him. "Glad to know I'm not the only one." He chuckles, grinning at her.

Her stomach jumps as something silent passes between them, a quiet and familiar sort of tenderness that fills her with both aching and unburdened happiness. Things have been better between them— so, _so,_ much better since her birthday. The things that they had murmured in the darkness overlooking Happy Harbor seem to have sealed something between them, something stronger and deeper than before. For the first time since the New Year she feels as if she's gotten her friend back, _her Wally back_ — the one who is her best friend, her everything, the one person she can count to always be there for her, no questions asked, feelings be damned...

 _(The familiar green eyes glance downward, tracing the golden chain that's been sitting around her neck since he gave it to her, something unreadable creasing around his temple...)_

All at once the twisting in her stomach seems to reach an almost painful point; feeling herself blush she leans back against the counter, shifting her weight until she can clumsily pull herself up to sit on it. "Whatever." She says dismissively, swinging one of her bare legs up to press against her chest. "The point is, he was a complete ass to Zee when he heard about Jacob—"

He makes a strange clicking noise, rolling his eyes as he unscrews a jar of mayonnaise. "Give him a break, Artemis." He tells her, smearing a knife across a piece of bread. "Look, I don't doubt he was being an ass but... Just cut him some slack. He's going through a thing with Bats right now."

"So?"

"So be nice. I know that's not your strong suit—" He tells her frankly, not looking bothered when she glares at him. "— but try, okay? Bats is already on his case, he doesn't need you bothering him too."

This isn't entirely fair but she gets the sense not to challenge him; there's something in his tone that's severe, menacing, in a way that makes her sure he's speaking from experience— now that she's thinking on it she can't remember the last time she saw Wally and Dick hanging out together. "... What's the big guy bugging him about?" She asks after a moment.

She's not expecting Wally to reveal anything beyond his ears, which as usual go off and tell her there's something he's hiding. As anticipated he shrugs, finishing his sandwich and taking too big of a bite. "Not my thing to tell." He mutters through a mouthful. "Let's just say I wouldn't want to be in Rob's shoes right now."

He's not going to budge on this; still not looking at her he takes a bite and then another, eating his food quickly and disgustingly as always. "... You're eating a lot." She says dryly, watching as the sandwich he's consuming rapidly disappears; now that neither of them are talking all she can hear is the sound of him chewing. "Fast Metabolism acting up? You go for a run this morning?"

For some reason his ears go off again. "Uh, sort of."

It's such an odd and simultaneously vague response that she can't help but snort, slipping off the counter with the intention of making a cup of tea; moving round the island towards the kettle she sends him a weary sort of look. "Why are you acting so—" She starts, pausing when she goes to pass the stool beside him.

Now that she's on his side of the island she can see it— the red and white fabric, the suppleness of the leather. It's not meant to be hidden, the varsity jacket emblazed with the number 13 swinging slightly from where it's hung on the back of the stool. "... What's this?" She asks, sounding almost accusing as she seizes the letterman jacket off its hook, swinging it in the air between them.

For some reason Wally grimaces, setting down his nearly finished sandwich. "It's... A varsity jacket." He says lamely, wincing at the stunned expression on her face. "I had practice this morning... I, uh, started running track."

She's caught between bursting out in laughter and staring at him in shock; she seems to settle on the former as she snorts, waving the coat at him teasingly. "Running track? _You're running track?"_ She sneers, holding the jacket up in front of her and making a face at the emblem on the breast pocket. "Since when?"

Wally's ears are glowing once more; as if determined to never look at her again he goes back to his food, eating far more quickly than before. "Since end of July."

"So what? You just tried out?"

"It wasn't a big deal—"

"Oh, not for you. _Kid Flash,_ was it?"

The redness from his ears is beginning to flush down into his cheeks, coloring his whole face in a spectacular maroon. "It wasn't a big deal for anyone!" He snaps. "Look, try-outs were July 31st, I went, I got on the Team. Will you just drop it—"

She snorts again, running her hands over the leather. "Isn't that, like, against some sort of rule—you know, _no steroids, no super powers—"_

She's not even finished teasing him when he takes the jacket back, ripping it out of her hands almost violently; the crimson on his cheeks is now coloring his neck and beginning to blossom in angry splotches against the top of his collar bone. "See, this is why I didn't tell you when I tried out. I knew you were going to make fun of me for it."

"I'm not making fun of you!" She counters, eyes narrowing at the annoyance on his face as he gets out of his seat. "Wally— come on, don't be an idiot—" She scoffs, following as he makes to leave the kitchen. "Why are you getting mad at me? I'm just— Come on, Baywatch, we used to laugh when your gym teacher would suggest it, remember? Because it was ironic? You can't blame me for—"

She can sense what she's saying isn't making anything any better; Wally continues to look ill tempered as he rounds on her, glaring. "Well, I changed my mind then." He says shortly, scowling at the half ghost of a smile still on her face. "It might have all been some stupid joke to you but— I mean, why shouldn't I do it?" He asks her accusingly. "I'm fast."

She makes the mistake of snorting again. "No kidding, idiot—"

"And I don't use my powers during the race. _It's fair."_ He cuts her off, sounding as if he's trying to convince himself as well as her. "And— so what? It... It looks good on college applications. I win a few races, get my name in the school paper, get a few scholarships— I'm going for Stanford, Artemis." He adds the last part almost lowly, as if daring her to challenge it. "They have a great Physics program—I have the grades but— _I need this, okay?"_

She doesn't even know how they got here; back to fighting again, when only a few minutes ago they were friends. "I— _Stanford."_ He won't stop glaring at her, the look on his face dulling her brain and making it nearly impossible for words to come out. "... I didn't know you had even decided that's where you wanted to go."

Another glare, more crimson blush. "Well, I don't have to tell you everything." He says defensively, the words so short and cutting that she feels as if she's been slapped by them.

She blinks, feeling her stomach settle somewhere below the floorboards. "... Okay." She mumbles stupidly, feeling her eyes narrow.

"Okay." He says gruffly, looking impatient when she bites the inside of her cheek; before she can figure out something mean to say he's turning his back on her. "I have to go. Mom wants me home for dinner."

She still can't quite figure out what's just happened, stomach churning unpleasantly as he ducks around her, heading towards the zeta tubes. "Wally—"

He doesn't even look back when she calls for him.

* * *

She doesn't know why it bothers her but it does— why would Wally not want her to know he was on the track team? Why would he not tell her about Stanford? When they were together she could hardly get him to shut up about colleges: Harvard or Yale, Princeton and— and Stanford, Wally had always had a soft spot for Stanford, for the North California air and the geeky lure of Silicon Valley...

It's a big deal, right? Deciding which college is your top pick. He spent all that time with her talking about it, why wouldn't he tell her when he finally figured it out?

... She supposes he's right. It's not like they have to tell each other everything. Sure, they're friends, but... Well, things between them won't ever be like they were before. And it's not like she tells him all her secrets anymore; she hasn't mentioned to him that she bumped into Roy, that Jade's missing and apparently it's her problem now...

She had thought things with Wally were finally good, settled, finished between them; now it feels as if he's hiding something from—

She ducks, not expecting Connor to regain his balance as quickly as he does; pulling her thoughts from Wally she's suddenly frighteningly lost in the middle of their sparring, her hair whirring in her face and thighs aching as she struggles to dodge the blow, an iron clad fist shoving upwards and intent on clobbering an uppercut to the underside of her jaw—

Just as she winces in preparation for the blow Connor stops short, muscles freezing and becoming unnaturally still in the familiar unnerving way of his. "... You're not much of a challenge today." He tells frankly, dropping his fist and looking at her, expectant and dry as always. "You're not even paying attention."

She exhales, half out of annoyance and half out of relief, the rush of air blowing several pieces of hair out of her face. "Whatever." She mutters, feeling ill tempered as she resets her position, fists raising and bare feet flexing into the floor. "Come on. Let's go again."

Rather than look intrigued by the offer like he always does Connor merely frowns at her eagerness, brows furrowing; despite their time apart she can tell he's listening intently to the too-quick beating of her heart, trying to understand why her cheeks are an angry red. "... There's something bothering you."

As always he reads her too easily, his unnatural hearing telling him more than she wants him to know. Beginning to feel stupid she clenches her fists tighter, gesturing for him to do the same. "I'm fine." She says between her teeth, nose beginning to wrinkle when he still doesn't adopt a sparring stance. "Let's go again."

When nothing happens other than Connor straightening and crossing his arms she throws caution to the wind; grinding her teeth together she charges at him, bare feet pounding against the floor. There's a predictable amount of movement, one of her fists flying forward and then another; before either of them can find their mark along his jaw line his palms are slapping against both her knuckles, effectively encasing her and shoving her backwards.

She staggers, matching jolts of pain firing up her arms and bursting in her shoulder sockets; hissing, she nearly trips over her own feet, her heels becoming skinned at the friction on the floor. It's jarring, rattling, and more than anything a message— _Talk, or no fighting fair._ Biting her tongue around the choice swears that threaten to burst out her mouth as she struggles to reset her position, muscles aching in protest. "God. _"_ She snarls, nose wrinkling. "What the hell was that? We're supposed to be training."

Ignoring this he straightens again, eyes narrowed. "... You're upset." He says softly, voice adopting an unfamiliar, almost caring tone she's never heard before.

She supposes this is how he's gotten M'gann to break several times before; for a moment she debates attacking him again, fists clenching tightly before she abruptly drops them. _Dammit._ "... It's stupid." She tells him frankly, shaking her head. "I probably don't even have a reason to be upset. It's nothing."

Connor rolls his eyes. "It's never _nothing_ with you. Talk."

This is a bit of a jibe but she ignores it. "Can you..." She starts before trailing off, not quite managing to look at him; instead she drops her eyes to her feet, pretending to examine the raw skin on the bottoms of her heels. Several seconds pass in which she debates a few different questions in her head, deciding on the safest of the bunch. "Can you think of any reason why Wally wouldn't want me to know he joined his high school track team?"

 _It isn't what she wants to ask, not really— but, she supposes, it's somewhere to start._

She's not looking at when she says it, but immediately she can sense the tension in the silence that fills the air. She's expecting him to laugh at her stupidity, or at least dismiss the thought; when she glances up at him she feels a dull ache run through her when she catches him looking away, expression almost guilty. "Con?" She blurts out the nickname, brows raising.

Instead of answering right away he shrugs, apparently unable to tear his eyes away from the ceiling. "Hm."

" _Con._ "

He may have his tricks but they're nothing compare to hers— her stern tone, long since mastered with the hours she's spent training Garfield, seems to get to him; finally he looks her in the eye, expression wary. "... He did say something." A weird pause, the kind that doesn't suit Connor. "About a girl he met there."

It's the last thing she's expecting, a painful ache of surprise and hurt twanging once inside the hollows of her stomach. "... A girl."

Her tone is cold, flat and hard as the edge of her arrows; she hardly hears herself repeat the words, the ringing in her ears making her own voice sound strangely distant as it comes out of her mouth. Very suddenly the golden chain around her neck feels too heavy, the delicate letter A burning like cast iron into her flesh—

 _A girl...?_

Her pulse is pounding too loudly through her veins, pressing against her skin and threatening to burst through the sinew and ventricles holding her together. At once she feels simultaneously as if she's swallowed lead and helium, her head threatening to spin off her shoulders and float away while her soul seems to shatter through the floorboard, tumbling low and lost in the depths of the rock and loam beneath her. He's still talking, saying words that are too awkward and painful to hear; she's sure he can hear the stuttering of her heart as it skips several beats and then rips open, bleeding and seeping into her other organs, intent on drowning her.

 _Wally met a girl._

"...Linda, I think he said." She finally hears Connor say. She realizes with a jolt that she has no idea how long she's been quiet, staring at him wide eyed and limp across the training room. "She's a writer on the school newspaper— she's going to be covering all the track events this year. They met at the try out."

Her mouth is suddenly too dry and her tongue too big; when she tries to say something the words come out intelligible to her own ears. "Oh." A pause in which she tries to swallow, only choking on her own saliva. "... Okay."

As if he can sense something awful is happening Connor winces, taking a half step forward. "Artemis—"

"Let's go again." She croaks, raising her fists and feeling as if she's been set on fire. "Please."

* * *

The floor in the hallway of the Gotham apartment creaks, as it always has before and will into the future. Maybe she once found the sound annoying, back when she was alone in the apartment and jumping at every sound, or when she was slipping through silence to sneak out under Paula's nose. Now the sound feels almost reassuring, dependable in the fact that she knows which panels of wood will creak, which ones will groan under her feet. It's the sound of reliance: unchanging, no matter how much time passes.

 _(Wally met a girl.)_

She hesitates outside the bathroom door, listening to the sound of running water and teeth being brushed. "... Zatanna?" She calls, forefinger reaching out once to tap at the wood.

Before she's even knocked twice the door is jerked open, the other girl hardly glancing at her before she turns back to the mirror. "One second." She says around the bristles of her toothbrush, some toothpaste slopping down her chin before she spits into the sink. "You showering tonight? I'd give the water a few minutes or so to warm back up—"

"—No—"

"—I'm never going to get used to the whole one bathroom thing." She continues, talking over her and only pausing to gargle with water, spitting again. "Not that I'm complaining, or anything. Kinda feels nice, all this girl time with you and Paula. Have I thanked you lately for letting me crash?"

Zatanna smiles so sincerely at her that at once she's aware of the fake feeling pull of her own mouth in response, casting an awkward look to the steamed up mirror. "Right." She says vaguely, only glancing back when the other girl grabs her towel off the floor, twisting her hair up and off her neck. "I mean, of course. You don't have to thank us, or whatever. It's your place now too."

It's phrased clumsily, not at all like her usual wry remarks; she's not surprised when the other girl looks away from her reflection, brows raising in a way that crinkles the fabric of the towel. "... You okay?"

"Fine."

 _(Wally met a girl.)_

She's sure Zatanna can tell she's not entirely being honest because at once there's another quiver of her brows, mouth smirking. " _Okay_." She says, stretching out the word the way she hates. "Well, hurry up, then. That show we wanted to watch is on in ten and—"

"Actually." She cuts across the other girl, moving to block her when she attempts to slip past her into the hallway. "I, uh, had a question. Have you talked to Dick lately?"

 _(Wally met a girl.)_

It's a bit of an odd question— predictably Zatanna's eyes narrow, blue flecked irises hardly visible as a swatch of damped hair escapes the towel. "Not really. He's been in one of his moods."

This isn't exactly helpful. "Okay, well—" She can feel herself beginning to grow embarrassed and promptly charges onwards, ignoring the reddening of her cheeks. "Did he happen to mention anything about Wally meeting someone?"

Again the other girl's brows raise, arms crossing in front of her chest. "Wally met someone?" An awkward pause. "Like, _a girl_ someone?"

She feels herself make a funny twitch movement with her head, hating the way she can't stop herself from grimacing; at the movement the chain around her neck seems to scratch into her. "Yeah, I mean— that's what Connor said. Wally's on his school track team—"

Zatanna cuts her off with a snort. "He's on the track team?" She repeats, voice teasing. "Isn't that—"

"Completely _ridiculous?"_ She throws out, running her hands through her hair in frustration. "That's what I told him. And then he made this big deal about how he didn't want to tell me—"

"Because you would make fun of him, like all of us would—"

"Exactly. But then when I asked Connor he said—" She can feel her voice raising and promptly cuts herself off, scowling. "He said Wally didn't want to tell me because he met a girl there. _Linda."_

 _(Wally met Linda.)_

Something must show on her face because at once Zatanna grows sympathetic, finally slipping past her and into the hallway. "Linda?" She repeats, ruffling her towel about her head until it's sitting straight. "Sounds like she could be like someone's grandmother."

She snorts, appreciating the dig as she follows the other girl into the kitchen. "So... I don't know. Dick and I are on bad terms but I thought..." She trails off, watching as the other girl riffles through her cupboards for a moment, extracting a bag of microwavable popcorn. "I thought if it was serious he would know, and... He would tell you, right?"

For some reason Zatanna hesitates, the kitchen silent for a moment as she unwraps the popcorn and places it in the microwave. "Things with Dick are still... Confusing." She says vaguely, pressing the buttons a bit more savagely than she has to. For several seconds she's not given anything else except the annoying humming sound of popcorn cooking. "... We haven't exactly been talking about fun stuff lately... Him and Bats and going through a bit of a thing right now. It's mostly heavy conversations."

It's almost the same answer she got from Wally; feeling a bit out of the loop she makes an annoyed sound in the back of her throat, leaning against the counter. "Well, if you hear anything... I don't know. Just tell me okay?"

The popcorn in the microwave has started popping, neither of them paying much attention to it; when Zatanna looks over at her the expression on her face is almost critical, too severe. "... I thought you wanted Wally to move on."

"I do." She says quickly, crossing her arms. For some reason she can't quite look at the other girl. "Of course, that's— I don't know. It's just... It's weird. We— The Team— don't know anything about her."

"We didn't know anything about Owen when you went out with him."

"Yeah, and that turned out great." She says dryly, immediately regretting it when Zatanna's face sours. "... I didn't mean that. I just— I don't know."

Zatanna fills the awkward silence between them by digging through the cupboard again, reaching for a glass. "Sounds like you're jealous." She muses, crossing the room and filling it from the tap.

Instantly she feels her cheeks going off; rather than look at the other girl she makes a show of shoving her hair back behind her ears. "I'm not jealous." She says lowly, ignoring the discomfort in her stomach.

"You're a bad liar, Artemis." The other girl muses, pausing in her sipping to stare at her over the rim of her glass. _"_ You've always been Wally's girl, even when you weren't." Zatanna tells her, sending her a coy look— she has no clue what this is supposed to mean. "And it was fine when he was still pining for you, but now he's going to drop you for _Linda_ —"

She knows Zatanna's only teasing but the words truly bother her, tickling a nerve they ought not to touch. "Shut up." She says lowly, bristling. "Besides, he's not dropping me. We aren't even... We're not together."

Her words must reveal more than she means them to because at once Zatanna goes quiet, the microwave sounding out several jarring beeps as the popcorn finishes. "Don't get mad at me." She says dryly, setting her glass on the counter. "You came to me for advice, remember?"

"I didn't ask you for—"

"Then don't listen." She tells her frankly, sounding much older than fifteen as she opens the steaming ba of popcorn, shaking the blossomed kernels into a bowl. "All I'm saying is that when I found out Dick was going after _Barbara-something_ I hated it— enough to want to remind him who he was leaving behind."

She hears herself snort. "So what, you slept with him? Just because?"

"No." Zatanna says evenly, brows furrowing again; she can sense the two of them are both annoyed with each other now, the other girl extending the popcorn bowl towards her so roughly that she nearly spills some over the edge. "But I'm saying I would have, if I had the chance. Would have made him think twice before he left for good, you know?"

She takes some popcorn, staring at the other girl and struggling to read her face. "So... What? Dick gave up on you?" She repeats, eyes narrowing. "I thought— you said no to Prom, and you dated Kaleb—I thought that's what you—"

"Come on." Zatanna shrugs, stepping around her and walking towards the living room. "Our show's on."

* * *

 _(She can feel herself shrinking in the booth, retracting back from the questioning look on his face as the seconds tick past without an answer. "... Look_ —"

 _Before she can even figure out what she's trying to say Wally huffs, throwing himself backwards against the red vinyl. "Whatever." He mumbles. "... If you don't want to tell me that's fine."_

 _Her stomach twists, fingers scrambling into a jumbled mess on her lap; she doesn't want to fight, not when things are so confusing between them, not when the blackened skin around his eye is telling her that he needs her, perhaps more than ever._ _"... Do you ever think about that stuff?" She asks suddenly, not looking at him. "I mean... You're a planner. Am I... Part of the plan too?"_

 _The diner is growing cold, the windows steamed in a way they shouldn't for a warm spring afternoon. The air feels muggy, stained with something that seems to stick to the back part of her memory_ — _sweet grass and the cutting scent of alcohol, of stale cigarettes and festering wounds. She feels vulnerable, sitting there in her school skirt, the bare skin exposed along her knees prickling with the awareness that something isn't right. Not anymore._

 _When she gets the courage to look at him again she's taken aback first by the crimson glowing of his ears, and then by the violent snarl exposing his teeth. "... Wally?" She blanches, feeling shock numb her._

 _"Baby girl..." He hisses, the words dragging out and becoming marled._

 _And she can't move, can't brace herself, can't do anything except gasp when a sai bursts out of the inside of his skull, popping the skin beneath his eye and sending crimson splattering across the table; his blood tastes metallic and poisonous as it coats her tongue, clinging to her teeth and gritting into her gums."Baby girl..." He snarls again, except this time it's not him talking_ — _she can see something, someone inside Wally's head is peeling him open, dragged back his skin and spewing dribbles of his brain down his front, the sai carving him open and puncturing his skull, a single clawed glove extending towards her, threatening to drag her under. "Artemis_ —" _Cheshire_ _screeches, wailing the words_ — _she's in trouble, Jade's in trouble_ —)

There's a loud clattering overhead and she jerks out of sleep, the air in her bedroom cold as she screams in a breath; for several seconds she clutches at her blankets, legs kicking and frantic gasps coming from her mouth. Her hair seems to stick to the back of her throat, several pieces getting caught in her teeth and ripping from her scalp as she struggles to push it back behind her ears, nails scratching reddened marks into her own skin.

 _(It takes too long for her to realize she's been dreaming.)_

Her bedroom is half lit, the light on her desk still on and the book she fell asleep reading lying crumbled several feet beside her. Distantly she can feel herself becoming aware of the low roll of thunder, the angry pattering of rain. Above it all she can hear her heart, which seems to be threatening to bang out of her breasts, so loud in her own head she can hardly hear herself when she swears.

She crumples slightly, head banging back against her headboard; it was a dream, just a dream. She wants to curl around herself, but rather than indulge the weakness she slips back down beneath her blankets, intent on warding off the shaking that's now making her teeth chatter in a mixture of cold and adrenaline.

"It was only a dream." She repeats, whispering the words that quivering and desperate way she's almost forgotten; it's been so long since she was last awoken to nightmares like this.

 _(She reaches up a hand to click off her light, pressing herself as tightly as she can to the mattress. When she makes the mistake of closing her eyes she sees Wally's blood dribbling down his cheek, oozing onto the diner table and—)_

And she rips the blankets off herself, fumbling to turn the light back on.

 _Breathe._

She forces her eyes to open too wide, determined not to so much as blink ever again as she sits up. Her lungs don't work when she tries to inhale, throat catching on phlegm; when she finally manages to pull something in the air seems to linger too long inside her, the hoarse and whistling exhale she gets out making her feel as if she may vomit. Her hands, now numb, won't stop twisting and knotting in the her tank top, yanking the fabric about her ribs so tightly she can hear the seams straining and ripping...

... Ripping, like Wally's skin—

 _It was only a dream._

 _Breathe._

 _(("…_ _You can't not breathe, Artemis…"))_

The thunder sounds again, this time more insistently; for the first time in her life all the noise is welcome— sitting here and listening to the familiar crackling of lightning, the dull rapping of rain against her ceiling, the endless sound that fills in the spaces the nightmare has left inside her. _It was a dream, it was a dream;_ She repeats the words inside her head and even whispers them softly again and again, head curling forward until she's resting it on her knees.

"Breathe." She says to herself, safe behind the barriers of her hair and her legs. "Breathe."

… She'd been doing so well. This is her first nightmare in weeks.

They'd once been almost nightly; any time she'd close her eyes she'd been tormented by something, haunted by her family or what she'd seen on the battlefield that day. Now they're infrequent, irregular, always starting normal and ending strangely, a brief moment of unpleasantness and blood—

… She's cold— she'd fallen asleep in an old and thinning tank top and her underwear, legs tangled more in sheets than blankets. In her sleep she's yanked on quilts, pulled on comforters, the tightness of her limbs telling her she'd worked her way into an uncomfortably ball, trying desperately not to freeze as the Cave's overzealous AC kicked in during the night ... Well, she supposes it's about time. The heat of summer had to start fading sometime.

Maybe that's what caused the nightmare—the cold. It had started out… Nice, actually. An old memory, she thinks, one that she's visited before. The longer she sits there the harder it is to recall any details; already her mind feels foggy, not quite right in her tiredness... Wally had been there, as he always is. Despite the new, one-sided distance between them in their waking lives he never fails to linger too close to her in dreams.

... She shouldn't even be thinking about him. She was the one who ended it. Zatanna's right: this had been what she wanted— for him to meet someone, to forget about her, to move on.

But... _Linda_. What a stupid name.

She inhales again, finally raising her head from behind her knees; in the half-light her room remains still, peaceful, nothing lurking behind her desk chair or under her bed to attack her. Wally meeting another girl is good. _It's great_. And she's happy for him.

This is how it's supposed to be. He moves on, meets a nice girl with a stupid name. And she... She gets to sort herself out. It's fine. She's fine.

 _Linda might be fine too, for all she knows._

Her limbs ache when she forces them to move, crawling out of bed in search of proper pajamas; scurrying across her bedroom she yanks an old pair of flannel sweats on. Above her she hears a crack of lightning sound, followed instantly by a roll of thunder— she's never thought of August as a particularly rainy month, but she's seen the forecast: Happy Harbor is entering a few days of bad weather to officially mark the end of summer. She had meant to tell Wally—

 _(The light on her desk wavers and surges, no doubt bothered by the storm; at once the letter A around her neck catches it, glimmering once before dulling once more.)_

... Wally.

She had meant to mention the weather to Wally so he could stay away from Happy Harbor over the next few days, so he could avoid... Whatever the hell happened to him the last time.

She hardly registers her hands knotting the string of her sweatpants, an unfamiliar fear beginning to bubble up in the pit of her stomach at the memory. Even remembering it now makes her frightened, the hair on the back of her neck bristling in the dark. His shaking, snarling. The way he had attacked her, slamming her up against the window. How vulnerable he had been, how uncontrollable— How the storm had seemed to make everything worse.

But it hadn't been _because_ of the storm, Wally had said that. He had... He'd had a bad dream, been upset by something, and the sound and light from the storm had set him off, bothered him in some way... She feels her brows furrow as she pulls her tank top over her head, pausing half naked for a moment and shivering in the dark. He had told her he had thought it wasn't because of the storm.

(... _But it had made things worse. There's no denying that...)_

Her head swings automatically towards the door, goose pimples coating her breasts and hair frizzing with static as she stands there, naked from the waist up and thinking hard. Last time he had come to her— he'd waited outside her door, trying to knock. And she'd been the one he needed—

She doesn't know why she's worrying about this. Wally doesn't need her.

 _... He doesn't need her._

The thunder rolls overhead, loud and demanding; without wanting to she can picture the tortured look on his face as he had sat, alone and afraid, in front of their window. She had never seen him look like that, so... So terrified, so feral, so completely at the mercy of the impulses running through his muscles.

... He had needed her then. He had tried being alone, hadn't he? He had needed her—

 _(He had needed her as much as she needs him.)_

 _((She's losing him, he's abandoning her like everyone else_ — _))_

As soon as the thought enters her mind she dismisses it, throwing her tank top to the floor and stomping angrily towards her closet. Wally doesn't need her anymore. She's not his girlfriend, she's not his— Her fingers slip as she pulls a long sleeve off the hanger, the memory clanging sharply inside her skull.

 _((Before she can demand any answers it's Connor who's speaking, not looking at her. "... He called you his lightning rod." He says gruffly. The words don't mean anything, sounding like another language to her ear, but they scare her.))_

... She's being ridiculous. At once she makes an annoyed clicking noise, yanking the shirt almost violently over her head. She's being an idiot. Wally's... He's fine, she's sure. If he's here, he's… He's fine. She shouldn't worry.

 _She shouldn't worry._

 _She shouldn't worry._

 _She shouldn't worry._

… She shouldn't worry, but that doesn't stop her from turning towards her bedroom door, fists still curled around the hem of her shirt.

… Wally's fine—but he hadn't been all those weeks ago. Not when she found him in front of their window shaking and… And with a look on his face so completely and terrifyingly un-Wally-ish. He had felt the lightning inside of him, and he had been afraid, and she had been too stubborn to help him—

 _(And he hadn't been fine, just now, in her dream— and what if he needs her, and she's just standing here being an idiot while that whatever-it-is inside him is hurting him—)_

 _((She needs him, can't lose him, and she can prove to him that he needs her just as much too_ —))

She looks away from her bedroom door and back again, caught between the impulse to seek him out and her own common sense; neither of them knew what was happening that night. He had been so… She's not even sure if there's a word to describe it—the way his body had seemed to fight against him, the way he had thrashed between violence and revulsion, between closeness and distance… The ghostly pale of his skin, the sweat on his face—

 _The way he had needed her. The way he could only find his way back to himself if she was close._

She swallows, mulling over the thought in her mind; when she finally releases the hem of her shirt she's left fist shaped wrinkles behind, permanent indents in the fabric that settle about her hips as she crosses the room towards the door.

 _... If things were reversed Wally would do the same. This much she knows for sure._

— _he would hold her, comfort her, make sure she was okay_ —

((— _just like he did on the 4th of July_ — _))_

... And maybe it's selfish, the way she goes after him— but she's not thinking about that now. The crack beneath her door illuminates with a flash of lightning, and without breathing she charges headfirst into the storm.

* * *

The lights are dimmed when she rams her door open, the floor cold as the tile presses against her bare feet—she can sense it again, the strange static in the air, the kind that makes her hair begin to frizz the second she steps into the hallway. For a long moment she hesitates, wondering whether to go directly to Wally's bedroom, but that thought quickly changes—she knows where he'll be.

 _(He's the only person she knows this way. Instinctively_ — _the way she can always find north, the way she can smell rain before it falls. She feels him as naturally as one feels air in their lungs, blood in their veins, life in their heart_ — _)_

The common area is almost pitch black when she enters it, static sparking between her thighs as she practically runs in her hurry; the violence of the storm outside makes it nearly impossible to see the familiar outlines of furniture, the angles of counters and appliances in the kitchen. She hardly spares a second to look around the room, eyes drawn automatically to the window with a sharp inhale— _this is where she'll find him_ —

 _(He needs her.)_

She nearly calls out, mouth freezing as she squints in the darkness.

… He's not there.

Her own breath tastes sour on her tongue when she exhales; it seems to take her several seconds too long to be sure of the fact, feet still trotting towards the emptiness of their window until she's more than halfway across the room. He's... He's not there. Wally's not there.

The view of the storm through the empty window pane seems to mock her, unrelenting in it's violence; for too long she stands there, unblinking as she stares at the rain pounding against the beach, as if half expecting him to appear out of nowhere. "Wally?" She croaks out to the room as a whole.

Silence.

... Wally's not there.

All at once the twisting in her stomach unclenches, the looseness seeming to pool at a low point somewhere near her toes. In its place she can only taste a strange, selfish disappointment flooding there, dripping and being tainted with some other emotion she can't identify. Wally's not here—he's fine, probably home, and she's over reacted.

... He's doesn't need her.

 _(She doesn't want to but she can hear Black Canary's voice at the back of her mind, more mocking and cruel than in her memory: "You've been through a lot more than children your age... It's made you scared of trusting, of caring, and of abandonment.")_

She exhales again, her throat now painfully tight— she's an awful person. Hoping Wally was hurting so she could rush off to help him, wanting him to be suffering so she could remind him why she's worth keeping around. Talking herself into imagining some kind of horrible pain so she could fix things between them, so she could have a purpose again, so she could remind him that whether together or not _she's his girl..._

 _She's being selfish, wanting something to happen to him so he'll need her, so he'll be reminded that he still loves her._

 _(Because whether or not she wants to admit it she still needs him. And even though she wants him to forget about her she can't stop her heart from caring, from being selfish, for still looking at him like he's hers. She's disgusting, and flawed, and full of ragged edges but it's not fair that he can move past what's between them so easily when she's left pretending as usual, trying to keep up with him like always_ — _)_

 _(Is this how Wally felt when she went on that date with Owen? Is this is why he went after her that night on the beach?)_

 _((She's heartless. She's cruel. She's the worst kind of person_ — _))_

She breathes in hard through her nose, hating herself as she turns her back on the view of the storm raging outside; the rain seems louder in here, the static stronger. Despite all the noise she can hardly hear anything over the humiliated ringing in her ears, the angry twisting in her stomach. She... She can't believe herself.

She's awful, her own selfishness sending a dull wave of nausea through her; ignoring the rain she turns on her heel, marking the path back towards the embarrassment in the loneliness of her bedroom. Now more than ever she can't hide the fact that she misses Wally, _her Wally_ — she hates him for moving on despite telling him to, can't stand the fact that she's once again not wanted by the one person who she always thought would need her. Distantly she can hear the low roll of building pressure, the static in the air sparking about her calves as she passes behind the couch, trying her best to swallow down the shame burning at the back of her throat.

 _Selfish._

 _Worthless._

 _Better off dead..._

"God." She hisses, shaking her head; behind her the storm is reaching a boiling point, tension filling the air as thunder gets ready to sound.

... She's got to stop thinking like this— that the distance between them is only temporary. That they're only apart for now. She can't determine what Wally does on his own time, she can't stop him from moving on. And why shouldn't he? She's not ready for forever, she's too messed up, _clearly_ ; if he wants to find a girl ready for that he should, and she should stop hanging around, stop messing with his head— or at least wanting to, during her weaker moments in the dark. For all she knows this Linda is his dream girl, and she'll just fade into some forgotten part of his past, the girl he couldn't save... There's a flash behind her as she pauses behind the couch and instinctively she nearly stops, bracing herself for the—

The flash dies and the thunder sounds, clanging around her head but somehow not hiding that fact that she's the worst kind of person—

The lights in the kitchen are on.

Although she can't immediately explain why she feels her muscles tense, eyes straying around the room as if searching for another person, some reason why the lights would be suddenly on. Not just on— glowing so brightly in the darkness that they're violently flickering, the wires in the bulbs radiating so much electricity that they're emitting a low ringing noise, an angry buzzing that makes her ears ache the longer she stands there. The wire beneath the glass is positively thrumming, the pressure in the air building to an aching point that presses down on her ear drums, nearly bursting them—

The sky outside lights up with a fork of lightning once more and she nearly cries out when the bulbs in the kitchen burst into blackness, the relief of pressure against her eardrums making her slap her palms to her ears.

... She's trembling again. And this time the darkness feels almost sinister, lurking, her nails digging into her scalp as she stands there, and—

And before she can even think to run away the air outside seems to explode with the reverberating crashing of thunder; despite herself she screws her eyes shut, the loudness of the sound seeming to clang against her head through her palms, the low buzzing noise building to a screaming point—

She lets out an involuntary gasp as the air whips around her, ice cold and merciless as it bites through her clothing—she chokes instantly as the static of her hair whips upwards, blinding her and sticking to the back of her throat; stumbling slightly she feels her hip knock against the edge of the couch, a pang striking through her body—

She slaps the hair out of her eyes, panting and struggling to figure out what's happening, eyes scanning the room—

The air crackles, small sparks of static seeming to fly off him when he stills, a dark mass illuminated only by the storm outside their window.

"Wally?" She breathes.

He doesn't seem to hear her, muscles jumping and vibrating under the fabric of his shirt; his very outline seems to quiver, quaking and shivering into blurriness. For half a second he's visible, back taught and inhuman as he pauses, staring unseeingly out the window at the heart of the storm.

Somehow she knows what's about to happen before it does; in a moment the lighting illuminates the sky and she hears the feral sounding gasp fire out of his throat, his very outline beginning to disappear and waver into the darkness. "Wally." She repeats, beginning to charge towards him, voice breaking. "Wally, no—"

He's gone in a second, the backdraft off the movement so powerful it sears her skin—her hair seems to whip backwards in a frizz of static that stings the back of her neck, Wally moving in a blur she can hardly see, all the lights in the room surging into a brightness so white it blinds her—he's going fast, too fast, so fast that at once the memory claws into her—

 _("He told me he gets afraid, sometimes, when he runs." M'gann says in an undertone. "Like if he goes too fast... He'll just be sucked away by it. Disappear.")_

It's like being sucked into the center of a typhoon; she can barely trace his movements, can only follow the path of destruction that seems to burst seconds after he passes, the lights in the room surging between blinding and a blackness each time he sprints by: M'ganns magazines are flipped open and rocket off the coffee table, pillows blasted from their places on chairs, the ceiling fan wavering precariously as the force of Wally's running disturbs its rotations. She feels helpless, trapped, turning too slowly and eyes so frustratingly human as she staggers in multiple directions, hardly able to see through the flashing lights and tripping over her own feet as she's buffeted again and again, stumbling and nearly falling onto the kitchen tile.

Her heart is pumping too fast to focus on anything, sweat pooling in her lower back and adrenaline furious in her blood stream with no direction to move in, her mind racing as she tries to think of something, anything, to slow him down…

 _And she can't run away, even if she wants to_ — _Wally is everywhere and she's helpless, frightened, too pathetic to figure out how to shout for help_ —

The too-strong backdraft buffets her violently her towards the kitchen island, her knees knocking painfully against the end of the counter; it's as if Wally's sprinting uncontrollably from one end of the Cave to the other, retracing old routes blindly and pushing through anything that stops him. Around her the cabinets are slamming open and closed, the wind so harsh she can feel her eyes stinging, lights surging on and off—

 _She just needs to get him still, needs to—_

It's stupid, she knows it, but this time when she senses the stinging of the static she reaches for it—she hardly touches him but the whole of her weight is whipped back against a cabinet, a gasp ripping from her throat as a jolt of pain runs from her shoulder to her wrist; her hand is slammed backward, so painful it might as well be ripped off, arm aching as if she's just popped it in and out of its socket.

It's enough—at the sound of her crying out Wally stills, the lights surging and then simmering to a low half-light all around them. He doesn't even resemble himself, ginger hair frizzing and sweat dripping down his temples, unblinking and panting and inhumanly blurred at the opposite end of the kitchen—staring at her, almost snarling but not really seeing.

It's all she needs though—in that fraction of a second of hesitation, the half second where it seems to occur to him that something is about to happen, she ignores every instinct in her body— the ones that are telling her to run, or hide, or scream for help; instead of reeling through the thousand impulses telling her to save her own life she launches herself at him, nose wrinkling.

He may be faster but she's the better fighter; Wally lets out a feral growl at her when she attacks him, one of his arms swinging out in a misaimed punch. With a twist of her abdomen she ducks, fist colliding with his stomach as she rams her fist into his diaphragm. There's a puff of air, a wheeze of pain, and before he can even indulge the human weakness of doubling over she's on him, the two of them twisting and hissing and clattering against cabinets, her fingers curling around the unfamiliar ice cold flesh of his wrists—

Wally grunts when she pins him against the fridge, every part of him quaking and struggling against the jutting edge of the handle pressing against his back. "Wally!" She yells in his face, practically spitting as he struggles, one of her legs kicking up to slam his thighs flat when he attempts to throw her off of him. "Wally! Snap out of it!"

In response he lets out an intelligible sort of growl, not hearing her still as his lips pull back to expose his canines; at once there's a dull burning sensation about her hands, and with a jolt she realizes he's actually trying to vibrate his atoms out from underneath her—

There's another clang of thunder, the nerves in her hands screaming in a kind of agony that flashes through her so rapidly she can't even feel it; before she even has time to hiss at the sensation Wally exhales with a groan, a strangled half-cry of pain blowing his walnut scented breath hard against her cheeks. At once his face falters, features waxy as the sweat about his temples starts bursting into beads; before she knows what's happening he seems to slump forward, a thick dribble of blood bursting from his nose and flowing thick and fast over his lips, staining his teeth scarlet and trickling too-quickly down his chin.

 _(And she's back in the booth at the diner_ — _and Wally is bleeding and Cheshire_ — _Cheshire is coming_ — _)_

The sight makes her instantly nauseas, a low wave of horror and some other unknown emotion taking over her for a moment. She's seized with the overwhelming impulse to run, to disappear, to hide from him— "Wally." She says as steadily as she can, fighting against the frightened warbling of her voice as she ducks her head, trying to find his eyes. "Wally, _you need to_ —"

He coughs, low and guttural— before she can close her mouth she tastes phlegm and blood on her tongue.

She nearly screams, unaware of the way her hands loosen around his wrists; before she can even brace herself there's a loud crashing overhead and suddenly Wally's throwing her backwards, her feet not even feeling as if they belong to her as she stumbles over them, slamming against the countertop too hard.

 _(She doesn't feel the pain, doesn't hear herself cry out with impact. She doesn't register the sensation of her ribs bruising or the bolt-like sensation of the edge of the counter cutting through her. Above it all is the taste of his blood in her mouth, the way it sticks to her tongue, the way it tastes of Metropolis and nightmares and hell...)_

She's panting, breathing too fast and too hard for it to really sound like breathing; the noise she's making is almost like a whimper, too-soft and delicate for what she needs to be. Her knees don't seem to want to hold her up anymore, her elbow bracing against the counter top as she tries to stay upright, one hand pressing against the bruised line beginning to blossom along her ribs. She can feel something, an old and unpleasantly familiar something stirring beneath her surface, a kind of panic that she hasn't felt is so long— _But she can't lose herself. Not now. Not when..._ As she thinks the thought she feels herself growing sick, hating herself. _Wally needs her. She can't panic when Wally needs her._

She can't breathe, throat gurgling as she struggles to focus. She spits red-stained saliva onto the floor, then swallows twice. Her mouth still tastes metallic when she looks at him, bracing for another outburst.

She's expecting him to advance on her, slam her to the floor, carve her out like her father would; instead he's staring at her, caught on the noises she's still making as she struggles to control her breathing. He doesn't look remotely like Wally; as she continues to stare at him, panting, she finds nothing familiar in his waxy features, nothing well known in the blood and sweat pouring off of him. There's nothing human in the way he continues to stand there, freckles screaming out against his too-pale skin, his pupils reduced to pinpricks and his body at the mercy of the terrifying instinct running through his veins...

 _(She exhales again, the breath getting caught in the back of her throat_ — _at the sound something runs through him, a strange sort of shiver that blurs his edges, his atoms fighting hard against the temptation to sprint away_ — _)_

She doesn't know why it's suddenly very difficult not to cry, her chin wobbling and muscles aching as she straightens; the pain in her ribs seems to echo the pain in her heart, which feels as if it's breaking all over again. He's never once looked at her like this, as if she were nothing, worthless, the scum that she is. Somehow that's more painful than anything else he's ever slapped her with.

The blood is still trickling hard and fast out of his nose and dripping steadily on the kitchen floor, eyes still wide and unseeing... She's half hoping he'll start running, start sprinting far enough away for her to never see him again— but for some reason he stays stalk still, panting and staring at nothing in that unfamiliar animal way of his. Waiting for something. Drawn here, tempted into a moment of stillness.

She wants to leave, to disappear... But he's not running. And she supposes neither should she.

 _(She can do this. One more time... Maybe.)_

 _((For Wally, she'll do anything.))_

It takes more courage than she has to face him again, heart still pounding with a mixture of fear and adrenaline; she doesn't want to leave the safety of the counter. Bracing one hand on the edge behind her she extends her other towards him, half expecting him to slap her away at any second. "W-Wally?" She tries to say, stuttering accidentally and sounding weak. When she tries to say his name again she can't.

She stops her hand less than an inch from his chest, too afraid still to touch him. Vividly she can remember the last time at the window, how he had attacked her when she had tried to get close... How the only thing that had calmed him was the feeling of her lips pressing against his, her breath replacing his own inside his lungs—

... She could kiss him.

Unwillingly her eyes scan the stiff, almost carved features of his face, pausing unnoticeably on the lips that may as well belong to a strange; it would be over in a second and this... Whatever it is that's happening would be over. She could leave. It would be done. She blinks, and the thought leaves as quickly as it arrives.

 _(She's too much of a coward to kiss him again. Not when she knows the only thing she'll taste there is blood. Not when kissing him would be a betrayal of everything she wants for him_ — _He should move on, she's no good for him_ — _)_

Her hand's been hanging in the air too long, extended but not touching; everything from instinct to her ribs seem to scream out as she inhales, gathering her nerve. "Wally?" She whispers, fingers trembling. The seconds shriek past, each one seeming to dwindle her bravery even more. "... It's me." She breathes, voice unsteady. "It's Artemis."

There's a fraction of a second where her own name seems to linger in the air, meaningless to Wally's unblinking eyes and the blood on his lips. His whole body seems to tense, muscles quaking in time with the pressure in the air. The storm outside is building, the static in the air growing painful; he inhales, sharp and rattling, the air he's taking in seeming to inflate the deepest parts of him—

His chest brushes her fingers, cold as ice through his shirt, the lightning outside illuminating the whole kitchen. "Artemis." He bursts out, atoms vibrating underneath her skin as he looks at her for the first time, white and scared.

She's expecting to lose him, to be whipped back by a sudden burst of speed; instead the tenseness in his muscles seeming to unravel like looping fabric as he instinctively leans into her palm, the sweat from his back unsticking from the fridge. His chest seems to hollow out beneath her fingers as he exhales, head dropping to stare at her hand as her nails dig into the cotton of his shirt. His heart is going so fast she can hardly count the beats, its thrumming underneath her palm scaring her more than anything else.

She can feel her own breath picking up again, trying to ease out the panic in her voice by adopting a low and soothing tone. "I'm here." She tells him when he begins trembling, ducking her jaw and trying to see his face as he begins blinking rapidly. "You're upset because of the storm again. But I'm here now, okay? I-I'm here."

 _(Her throat catches again, forcing her to whisper the last part; she glances down to her wrist in time to catch a single tear as it dampens her skin.)_

She releases the counter, not wanting to get closer but somehow not able to help it; Wally's breathing is beginning to rattle in his throat, still not quite human but not quite anything else as she loops her other hand over the fabric on his chest. "It's alright." She takes it as a good sign when he exhales, he stiffness of his muscles loosening as she talks. "You're okay."

His shaking is getting worse now—not violently like before but in a softer, more vulnerable way. He's still got his head ducked, hiding from her as he stares at her hands. "I'm here." She repeats, not sure of what else to say but wanting him to say something, anything— anything to make it easier to ignore the way he's almost convulsing—

He exhales again, throat catching on something; finally he raises his head, face screwing up in a mixture of torment and anger. He's got his eyes shut, as if afraid of what he'll find in the half light of the kitchen. "A-Artemis?" He breathes.

"... I'm right here."

He doesn't seem to believe her, shaking his head as she pulls back; she can see the imprints of her palms clearly in the center of his chest, the wrinkled fabric telling her how tightly she's been gripping him, how afraid she's been. As she returns back to the safety of the counter she can feel that fright spasming inside her, unsure of what's about to happen.

He seems to deflate when she stops touching him, muscles shrinking and no longer popping angrily under his skin. For a moment he seems to hang there, unsuspended, before he opens his eyes. "I—" He starts, looking at her as if still not sure he's seeing her; after a second his eyes seems to sharpen. "Oh my god." He whispers, voice cutting and terrified in a way that instinctively sends a jolt of fear down her spine—

 _(When he raises a hand towards her she can't help it; forgetting herself she feels the something old and feral flare up inside her, an old instinct for survival she'd thought she'd buried long ago. He moves and she feels her muscles spasm into panic, her fists raising without her permission, nose wrinkling—)_

She feels like a wild cat, haunches raising and teeth bared; before she can hide the look on her face Wally stops short, looking as if she's just slapped him as she stands there, trapped against the counter. "... What did I do?" He breathes, staring at her in horror; at once his voice is raising, a look of sheer terror coating his still waxy features. "You're covered in blood—"

He gestures to her face and she makes the mistake of flinching again, realizing too late that she still has her fists up. "Wally," She hushes him. "You need to—"

Instead of listening to her he backs up against the fridge, looking tortured as he runs a hand through his hair. "Fuck." He hisses, catching a glance at the reddened marks she's left around his wrists, the dribbles of blood staining his shirt. "Oh my god, what did I—"

He looks at her, horrified; at once she can feel his blood, the stickiness of it still splattered and hot all over her cheeks. "It's—" He reaches for her again and she nearly screams, fingers shoving him back against the fridge as he tries to charge towards her again. "Your nose is bleeding, Wally. It's your blood." She hisses, pressing him once, too hard, against the handle before she releases him again, retreating back to the safety of her counter.

He's still not right, eyes waxy and so wide it's as if they're about to fall out of his head; her own heart is still raging so loudly in her ears that she can hardly even hear the swears he's beginning to utter under his breath. It feels as if the kitchen is spinning around her, the speed and dizziness beginning to overtake her— she can't think, she doesn't know what to do— _why did she think she could handle this_ —

The skin on her knuckles is beginning to strain, the tightness with which she's clenching her fists at her sides suddenly searing over the screeching inside her head. "You're fine, Wally." She bursts out, the words coming from some unknown place inside herself; feeling the unnatural wrinkle popping up over her nose again she scowls, not wanting to watch the way he prods once at the blood on his lips. "We're both fine." She mutters, reaching for the paper towel.

Standing still is making her anxious, the uncomfortable twisting in her stomach increasing a ten-fold when she realizes Wally's still staring at her, fingers covered in his blood and looking as if he still thinks he's trapped inside his own head. She feels as if she's cleaning up after a murder, ripping sheet after sheet of pristine white towel and trying to coax the blood on the kitchen tile into moving. "... What happened?" Wally breathes after a moment.

As he asks her she feels something stir inside her; the Metropolis Girl, the darker part of her, the one she's been fighting to control for so long, seems to curl her talons around her heart. And when that cruel voice whispers inside her she knows it's the truth— she can't keep doing this. She can't keep being soft for him.

 _... Being soft is what's going to get both of them killed._

She doesn't look at him, instead getting to her knees to blot at the reddened stain she's spat on the floor. "I told you." She says as flatly as she can. "You were upset. The storm made it worse."

There's crimson specks all over the tile, remnants of Wally's coughing; it takes several wipes with the paper towel for her to be sure she's got them all. "So..." He breathes, the uneasiness in his voice making her pause in her cleaning to watch as his bare feet twitch uncomfortably.

She knows him too well, can read the unknown question lingering on his lips before he figures out how to ask it. "I was coming out for a cup of tea." She lies. "I think I found you before anyone else did."

She gets to her feet in time to catch him nodding; he still doesn't look quite right, his pupils still too small, showing too much of the hazel flecks in his eyes. "... Thanks." He says awkwardly.

The paper towel she's holding in her hand becomes crumpled, her palms beginning to sweat; before she can stop herself the words are bubbling out of her, unstoppable. "I thought you told me there wasn't going to be a next time." She mutters too quickly, eyes narrowing at him. "I thought— you made it sound like you were going to get this under control—"

"Don't, okay?" He cuts her off, shaking his head; he's beginning to tense again, shoulders broadening and the lines of his neck growing more taught. "I— I can't talk about this right now."

"Then when?" She hisses, glaring at him. "Wally, you can't—"

A muscles jumps in his cheek, the whole of his body seeming to tighten as his head snaps towards the storm brewing outside; her words are cut off by a violent crackling overhead, a flash through their window illuminating the sharp, almost alien angles of his face as he sucks in a painful breath, the blood still flowing out of his nose dribbling over his tongue—

Her stomach seems to tighten and the words bubbling inside her fizzle. "Okay." She whispers, sounding angrier than she means to; biting her tongue she tries again. "Wally, it's okay..."

Neither of them are expecting her to reach for him; he's as still as stone when she presses her hand against his chest again, the fingers of her right hand smoothing over his shirt until she feels the raised scar she knows is so close to his heart. "Focus." She tells him, ignoring the swirl of feelings choking her at the back of her throat. "It's me, okay? Focus on me."

Wally seems to stiffen under her touch as he turns her head towards him, the muscles on his neck too rigid. "A-Artemis—" He breathes, beginning to tremble again.

"I'm here." She whispers back, one hand reaching up to wipe clumsily at the blood still dripping out of his nose. "... You're okay."

Something, some sort of feeling she doesn't understand, is beginning to make itself known inside her; as she makes to pull back she's stopped by a too-large hand seizing her wrist, Wally's skin still ice-like as he presses his fingers to her pulse point.

 _(And this feeling, the one she can't name, seems to flare inside her; when his eyes lock with hers his pupils blow out, hardly green as he stares at her. And she feels it, all over; how it felt to end things with him, the misery of those first few weeks without him, the intensity of the loss of the first person she ever loved that way_ — _in the few seconds he stares at her she feels it all over, more overwhelming and painful than ever before. The old memories they have together seem more traumatizing, more tainted, more stabbing_ — _and distantly she can hear echoes of what could have been screaming at her, telling her it isn't too late_ —

 _... Wally's gone from her now, moved on. And she needs to learn that this time he isn't coming back.)_

Despite knowing this she doesn't stop him with he raises his other hand, fingers skimming her cheek in a way that might convince her that he still cares. She can hear herself breathing, too fast and through her mouth, salivating when she tastes walnuts there. "... You're okay too, right?" He breathes, brows furrowing and begging for an answer she doesn't know she can give.

At once her skin is boiling, words getting caught in the tightness of her throat. It's nearly impossible to breathe when his fingers skim over her skin, following the imprint of her bones and lingering about the crimson of his blood as he struggles to wipe it from her cheeks.

 _(She can't do this anymore; she's supposed to be letting him move on.)_

 _((They've got to stop taking care of each other.))_

She ducks her head, ignoring his fingers when they fumble over her chin. "... I'm fine." She mumbles, not looking at him as she crosses towards the sink. Tossing the paper towel in the trash she cranks the water as cold as it will go, ignoring the way he stares at her as she scrubs his blood off her face.

"... Artemis?"

"We're both fine." She spits out, slamming the faucet off and wiping herself clean on her forearms. "So... I— I'm going to bed."

He means to say something, call out to her, but before the words can get out of his mouth the thunder sounds again; the storm brews on but this time she turns her back on it, ignoring the sound of his gasping as he tries to call her back.

* * *

It's cowardly, running back to her room— but that's what she does.

Quite literally, actually; as the lightning strikes behind her and Wally's low hiss sounds out she breaks into a run, heels pounding against the floor as she peels back towards her bedroom. She needs to get away from him, he— _he always does this_ , makes it so she forgets herself, can't think, can't figure out what she's feeling or why she feels it—

 _("Artemis is a born runner.")_

She practically slams her bedroom door behind her, clicking the lock into place as if something's running after her; even then she can't stop moving, feet pacing absently for a few seconds before she grasps the back of her chair, jostling her desk in her haste as she drags it across the room, wedging it beneath the door knob.

 _(What the hell is wrong with her?)_

She's panting, breath sharp in her lungs as if she's just sprinted several miles; for a moment she stares at her door, breasts heaving, before she rips her chair away so violently it crashes onto its side, the clattering not even finished before she lunges forward, unlocking her door, twisting the knob—

She's halfway out of it again before she exhales, mind whirring so quickly she can't focus; hissing, she retreats back into her bedroom, ramming the door closed after her.

It's still cold in her bedroom, her skin prickling as she presses her back against the panes of wood on her door, thinking hard. She can't figure it out, this— feeling. Even now it's there, curled in her stomach, seizing up in the back of her throat like vomit, intelligible as far as she knows. Knocking her head backwards she blinks hard at her ceiling, feeling the low sharpness of pain as she repeats the movement, mulling it over.

 _... She broke up with Wally._

She doesn't know what that's the first thing that comes to her mind, why that's her starting point; vaguely she's aware of shifting off her door, her teeth biting hard on her lip. She broke up with Wally, ended things before either of them could get hurt even more than they were. It had made sense at the time— saving him from the inevitable wrath of her father, the complication that was her sister, and—

... And from her. The thought jumps out at her as she picks up her chair, dragging it back towards her desk. That had been part of it. She had been so damaged, too-hurt by the past. At the time she had thought she would never heal from it... It had made sense to make sure he wasn't hurt by it too.

She's not aware of sitting, elbows bracing on her desk for a moment before she starts searching for a pen; she had broke up with him with the intention of leaving him behind. Forgetting it had ever happened, writing off the feelings between them as a mistake— which they were... There's no paper here— after a moment of searching she gives up, instead reaching for one of the many books piled there, flipping to the back few pages she knows are always blank and ripping one unevenly from the spine.

 _Broke up._

She scrawls the words in her usual pointed and messy script, staring at them though narrowed eyes. For some reason they don't look real.

... But then there was that first storm, at the window— _Thunderstorm,_ she writes beneath it— that had changed things. They were fighting, sure, but that night... She had saved him, accidentally.

And kissed him. She had kissed him too.

And she had been upset enough about it before Connor had told her what Wally had called her... _A lightning rod_. Even as she writes the word now is feels strange, as if it's in another language. It had been those two words that had scared her so much, so huge in their unknowability, the fact that meant something to Wally and not her... She had run from it, from those words and the feelings left between them. Run all the way to Quarac and back.

 _Quarac._

But even while she was there... She had thought of him every day. Missed him with every part of her that was only vaguely holding things together while trying to let him go. And when she had gotten back things were—

Her hand tries to scrawl and question mark and ends up spurring a jutting squiggle in the center of the page.

... The rest of their story is all too familiar now. The two of them fighting, and then... The fourth of July. Her birthday. Two different times when she had let her guard down, let him in again, and it had felt so... Right. Familiar. Safe.

He's the one who told her he wanted to be friends.

 _(Her fingers find the necklace around her neck, pinching the golden A so tightly it threatens to cut through her skin.)_

She had thought the necklace had meant something to him too— the ending of what was between them, sure, but... But what? That hope of something else to come? The childish wish for a future— a future when? When Lawrence is dead? When Jade's back home? When Paula can walk again?

... It's stupid. He's the reason why she's been doing all this. Why she's been trying to make herself... Better, she supposes. He's why she's been making herself look like an idiot in front of Black Canary, why she's been trying to get her head on straight, why more than ever she wants to forget everything her father carved into her—

... She knows they can't be together now. But she had always thought, one day—

 _(He had told her it was real, that what they had... That was it. And granted she had only known what she read in books, or long forgotten poems, but_ — _she supposes she had felt the same. And perhaps she still does; when the pain doesn't face and the scars don't heal, that has to mean something, right?)_

 _((Her and Wally. That's the way it's supposed to be.))_

She kills the thought before she finishes it, crumpling the piece of paper in front of her and shoving it to the bottom of her garbage. She's acting like a child— writing down her feelings, sneaking around in the dark. She's being a jealous idiot; getting upset over Wally's secrets, over the fact that he's doing exactly what she told him to— _He should move on, he should move on_ —

She throws herself back in her chair, snarling a breath at the ceiling.

 _((Linda's a stupid name.))_

... Being upset over this won't do her any good, she knows that. But neither will chasing after Wally. She needs to let him go, impose distance, make it easier for the two of them to move on with their lives. Laying out the plan right now she can see it: it's logical, makes perfect sense. Stop being friends. Let him date someone else. Stop being jealous. Stop thinking he belongs to her. Stop convincing herself that he needs her. Stop pretending that he's going to come back. Stop dwelling on what could have been.

... But the thought of someone else touching him, making him laugh... It doesn't sit well in her heart.

 _((Zatanna smirks at her over the rim of he glass. "You've always been Wally's girl. Even when you weren't."))_

 _What the hell is that supposed it mean?_

* * *

She thinks herself in circles for nearly twenty minutes, not sure what she's trying to work towards; in the half light of her bedroom she only feels more confused, more overwhelmed by her own thoughts and feelings and the war seeming to brew between her heart and her mind. Before long she's got the heels of her palms pressed against the backs of her eyes, torturing herself— _why, why can't she just let Wally go_ —

 _((He can't abandon her, not like everyone else_ — _))_

The knock comes quietly, hardly audible above the patterning of rain; one rap, then two short ones. She doesn't need to open the door to know who's there. "Go away." She grumbles through her hands.

A pause. Then another rap, two short ones. "... It's me." He whispers though her door.

She can't be around him, not when she's as confused as she is. "I know." She sneers, throwing her hands into her lap and glaring over her shoulder at the wood of her door. "Go to bed, Wally."

There's a long hesitation and then another round of knocking; losing patience altogether she rips her chair back from her desk, stomping across the room. "What do you want?" Her door opens before she can reach it, the wood swinging open so quickly she's nearly hit with it. "What are you—"

"You forgot your tea."

She deserves some sort of award for not screaming out with frustration, instead coming up almost short as he stands there, still gaunt and waxy and not like himself; he's not inside her room, not really— merely occupying the inch or two beyond the line where the tile meets the carpet, lingering in the darkness of the hallway so she can't quite read his face. She can feel her lips open in surprise when he extends a cup towards her. "You said you got up to make tea." He tells her, as if aware that it's a lie she's already forgotten telling. "You left without making any."

Her eyes narrow, not reaching for it. She seriously considers spewing a half dozen different swears at him before she sighs, struggles to control the whirlwind of emotions inside her. "I don't want it anymore." She mumbles, blushing and reaching for the door. "Anything else? I'm trying to sleep."

"Just—" He cuts her off when she tries to slam the door in his face, his free hand catching it and nearly spilling her tea. For some reason he hesitates, face unreadable in the darkness. "... I met someone. I— I wanted you to know."

This isn't what she's expecting— she counts nearly ten seconds before it occurs to her that he's waiting for her to react to this. "Oh." She hears herself say. "... Right. Connor mentioned something."

There's several moments of awkward silence in which she can sense him staring at her, off guard by her answer and struggling to read the expression on her face; she wonders, vaguely, what's showing there— what hints of her feelings are managing to slip between her cracks, what someone who knows her so well can see when she's doing her best to ignore the foreign twisting in her stomach...

When she doesn't say anything else he keeps talking. "Sorry." He blurts out, dropping his head to stare at his feet. "I should have been the one to..." He trails off, not finishing. It takes too long for him to gather his nerve, head jerking up as he struggles to look her in the eye. "Her name is Linda Park."

She doesn't mean to say it but she does. "... That's a stupid name."

There an awkward pause before Wally tries to laugh, the chuckle he forces out not quite sounding real. "Right. Says _Artemis Crock_." It's not meant to be affectionate but something in the way he says it, the way it rolls off his tongue, feels good to hear; despite herself she feels her lips tug upwards at the sound, another break in the mask she's trying to wear. The smile must encourage him more than she wants it to because at once Wally's eyes flicker to her lips, curious."... Can I come in?"

 _(For some reason she moves aside, accepting the tea as he makes to pass it to her; when his fingers brush hers they're still unnaturally cold, not like him.)_

Now that he's moving into the light she can see him properly, her eyes narrowing as he takes exactly three paces into her bedroom; he doesn't want to go in too far, she's sure, something about the familiarity of the space or the memories inside it stopping him. He looks better, although still now quite right— he's not sweating anymore but there's still a strange tightness to his muscles, the hair on his arms bristling either out of cold or static or something more terrifying that she doesn't understand. There's still stains on his clothes from his nose bleed, his upper lip reddened from all the wiping he's done, trying to clean himself up.

 _(This isn't her Wally.)_

She makes to set the cup of tea on her desk table, not wanting it; it's cold by now, as if he made it immediately after she left and forgot about it. For some reason Wally can't let the few seconds of quiet sit between them, shoulders tense as he starts rambling again. "She covers sports for the school newspaper." He tells her, staring at her book shelf instead of anywhere near her. "We were in the same Biology class last year... I always thought she was pretty."

This stings but she doesn't say anything, sitting on the edge of her bed. She doesn't know what's going on but she gets the sense it will be faster to bite back all the scathing words she wants to say— he's come her for a reason after all. Maybe this is it: he wants one last chance to hurt to, to remind her that she's nothing to him, and finally scream all the awful things he's been meaning to since she first broke his heart.

She's not aware of her hands as they clench into her bed sheets, the dull throbbing of his words cutting into her as she's forced to hear them. "... She's smart too." He says after a moment. "Honor roll. She's wants to go to Yale."

That feeling is back again— the one that shrieks at her in memories of the past, the one that builds inside her in a tornado of torment and heart break; in the beat or two where Wally is silent she can feel it boiling underneath her skin, burning her alive as she glares at the cold cup of tea on her desk. "She's pretty much the exact opposite of you, now that I think about it—"

She actually winces at the last words, shoulders hunching as if she's expecting a blow. "Wally." She cuts across him, seething. "... What do you want?"

He's being deliberately cruel, talking to her about Linda; for some reason his brows raise when she snaps, looking hurt by the scowl on her face. "I—"

"Why are you here, anyway?" She snarls, not letting him finish as she begins to bristle in the half light. "Why— Why does this keep happening?"

She's not entirely sure what she's asking— _Why do they keep hurting each other? Why can't they be friends without all this fighting? Why do they keep coming after each other, time and time again, despite the fact that they're nothing to each other anymore_ —

 _(Why is it that they can only talk like this when a thunderstorm is tearing them apart?)_

It's his turn to be silent; when he finally looks away to glare at her bookshelf again she feels her temper slipping past her, the words tumbling out of her and firing at him across the room, settling on the last question that's shot through her mind. "… You need to talk to someone about this. About what happens during a thunderstorm." She hisses, shaking her head. "I can't be the only one who—"

"You're not." He interrupts, still not looking at her. His voice is too quiet, no more than a low hiss lurching at her across the room. "Uncle Barry knows."

"What about everyone else?" She counters, nose wrinkling. "What about Black Canary? Red Tornado? Hell, even Kaldur—"

For some reason Wally cuts her off, an annoyed noise sounding in the back of his throat when he finally rounds on her, glaring. " _Kaldur_ can't do anything." He scoffs. The emphasis sounds bitter, odd to her ear, as if he's mad at the other boy for some sort of discretion. "It's a Speedster thing, okay? He wouldn't know what was—"

"So what?" She starts again, voice catching on an edge as she struggles for a moment to find the right words. "If you're running around in the middle of the night with no control that's a problem, Wally."

The tips of his ears are beginning to redden, one wrist raising to wipe clumsily at his nose as if worried it's started bleeding again. "It's not always like this! Usually I can... I don't know why it was worse tonight, the—the storm just—" Apparently he can't figure out what he's going to say either, promptly changing the direction of his sentence. "...Next time—"

" _Next time?"_

"—I'll be able to control it." He talks over her, now beginning to nearly shout as he tries to talk over her. "I'll—I'll get better at controlling it. Nothing even happened—"

"Nothing happened?" She snarls, beginning to get truly angry as she stands up, flapping her arms once over her head. "Like hell it didn't!"

"Blondie—"

"Shut up." She cuts him off, wrinkle popping up over her nose and fists clenched as she crosses the room, one finger pointing accusingly at him. "Don't give me shit about next time, Kid. _Don't lie to me."_ She snarls, so low and terrifying that for a moment it may as well be the night they broke up again, the two of them bellowing in front of their window about who was a liar and who wasn't brave enough to salvage things between them— at the intensity of her words Wally's throat bobs, the redness of his ears flushing down into his cheeks, a signal of something much more dangerous brewing underneath his surface. "This is twice now you've gone completely psycho on me. What if next time it's M'gann? Or Dick? Or Garfield?"

Her voice is too high pitched, breaking with fury on an octave; at the sound of the crackling in the back of her throat she feels herself deflate, hands waving once in defeat. "… I'm not stupid, okay? I get it." She spits out, shaking her head before turning away, not wanting to see his face when she says what's really on her mind. "... You don't care if you slam me into cabinets or try to kill me—or—" She can feel herself losing her nerve. " _But c_ _an you at least pretend you do?"_

There's a stunned silence on the other end of the room, the kind that seems to last too long for comfort; at once she registers the cold again, her arms wrapping around herself and attempting to rub heat back into her bones. When he finally speaks his voice is much softer, more fragile. "...Artemis—"

Whatever he's about to sigh out is cut off by the loud clattering, a clang of lightning touching down somewhere close by; the sound is loud and all encompassing, the rattling against the walls of the Cave seeming to unfurl deep inside her. Without looking she can sense him retracting, stiffening, the static in her bedroom beginning to spark almost instantly—

She doesn't look, instead listening hard to his breath as it stutters in his chest, caught between annoyance and something else. "... Wally?"

There's an unnerving quiet, cut short only when he makes a choking half-noise in the back of his throat, enough to let her know that he's still with her but only just; at once his breath starts coming out in pants, another roll of thunder sounding in the distance. "Don't, okay?" She huffs, not wanting to turn around and look at him, knowing she'll want to drop the fight the second she does. "It's not fair. Don't disappear on me."

There's silence for a moment, the nothingness so loud she can hear the static beginning to cackle in the ends of her hair. "H-Hey." She stutters, hair frizzing as she turns her head to look at him. "... Wally?"

"Sorry." He wheezes out shortly, voice catching and throat tight with a kind of agony she doesn't understand; that one word, more than anything else that's happened tonight, terrifies her.

She moves without thinking, more instinct and impulse than anything else prompting her to take a step closer; he's shaking again, struggling to breathe as the electricity in his veins jumps through his muscles, blurring his edges as sending a low buzzing through the air. "Hey." She says firmly, stopping short after a second, not sure what to do as her annoyance fades into alarm. She can hear his name slipping past her lips, beginning to raise in octave, high pitched and feminine. "Wally? You're alright." She tells him, even though he's not, skin turning a ghostly white and breaking out in a deadly cold sweat. "Stay with me. Wally?"

He inhales sharply as he tries to answer, the words not coming to him. Something unfurling inside her stomach won't let her go to him, won't allow her to get closer. "... You're okay." She tells him; a fresh wave of panic runs through her when his pupils, now beginning to reduce to pinpricks, scream at her like a siren to come closer when she can't, _she can't._ "It's okay. I'm here."

For one terrifying second he doesn't seem to see her, eyes no longer blinking as he stares at something horrible but invisible in the air in front of her, expression beginning to crease into lines of pain. The muscles along his neck are beginning to jump, threatening to burst from his skin— fighting the fear inside her she raises her hands, terrified as her thoughts begin racing, too quick for her to catch. "Don't, Wally. Listen to my voice, okay? Okay? _Focus on me."_

At the words he seems to choke on his own breath, head ducking for a moment as a dribble of sweat drips down his temples; then all at once he jerks his head up to stare at her, pupils blowing out as his hands as flex into the edges of her bookshelf— trying, no doubt, to cling to something to stop from running. "K-Kid?" She whispers, trying her best to keep the fear out of her voice as she swallows. She doesn't speak again until she's sure her words won't tremble. "Wally?"

There's a retching noise, as if he's attempting to force something contaminated from his body; his shoulders are relaxing, neck loosening as he struggles to nod. "Yeah." He grits out between still clenched teeth, beginning to tremble. "Yeah."

He exhales, louder this time; she's still standing there with raised fists, half expecting him to lunge at her. "... Talk to me." She whispers, muscles tense. "What— I mean—"

She can't figure out how to word it, watching as he finally releases the edges of her shelf, flexing his knuckles as if trying to convince them not to seize up. "I feel it." He pants, wiping sweat from his face. "The lightning. If it hits too close— It's like I'm hit with it too. And then—"

He trembles so much he can't speak for a moment, watching through too-wide eyes as she lowers her arms, haunches still raised and wary. "...I just need to run. I feel it in my body, and if I don't move it's like I'll— I'll be burnt alive. Or explode. Or—"

Another round of shaking, too strong this time, cuts him off. He doesn't try to speak again.

She doesn't want to look anymore, doesn't want to watch as he suffers while she's too cowardly to bring herself to help; exhaling hard through her nose she turns away, heart still pounding and adrenaline still tainting her veins. "... Why did you come here?" She whispers after a moment. "I-I mean... It's not like I can do anything."

The question hangs in the silence too long again— she's not even sure if she wants an answer, not sure if there's anything he can say that will make her feel less trapped here, alone and in the dark with a person she doesn't feel as if she even knows anymore. Trying her best to breathe again she presses her frizzing hair back behind her ears, feeling the static as it sparks against her finger tips.

"... You make it better." He says after a moment; she's sure he can see the way the words send a spasm of stiffness up her spine, all her muscles tight in the seconds he hesitates before continuing. "I don't know why. You just— When I'm running or... Lost, like that. It's like I'm in another consciousness, or somewhere where I— I can't figure out how to stop, or where I want to go, or how to find my way back to myself—"

"Wally." She says warningly, voice low and cold. "Don't—"

 _(Don't say things that will make her lose control.)_

She can hear him as he crosses the room, all her muscles tight as he continues to talk over her. "But if you're there, or— close. Even little things like reminding me what my name is. I— You're like a landmark I recognize. The only landmark I can recognize..."

She can sense him, no more than a foot behind her, the words he's mumbling rustling the hair on the back of her neck. "... Why did you come here?" She repeats, and despite herself the words are softened— still hard but no longer cold, an edge to them that seems to say more than she can.

He exhales, long and loud, the walnut smell washing over her; at once she can feel warmth pooling inside her, a hot sort of stickiness that dribbles down her bones, making it impossible to think straight. "I needed to be close to you. If I'm not, I—" He hesitates, not finishing.

There's something unsaid there, the unspoken words trying to unthaw her completely; the muscles in her shoulders, now dangerously tight, seem to spasm with all the emotion she's trying to keep in, all the reasons she's fighting to keep him at a distance clanging, useless, against the walls of her heart. "Don't. You— you shouldn't say stuff like that." She whispers, not meaning it.

"Fine." Wally must be able to sense the lie, his bare feet shifting closer to hers on the carpet despite her half-hearted scolding; he's still not radiating heat like always but she can sense some of the warmth returning to him, his breath hot as it hits the side of her neck. "... Can I just..." A pause where he exhales, sending a whole shiver through her body. "Can I touch you? Please?"

She can't do this— can't comfort him when she's not sure what from, can't even begin to think when he's this close. She's still furious at him, still sore from where he threw her into the counter, still exhausted from the lateness of the hour... But despite all this, all the reasons in her head to stay away from him— her heart seems to leap up into her throat, forcing her to stay silent.

She doesn't say yes but she doesn't say no either; nearly a minute of nothingness passes between them as he waits for an answer, the rain still pounding against the roof overhead. She feels as if she's being strangled, caught in a trap she's been baited into; all at once she hears herself let out a puff of air, closing her eyes. "... Wally."

It's a plead for something, the last twang of her crumbling resistance; as if he can sense he's winning the silent fight between them she feels him shift ever closer. "Please..."

This time he doesn't wait for her to figure out what she wants to say, doesn't wait for her to even try to get her guard back up, for her thoughts to start whirring more clearly and prompt her into saying no; before he even finishes saying the word she feels his fingers reaching for the small of her waist.

She hardly breathes as he pulls her in, the hand on her middle snaking around her— his fingers drag along the fabric of her shirt, wrinkling it as he glides his hand over her ribs, hip, stomach—

She can feel herself tremble as he moves closer, the lines of his body fitting neatly against hers; she feels every breath he draws in, feels the rush of walnut flavored air as he dips his head, lips skimming her temple as she turns her head, trying to meet his gaze. "Why—" She whispers, heart stalling as his palm tightens on her ribs, forefinger skimming to find the dip between her breasts; when she tries to turn to look at him his other hand catches her wrist, fingers finding their place between hers.

She doesn't know how long they stand like that, too-close as they hold hands in the dark; the quiet seems to envelop them, making them untouchable from the eyes of the night and the storm, now settling beyond the walls of her room. Wally's fingers fit between hers so neatly it's as if that's where they were meant to be, his thumb running along the uneven edge of her nail, over her knuckles, fingers shifting until he finds the exposed skin of her wrist.

She feels her lower lip tremble as he traces her bones through the seams of her clothing, following the lines of her muscles up her forearm, bicep— behind her he lets out a ragged breath as he reaches her shoulder, hesitating as his fingers cup the swell of it; he's testing her, as if worried she's not real, some sort of hallucination.

Every cell in her body is on high alert as he brushes her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger about the side of her neck; she can't help the way her head starts to loll back, the way her lips part at the touch. He ghosts ever closer to her, still cold, and when he presses her into him she can feel it all at once—

He wants her.

She can't stand this anymore, not looking at him, standing their prisoner as he drags his palm down her stomach— when his fingers skim the bottom of her shirt she feels a loud twang of sense at the back of the mind, prompting her to twitch out of the spell he has her under; her skin seems to burn as she twists out of his grasp, eyes narrowed and challenging at the tortured look on his face when he's forced to stop touching her. "What are you doing?" She whispers.

It's not the right thing to say, her glare unsteady and her skin still blazing where he's touched her; for a moment his eyes lock with hers, burning with a kind of wanting and aching she's never seen before. She doesn't even have time to figure out how she feels about it before Wally stops looking at her, scrubbing once over his face in frustration. "... I don't know." He sighs.

She doesn't want him in her room anymore, afraid of what's just happened and what it means; instead of telling him to leave she remains quiet as he continues to not look at her, hands falling back to his side. "Yes you do." She hisses, her bare feet flexing hard into the carpet.

He hesitates, glaring hard at her bedroom door; she can sense there's something he's not telling her, something he doesn't want to say. At last he sighs again, the breath catching on something raw inside him, as if he's trying to chuckle but can't quite manage it. "... I'm scared."

It's not just the words, it's the way they're said— the thickness to his voice, the way he begins shaking again. At once she realizes he's got tears in his eyes, his apple irises picking up odd reflections in the half-light as he stands there, inches from her and falling apart. "I don't know what the hell is happening to me." He chokes out, trying to smile as he starts wiping his eyes on the back of his hand. "What happens during the storm, it's— it's getting worse every time."

Her heart feels as if it's shattering underneath her ribs, the scowl on her face beginning to waver. "Wally—"

"And you're the only thing I know that— that makes me feel okay again." He shakes his head, the words so quiet she can hardly catch them. "I know it's screwed up but just... Please, Artemis." He whispers at last, finally looking her dead on in the face. "Please."

The smarter part of her wants to say no, wants to tell Wally to leave— but standing there, watching him try not to cry, makes it impossible. Her resistance, flimsy from the beginning, is non-existent now, her heart picking up as he moves closer, reaching for her—

Her hands raise automatically, half curling into fists as if expecting something far worse when he touches her; she's still waiting for him to disappear on her again, to run away without looking back. Instead he looks her dead in the eye as he finds the familiar dip of her waist, staring her down like some sort of animal. "I don't know why, okay?" He breathes, answering her unasked question. "Why it's you who can make me... Stop. I-I don't understand it either."

She keeps her eyes fixed on his when his hands begin moving, tracing the ridges up her ribs, thumbs hesitant as they linger, oh so softly, about the beginning curve of her breasts. When she exhales a shiver seems to run through him, his mouth opening to drink her in until— "Hold still."

"Why—"

"Experiment."

It's slow, too slow: she keeps her eyes open when Wally's gaze traces the lines of her face, pausing with purpose on her lips; without seeming to register what's about to happen she feels one of his hands leave her waist, skimming the skin of her neck, up her jaw, cupping her cheek—

Her fists clench with surprise; it's hardly a kiss, the way his mouth presses into hers— she can hardly feel the heat of his lips as he ghosts them over hers, pulling back with a ruddy sounding exhale before she can even close her eyes. "... Better." He whispers after a moment, so quietly she realizes immediately he's talking more to himself than to her. "... It's always better."

He makes to pull back and suddenly whole parts of her seem to spur into movement, seizing him roughly round the biceps and keeping him pinned against her. "Wait." She says too quickly, biting the inside of her cheek. "Just... Wait."

Wally seems to still, brows contracting and jaw line taught— for several seconds she can't figure out what she wants, her heart seeming to guide her as she shifts closer to him. She's not thinking as she touches him, running her hands over him for the first time that night; her fingers linger over the swell of his shoulders, the thick lines of his neck, the jutting of his clavicle...

It's foolish, what she says next; she feels as if she's drunk, caught up in the panels of his chest, the new unexplored bumps of his abdomen, and the overwhelming selfish want that's pounding through her heart. When her hand stops about the jutting of his hips Wally lets out a rugged breath, as if she's just hurt him in some way. "... Tell me you need me." She breathes, pulling closer to him until she can feel how badly he wants her, hard and aching as he presses into her. "Tell me."

He must think she's toying with him but he doesn't say anything about it, seeming to understand that neither of them will get what they want unless he plays along; his palm digs into her almost painfully as he runs his fingers down her spine, considering her through hazy and half lidded eyes. "...I need you." He admits after a moment, dropping his head until their foreheads are touching again, the swollen middle of his lower lip hardly skimming hers. "I need to feel you close to me."

... Then he hesitates, waiting for her to stop him.

But she doesn't— she can only stand there, vulnerable to the thickness of his ginger lashes and the hot taste of walnuts he keeps breathing into her. Her heart feels as if it may explode, her stomach twisting into knots, and—

And all at once she gives in— to Wally, to her own jealousy, to all the old and worn out feelings still clattering between them. But she can't take it anymore, can't handle keeping him at an arm's length, can't stand the thought of someone else replacing her; indulging in the selfish want pooling in the low part of her stomach drags his mouth towards hers, already moaning before he's even kissing her.

* * *

It's instant, how quickly they fall back into well-worn rhythms; his lips taste as they always do, his breath firing against her cheeks as he exhales into her. He's not her Wally— and he never will be again— but as she crashes against the unfamiliar man in front of her she's caught off guard but how much feels the same: the desperate clawing of his thumbs as they trace the lines of her hips, the way his arms tighten around her, the low and needy grunt that she pulls out of his throat as she plunges her tongue into his mouth—

He pulls back again, panting in her face as he struggles to catch his breath. None of this is enough for her; she wants to kiss him again, wants to make him remember what it was like to be with her, what it means to touch her— she can't do slow, not right now. He ignores her when she tries to pull his mouth back to hers, hands dragging down her sides in a way that makes her want to scream out in agony, a frustrated whimper that sounds more like a snarl ripping from her throat—

When Wally's fingers find their way underneath the hem of her shirt she goes silent, her skin searing as palms skim her abdomen. Before she can even let out a breath she's being forced to raise her arms overhead as he makes to undress her; again he's too slow with the movement, her shirt peeling off her like a layer of skin as he drags it up her stomach, over the swell of her breasts, his eyes fixed on the fragmented glare still on her face as the fabric lifts over her head.

 _And she knows what that look means, can read the fire behind his clouded apple eyes. He needs her, yes. But he's about to prove that she needs him more._

She feels more naked than she's ever been, her skin prickling with the chill in the air as her shirt hits the floor. His eyes seem to bore into her, memorizing the taught lines of her stomach, the swell of her breasts, the glinting of the necklace he gave her as it sits crookedly on her collar bone. He exhales again, his walnut scented breath skimming her muscles, digging beneath her bones and carving his initials somewhere deep inside her—

And at once she knows why he came here, why he followed her into her bedroom in the middle of the night— and even more, why she's allowed him to stay this long.

 _(It's the fourth of July all over again, except this time he's the one begging for it_ — _the one begging for closeness, for comfort. And he hadn't been strong enough to give her what she needed before, but maybe she is_ — _strong enough to ground him without getting hurt, strong enough to feel him inside her without feeling all the complications between them, tearing them apart_ — _)_

Wally has to know too— he's maybe even realized what he wanted back in the kitchen, back when he touched her like this for the first time. But he's waiting for her too— for her to figure out what he wanted, what she wanted, what they both needed from each other—

 _(This is another fight between them, perhaps their biggest yet_ — _it's an all our war, a battle to prove which of them is the weakest, which of them is more vulnerable to the other...)_

 _((And she won't lose. Not again. Not like she did on the fourth of July.))_

Wally disappears for a moment as he rips his blood stained shirt over his head, revealing the new muscled and rippling abdomen she's only seen a handful times; it hits her again: how grown up he's become in a few short weeks, how different he is. How his body, once well known, is now a mystery. Without thinking she reaches for him, fingers running across his stomach, tracing the unknown muscles and the ginger trail of hair leading down to the waist band of his sweat pants. "Do you want me?" She whispers again, fingers skimming the edge of him as he strains against the fabric.

"Yes." He nearly groans, head rolling back on his shoulders.

"How badly?"

He looks as if he could hit her, a muscle jumping in his neck as she shifts closer. "Artemis." He snarls, the tail end of her name coming out like a hiss.

She's not expecting it: the way he pulls her hair, how savagely he grips her face— he's desperate, wild, wanting her as badly as the lightning inside him wants to run. "... Show me." She sneers.

And he does, with all the desperation and neediness of a drowning man; at once his mouth is on hers, lips unrelenting and arms like a cage as they wrap around her, pawing at the exposed seams of her skin. It's not gentle, not kind— it's the kind of kissing two people do when they're trying to hurt each other, the kind of clinging that's more nails than hands. She hears him gasp into her mouth as she bites down on his lower lip, teeth dragging as his fingers cut into the bruises he's left on her.

She nearly cries out when he pulls her against him, her breasts crushing against the panels of his chest as she moans, the two of them still fighting but in an entirely different way; she feels herself stumble backwards into her desk as he rams her against it, trying to peel her legs apart— hissing into his mouth she shoves him backwards, twisting against him as she feels him lose his footing—

They break apart as Wally's back hits the bed, her swollen lips free long enough for her to sneer at him before he's retaliating, his hand seizing her wrist and yanking down on top of him. When she gasps hard against his face all of him seems to twitch, his hips bucking up underneath her until she can feel his hardness, aching and thick as it presses against the hot point between her legs.

Before she can decide how she wants to make him moan again Wally's pulling her back in, a feral sound erupting out of his throat as her hands find his hair. In an instant he's rolling on top of her, fingers shaking as they claw at her hips, seizing the top of her pajama pants and dragging them so quickly down her legs she can hear the seams stretching; he doesn't even stop before he's clasping the waistband of her panties, the thin black cotton cutting into her skin as he rips it from her thighs—

She knows him too well— before his fingers can find the how wet she is for him she knocks him in the diaphragm, ignoring the grunt he makes as her knee collides with his stomach before she flips him onto his back. She's done with being gentle, with playing by the rules; Wally groans as she pins him beneath her, her hands pressing his wrists into the mattress and thighs pinning his hips flat. It's merciless, when she kisses him again— more teeth than tongue as she inhales the very breath out of his lungs, body heating when she hears him panting, feels his muscles straining beneath her as she struggles to break free...

She drags her tongue down the edge of his jaw, lips finding the pulse point on his jugular and pausing to place one languid kiss there— a reminder, as she hovers over him, of who he's at the mercy at. She can hear him moaning, his breaths ruffling her hair as he begins to gasp out, her mouth suckling and teeth biting as she makes her way down his neck, to the sensitive point on his shoulder—

She suckles onto the skin there, teeth pressing into his skin; at once his whole body is straining where she's pinned him into the mattress and his hips are bucking beneath hers, desperate to touch her— and when she licks her way up his neck again she's not expecting it, the way his hips slap into hers, the roughness of his sweats and how perfectly hard he is for her _;_ and at once she moans into his ear, breath hot and fingers flexing unconsciously...

It's enough for him; that moment of weakness is all it takes for his wrists to slip through her hands. Before she can brace herself he's knocking her backwards, one hand seizing her breast and the other locking around her waist, holding her to his lap as he sits up, mouth capturing hers as she throws her arms around his neck, seeking reddened hair to knot her fingers in.

He pulls back, just long enough to exhale, breath hot on the moisture of her lips—he's properly feverish again, hands almost hot as the palm on her back shifts, nails burning her as he drags them down her spine, scratching the joint of her leg and thumb tracing the jutting of her hip bone—pulling her closer, needing her, _wanting her_ — following it she shifts closer, feeling the sudden edge of his shaft pressing anxiously between her legs.

The two of them moan, more breath than actual sound as he guides her, his head dropping down between her breasts as she grinds her hips against him. It's too much to feel, too many old memories stirring inside her— at once she can remember how he used to feel inside her, the way he would scream her name into her neck when he came, the feelings of his hips as they had collided against hers. These half-remembered moments feel so much more real than they ever have, his lips pressing ancient and clawingly familiar imprints into her, drawing breath out of her the way he always has. For a moment she feels stunned as the pleasure begins to twist inside her, unsure of what's happening—it feels like an old dream, a half-memory that she's not entirely sure was ever real—

Her mind feels foggy but her body remembers, the stiffness of surprise melting into something tender, lush. Through the din of alarm she can feel her skin heating, muscles unwinding then tensing in the right ways, unthawing through the haze of his hands as she clings to him, hips jerking at the tightness of his fingers as he squeezes her breasts, pressing her bruises painfully into her skin— she needs him, she needs to be closer—

And she moans, low and guttural, when he nips the top swells of her breasts; the sound seems to spur both of them off, exhales catching on each other as she drags him back by the hair to meet her lips. For a second she can hardly thinking anymore, not of fighting or getting even or much of anything she pushes her tongue into his mouth, her nails digging over his scalp, down his neck, craving her favorite walnut flavored closeness. And he's pulling her back just as hard, just as painfully, her hips rocking against him growing more insistent, needier, the sensitive point between her legs aching for something more—

She's close, so close already— the hand on her breast releases her, skimming down the lines of her stomach. "Wally—" She warns him, pulling back to try to drag some air into her aching lungs— but he won't let her stop, won't let her try to get away; his lips attack her neck, his fingers twitching down to the wetness between her thighs.

His fingers plunge inside her just as he licks a line of sweat off her neck, and at once her groan sounds more like a hushed scream; her hips won't stop twitching around his hand, his thumb skimming the most sensitive part of her, her nails digging into his shoulder as he reaches for her bedside drawer, fumbling for the condoms she knows are still there—

The battle between them is still raging on; as her head rolls back on her shoulders she catches the look on his face— the languid panting, the haziness behind his eyes— he's winning, he's winning, her whole body twitching as his fingers circle her clit, pressing pleasure inside her and relishing in her wetness for him, for how badly she wants this. She can hardly think but she can't stand to lose this war between them, not this fight— she tries to press him back into the mattress, her whole body screaming out as she yanks his hand away, trying to pin him again.

She can't even finish the maneuver without Wally thinking ahead of her, not about to fall for her tricks this time; she gasps when he pushes her off him, swooping down on her and imprisoning her underneath the bulk of his weight as it presses her into the mattress. Before she can even retaliate he's attacking her neck, a mixture of teeth and suckling that makes her head toss back, feminine gasps ripping out of her throat. "Wally—" She gasps, legs tightening around his waist and hips aching to find his hardness again.

And he pulls back, the look on his face dangerous and wild enough to send her heart spinning into overdrive, the heat between her legs building to a breaking point. It lasts hardly longer than a second, the strange and almost terrifying look on his face, but that's all it takes for her to understand what it means; as if to hurt her his hand trails down her stomach, pausing just before her inner thigh. _You need me._ The look seems to whisper, practically snarling in the dark as he teases her, nose skimming hers as he drags his finger along the wetness of her opening.

 _You need me just as badly as I need you._

Her thighs are shaking, beginning to fall apart the longer he makes her wait; she feels her back arch as he begins to press too-wet kisses against her neck, tongue dragging down the tense muscles squirming there. "Wally—" She gasps, inhaling sharply as he nears close to her hot point again. It's almost cruel, facing all these sensations at once. "I-I—"

She doesn't manage to find her way through the words, around whatever she's trying to say; instead she nearly screams when he dips a single finger inside her, thumb dragging her wetness upwards to run in circles around her clit. He doesn't even seem human anymore when digs his teeth into her shoulder— his lips savage as they work their way down her bare breasts, teeth catching on her necklace and stubble scrubbing hard against the sensitive flesh that's flushed in her wanting of him. And they're past the point of stopping anymore, past the point of anything other than animal instinct; it's feral, inhuman, the way she's moaning, the way he's spurred on by the sound...

 _She doesn't ever remember being with Wally feeling like this_ — _doesn't remember this roughness, the panting, the almost painful ache all her wanting is pooling inside her. She feels as if she's trapped in the eye of a storm again, clouds swirling and nails dragging, lightning flowing between both their veins..._

It's almost violent, the way she grips at his shoulders, nails nearly slicing through his skin as she guides his mouth, both wanting and dreading feeling more; it feels as if all the heat, all the tension between them is at a breaking point, an explosion of want burning too hot to touch. But he's wrong— _she needs him, he needs her, and they're never going to escape how badly they want each other_ — He pulls back, trying to kiss her, but before he can pounce on her again she launches herself at him, throwing him backwards and ramming him as hard as she can against the headboard, relishing the grunting sound he makes as his head knocks back against the wall.

It's her turn to touch him, fingers dragging and nails scratching as she runs up the panels of his chest, the new angles of manhood she's never touched before as she climbs up his legs like a jungle cat; Wally groans as she claws over the thick muscles of his thighs, following the indents and ripples upwards until—

His grunt is low and guttural when she grasps him through his sweats, feeling his hardness as it presses hungrily against her hand; his fingers seem to flex hard around her sheets, as if intent on ripping them, or reaching for her, trying to pull her in again...

And in an instant she realizes this time there's no asking for permission, no thinking twice; she strokes him again and he finally gets a hold on her, fingers so tight on her wrist that she's sure he can feel the wild charging of her pulse—there's no time for questions, no time for even looking at each other as she pulls the seams of his sweats down his legs, his erection springing up between them. And it's blind, it's feral, it's more need than want, a blur as he fumbles with the condom, hands shaking—

And then suddenly it's clear as she curls her legs around his waist, her muscles aching as she lowers herself into him, the two of them exhaling sharply at the sensation; she can feel her tightness stretching, hips loosening around him and bruised skin on her ribs aching as he grips her waist, one hand slinking round to guide her—

He's not even fully inside her and she can already feel the twisting in her stomach beginning to crack open, her hips rolling and her wetness throbbing when he touches her, his fingers skimming the place where they're joined. It's too much, all too much, the tenderness in which he strokes her, the way he rolls the sensitive points over his thumb—she can't do this, she needs to feel him, needs to—

His fingers freeze and they both moan as she slams her hips against his, not stopping to feel the pleasure; for the first time she feels tiny, stretched out across him, his fingers too large as they fumble over her hips, her biceps, the small off her waist, mouth burying in the swell of her breasts, thumb still busy on her clit and fingers splayed as she rams herself into him, again and again—

She hardly registers the sound of skin slapping against skin, of his breaths as they turn into pants and then moans; every other sensation feels muted, as if she's oblivious to anything except the flicking of Wally's fingers pressing more insistently against her. And the tension is too much, overcoming everything, it's—

His name rips out of her mouth, high pitched and too loud as her orgasm slams into her; she can feel every part of her tighten, head throwing back, Wally's breath sounding stuttered as he groans—

She's hardly finished before he follows; suddenly he's shaking, thighs spasming under hers and she's—and she's shaking too, their breath ragged and their minds foggy, bodies sweating and spent— and he screams into her neck, mouth licking as the sweat that's pooled there, her name tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop it.

* * *

 _(And later, when she rolls off him and hides between the fabric of her sheets, it will hit her harder than expected; as she dims the lights to hide the mess of memories sticking to their naked flesh all those unknown feelings will scream at her, breaking the muggy silence of her bedroom._

 _(("Artemis?" He whispers in the darkness, still out of breath. She pretends to be asleep, already ashamed of what they've done.))_

 _She can still taste him on her tongue, can still feel the stinging of his fingers as he clawed at her. She's not sure if either of them won tonight_ — _how do you declare a victor when the two of you are left licking so many wounds,_ _nursing reopened scars and creating so many new ones?_

 _... She's selfish. And maybe, in some ways, Wally is too_ — _he knew what he wanted when he came into her bedroom tonight. He knew that she wouldn't turn him away. He had used her, and she had used him,_ _and now that they're left so shredded and broken from their love making she can see fresh lines of hurt creasing through them both, unresolved._

 _((Wally sits there, unmoving from where she's left him; she wonders what he's thinking_ — _about her, about Linda, if he's thinking of anything at all._ _Rather than get up and leave he slides down onto her mattress, settling into the old indentation marking his side of her bed.))_

 _The rain pounds on her ceiling, and her necklace glints around her neck. She hears Wally roll over, pulling her blankets around himself.)_

* * *

 **AN: Once again, apologies about the late update. I originally had this going somewhere else entirely but Artemis and Wally kept fighting me on it** — **which explains the ending. The heart wants what it wants.**

 **In other news, thanks so much for all the reviews guys! I got so many for last chapter** — **probably because I've been such a shit head about updating the past little while (blame school and a change of jobs, I'm now working waaay more than I was before.) I promise to TRY to get a little more predictable with my upload times but until then HIT THE FOLLOW BUTTON! It's the best way to ensure you can read the second a new chapter is up.**

 ***Side note: shout out to misspandalily for recommending Parenthesis on her blog! That was ridiculously nice of you and it kind of made me emotional. You're the best!**

 **Read and Review Please!**


	34. Blue Lips, Blue Veins

**AN: Long time no see everyone! Enjoy the update.**

* * *

 _(Her eyes are tired, not quite seeing as she stares at the words on the page, her back sinking further into the cushions of her couch. The longer she looks at the sentences written there the more the letters and dates blur together, a mess of unreadable grey dampening the white loose leaf of her homework._

 _Her Gotham apartment is quiet, the pale blue of the television illuminating the darkness; she's got the volume cranked low, glancing up on occasion at the flash of colored commercial lights. Exhaling through her nose she forces herself to return to her work, tapping her pencil twice against the bulk of her textbook in an effort to drag herself back in._

 _The noise, however small, is enough to wake Wally. At the sound he twitches awake, head jerking off the couch cushions and his foot, perched precariously along the back end of the couch behind her, kicks into life._

 _"Wally!" She hisses, ducking but not quite managing to escape the bulk of his sock-clad toes as they jolt violently into the joint of her shoulder; almost immediately there's the sound of rustling papers and her textbook slips out of her lap, clunking loudly against the smoke stained carpet. "God_ —" _The word breaks off with a string of intelligible curses. There's more jerking, more of her homework falling from the couch and more feet pressing into her. "Wally!"_

 _It seems to take him a moment to remember where he is, whose couch he's been sleeping on for the last hour or so. "Sorry." He mutters, voice groggy and dry with exhaustion; to her annoyance he doesn't even see the huffy look she sends him, instead preoccupied with scrubbing sleep from his features and arranging_ _as his feet on her now empty lap without an invitation. "... Are you still working?"_

 _Her hair has come loose from her pony tail, several blonde pieces ruffling about her mouth as she exhales, ignoring his toes as they prod at her stomach. "I was." She scowls, bending over his feet and reaching for her fallen books. "I have this stupid report due for History on Monday, and a lab in Bio. And something else for English too, I can't remember..."_

 _She trails off, seizing papers and trying to make sense of the blurred words her tired eyes are showing her. Wally yawns, settling more firmly into her couch cushions. "You know, you should really get a calendar." He tells her, stretching out further and jostling her papers. "I have this Sports Illustrated one I use. Very helpful."_

 _She misses the joke, not paying attention as she cracks open her textbook, balancing it precariously on his calves. "... Go back to sleep." She says vaguely. "I'll wake you up when I'm done. We can watch a movie or hit an all night pizza place. Whatever you want."_

 _There's a long moment of silence, her finger already back on the page and following the words she's trying to read before she realizes it's the sticky kind of quiet; when she glances up from her textbook she's a little taken aback to find him already staring at her, expression dry. "... What?" She asks dumbly._

 _. "... Babe." He jostles his calves, attempting to shut the book and frowning when she flattens a palm against the pages, stopping him. "Come on. It's Saturday night. I thought_ — _I mean. You said your mom wasn't home."_

 _The last part is said in a slightly sheepish way, the tone enough to get her attention; feeling a guilty twisting in her stomach she bites, hard, on the inside of her cheek. "I'm sorry." She mumbles, dragging the book back onto her lap. "I meant to get all this done last night but Oliver_ — _and I can't do it tomorrow, we have training. Just give me another hour."_

 _She riffles her papers, not wanting to see his expression in the half-light. Predictably Wally sits up properly, feet retracting from her lap and jostling her homework again. "Can I at least help you?" He whines. "You know? Speed the process along so there's some chance of us enjoying the weekend_ —"

 _"Wally_ — _" She huffs, feeling another low bite of annoyance as the pencil is snatched from her hand, his other arm snaking around her shoulders. "I can't cheat. You always do this and then I get to an exam and I don't know anything. Just_ —"

 _"Fine." He sighs, ears reddening when she grabs the pencil back. "Whatever."_

 _Rather than retreat to his side of the couch Wally lets out another sigh, walnut flavored breath ruffling the loose hair from her pony tail; like always the familiar scent sends a flood of emotion through her, a mixture of begrudging affection and comfort lingering in the low point of her stomach. It's funny how after all this time she's still thrown by his closeness, by the warmth the seems to radiate through his skin when they touch. She wonders if it's like this for everyone, wonders if not being able to focus when the other person is this close is common, or if she's just strange in some way, if what they have is maybe different..._

 _Out of the corner of her eye she can see his gaze raking over the living room, flicking glassily between the television, the photographs, her. She's allowed four seconds of silence before his chin drops to her shoulder, eyelashes brushing against the bare skin of her neck as he glances at her homework. "... Your answer for question 19 is wrong. Anne Boleyn married Henry VIII and gave birth to Elizabeth I, not_ —"

 _"Wally."_

 _"Fine!" He repeats, letting out another angry exhale that sends her hair frizzing._

 _Feeling her cheeks redden she does her best to stop the wrinkling of her nose, pressing her hair back behind her ears. "Look." She sighs, not wanting to but still nudging him until he gets the message to get off her shoulder. "Can you just_ — _go back to that side of the couch? You're distracting this close."_

 _"Distracting?" The word comes out almost bratty, as if he's trying to bait her into bickering; when she attempts to shove him away again he only snorts, not moving. "Since when have I ever been distracting?"_

 _She scowls when he seizes her round the wrist, removing her hand and insisting on staying close. "Never. I just thought it would be nicer than saying you were being annoying."_

 _If this stings he doesn't show it beyond the darkening of his ears. "Oh, so this is you being nice?"_

 _"Wally_ —" _She hisses, on the verge of throttling him when he suddenly knocks her textbooks out of her lap. "God, you're such_ —"

 _Whatever she's about to say is cut off when he presses his lips to her neck, the snarl on her tongue quickly fading into a breathless sort of exhale; Wally for his part leans into her, lips dragging up the column of her neck and pausing once to suckle on her earlobe. "Go on." He teases, the words hot on her neck as he leans into her, not stopping until she's wedged between him and the arm of the couch. "What were you going to say?"_

 _It takes too long for her to figure out why she was upset, her mind fogged and working too slow, bogged down by the sensation of his fingers in her hair, running over her collar bone, skimming down the curve of her breasts. "... You're such an idiot." She gets out, the last word sounding more like a moan as he presses a too light kiss against her shoulder._

 _"Whatever you say, Babe_ —" _He grins, lips still smiling when she pulls his mouth to hers._

* * *

She wakes, although it doesn't feel like it. The bed beneath her feels too soft, the sheets around her too warm. For a long moment she can't figure out where she is in time, what day it is, what month. Her sleepiness bogs her down, the lingering happiness of her dream making her feel light. Perhaps it is April again.

She doesn't open her eyes, doesn't move. She remains still, unsuspended between wakefulness and sleep, between reality and dreams. It is April again, and things are better. It is April again, and always will be, as long as she lies here half-conscious.

... She can hear something, a whispering of words ticking at the back of her mind. It is April again, and Wally's lips are lingering about her jaw, up the column of her neck, breathing warm air into the shell of her ear. _"Artemis..."_ He whispers her name, stretching out the last few letters in a near whine as she arcs herself into him, thighs pressing against his ribs. He is whispering to her, nose skimming her neck as he kisses down her skin, lips lingering about her clavicle.

She can feel it now, pressing wakefulness into her— not lips but something, fingers maybe, skimming her neck, the joint of her shoulder and back up again. A thumb pressing baby hairs behind her ears, weaving between platinum strands and lingering about her neck. _"Artemis..."_ Wally whispers again, this time further away.

It is April again. She needs it to be April again—

The fingers persist, more insistent on her skin the longer they linger there. The dream slips away from her slowly then all at once, the darkness of the Gotham apartment disappearing and fading into morning light peeking between her lashes.

She doesn't move, doesn't stir. She keeps her eyes resolutely shut.

 _... It isn't April anymore._

The thought hits her so hard it seems to force her back into her own body, bringing with it an unfamiliar ache. She feels as if she's been throttled, beaten, the seams of her skin raw and muscles throbbing beneath her skin. It isn't April— it's August now, and she's tangled, marled, her sheets looped in intricate patterns between her legs. Whatever woke her— a dream, an old memory, a long forgotten moment that might not be entirely real— fades as the previous evening comes flooding back to her, twitching out from inside her and curling in the pit of her stomach. Her ribs seems to burst open with pain, consciousness slamming into her when she can't help but let out a small whimper of pain.

... The fingers lingering about her neck pause, then blur into focus all at once.

 _... No. Oh no._

It's foolish, lying here in denial, but she can't help it— she didn't sleep with Wally. Didn't have sex with him. She couldn't have. She _shouldn't have._ Oh, god.

The fingers begin to move again, this time hesitant, more gentle. Resolutely they keep touching her, keep pursing her hair, oblivious to the fact that a thousand sirens are ringing inside her, pounding around the pain in her body— mangled ribs, bite marks on her shoulders, scratches on her back, nail marks along her breasts, a familiar ache between her legs. Feeling like a coward she remains still, pulse pounding as she continues to feign sleep, silently panicking. She's dreaming again, having an nightmare. Or she dreamt the last night up— _she had been having nightmares again, hadn't she?_

 _(Please, let it be April again.)_

It takes her too long to open her eyes, afraid of what she'll see when she does; in the silence of her bedroom her lashes skimming the pillow seems to scream too loudly, her jaw tilting and trying to escape the fingers still running over her skin.

But there it is: proof. The previous evening's tea cup seems to stare at her over the edge of her desk, and all at once flashes of it come back to her— biting, clawing, snarling in between frantic kisses. An empty cup, its contents spilled over from when he had thrown her there...

 _Oh, god._

She snaps her eyes shut, feeling ashamed, embarrassed— for a long moment she considers spending the rest of her life pretending to be asleep, simply for the sake of never having to talking about the previous evening's mistake ever again—

She winces at the sound of blankets shifting, sheets being pulled. The mattress quakes and she catches herself holding her breath, waiting for something she isn't sure of. "... Artemis?"

She's a coward like always, refusing to acknowledge him when he breaks the silence; instead of saying anything she ignores the throbbing of her ribs and curls tighter around her sheets, hoping he'll get the message to leave her alone.

 _(Leave now, please.)_

Her breath seems to stop in her lungs, heart stalling inside her as she feels him roll closer— he's warm, as always, only a thin strip of sheets separating their naked bodies. Thankful for her mess of hair hiding the wreck of emotions crossing her features she feels her skin ignite as he touches her again, pressing wakefulness into her like he used to. "... Artemis?" He whispers again after a moment.

Again she says nothing back, muscles tense as he runs his hands over her; a forefinger dragging up her arm, lingering on the reddened mark he's bitten into her skin until she feels the wound throb. Thumb skimming the pale line where her worst scar used to be, knuckles dragging down her spin, over vertebrae and nerves and lingering over the curve of her hip barely jutting above the edge of the sheet. Over her stomach, the beginning curve of her breast— and a pause, a loud one, on the bruising of her ribs, the now blackened mark cut into her—

He makes to touch it, lightly, as if curious; the brushing of his hand against it hurts so badly it seems to spur some sort of bravery out of her. "Don't." He doesn't even have the chance to pull his hand back before she's rolling towards him, pulling sheets up to hide herself and glaring at him. "Just... Don't touch me, okay?"

She can tell right away it's not the "good morning" he had been expecting; as she makes to burrow beneath her sheets she catches a glimpse of the hurt flashing across his face, of the affectionate smile slipping from his lips and fading into a messy sort of look that matches his ruffled hair. "Sorry." Wally mutters defensively. "I just— we overslept. It's nearly noon."

She doesn't know what to say to this, instead yanking her sheets up above her head and hiding beneath them; she doesn't want to look at him, to see the disappointment or confusion lingering about the wrinkles of his eyes. She's being childish, she knows she is— determined, as always, to avoid the consequences of what they've done.

Wally allows her nearly a minute before he sighs. "Artemis?"

"What?" She snaps, ripping the sheet off her head and nearly spitting at him. She can tell she must look ridiculous, hair frizzing and cheeks crimson. "I—" She starts, nose wrinkling when she loses her train of thought; with nowhere else to go she rolls onto her back, determined to never look at him again as she yanks her sheets up to her chin.

... She's being stupid; she can sense him still staring at her as she avoids his eye, waiting patiently as always for her words to catch up with what she's feeling. Pulling in a breath so large it makes her ribs ache she does her best not to wince. "... Sorry." She blurts out, glancing at him before going back to staring at the ceiling. "Hi."

Wally smiles, one that's not quite crooked enough to be real. He's too close to her, brows raising as she presses her shoulder blades as hard as she can into the mattress. For a moment he lies there, all muscle and man and nakedness, before it occurs to him to cover up. "... Hey."

The whole thing is stupid, the two them lying there like strangers who have never done this before— but, she supposes, they never have. Not like this. Their morning's after used to be her favorite moments between the two of them, a mess of tangled sheets and nuzzling and sleepy kisses. They could spend hours together tangled beneath the blankets, talking about nothing and lying too close, whispering laughter into each other's skin.

... But they've never done anything like this. Never, in the whole time she's known him, have things been as precarious between them as they are now. Never has she known less about where they stand with each other, about what the protocol is for a situation like this. She's never been so simultaneously furious and afraid of him, of his body, of the man he's become. And she's never felt more for him than what she does in this moment, and never, ever, has she understood her own feelings less.

 _(And she wishes there was a way to stop time, to put a moment on hold; in the spaces between the seconds of silence that pass between them she can sense something, some sort of feeling she's never felt before. And she wishes more than anything that she could ask him what it is, what it means to feel it; wishes there were someone out there who could explain last night to her, to help her understand what's supposed to happen now_ —)

 _(And more than ever she misses the beginning, before this and every other mess they made; back when he was still just a boy to her, back when the only way they knew how to hurt each other was with cutting words and too-sharp jibes. She misses the simplicity of seeing the world in his eyes, how things were at first when all it would take was a simple look from him and she would feel warmth unthawing her from the inside out. She misses when he was still afraid to touch her, to be rough; she misses the two of them before they turned something so precious into ugliness, into the kind of hatred only broken love can create_ —)

She realizes too late that they've both been staring at each other, only noticing the severity of her gaze when his eyes finally drop hers, lingering over her body and looking at her too closely. He doesn't try to touch her again but she can feel his eyes memorizing the exposed parts of her skin, counting the other blotches and bruises his teeth have left on her. Something in the look makes her uncomfortable, too small and too cared for.

She's thankful when he rolls away, back to his side of her bed; despite herself she can't stop her eyes as they follow his movement, peaking a little too closely as her sheets drag over his body, dipping down below the v-shaped lines of his hips. He looks worse for wear too—just as bitten and scratched as she's sure she is, the circles under his eyes more swollen, colored a dark hue.

The fall into a strange sort of quiet, one so awkward she expects it could last all day; rather than indulge it she tightens her sheets over her breasts, wincing when her thumb catches on the chain of her necklace. "… Last night—" She starts, fumbling and losing her nerve when her voice breaks. "I-it—I mean, not that it wasn't—"

The words aren't coming out right, her cheeks blushing another deep crimson as she feels all the bravery inside her waver, slipping between her fingers. To her relief Wally cuts off her babbling before she can embarrass herself. "It shouldn't have happened." He says firmly. "I know. I—I get it. I wish it didn't happen either. I'm sorry."

For some reason this hurts; hearing the words she was supposed to be saying thrown back at her so casually, so normally. She feels her face break slightly as she stares hard at the ceiling. "… Right."

There's a long second, a very sticky one, where they both continue to stare at the blankness of her ceiling— she can't figure out what she's supposed to say, what's supposed to happen between now and the moment the conversation will finally be over. She wants the awkwardness of this, of the morning after, to be finished, her features wrinkling as Wally rolls onto his side, staring at the soft green paint coating her bedroom wall. "... Did I do that?" He asks very suddenly.

She doesn't know what he's talking about, and her silence must say that for her; she watches as Wally's back inflates with a breath, his skin strained against new muscle. "Your ribs." He clarifies. "Did I...?"

She's never been good at lying to him. "... You didn't mean to." She mumbles, feeling her face set into something too old, too sharpened. Somehow the truth tastes bitter on her tongue. "It was during the storm. You thought I was trying to hurt you."

The words aren't any comfort to Wally, who makes a disgusted sort of noise; when she glances at him again he's curling around her sheets, as if trying to hide from the last night as much as she is. "God. I'm sorry."

She doesn't accept the apology, doesn't want to. She can sense that they're skirting around something, something big that she's been waiting to hear.

True enough Wally exhales again, words bursting out of him the longer she remains quiet. "... It was my fault." He murmurs all at once, voice softer and more tender than she's expecting; despite herself some of the barriers inside her melt at the sound, blinking once before her jaw tilts towards him. He looks too small, curled beneath her blankets; his freckled back is so naked and inviting in the early morning light, making it nearly impossible for her eyes not to follow the indentations of his muscles, squinting at the dimpled tops of his hips before her bedding hides him from her.

It takes her too long to catch her movement towards him, the way her body shifts beneath the sheets and her hand unfurls itself to reach towards him; by the time she catches herself the mattress is quaking beneath them, not hiding her or the way she pulls back too quickly. "Wally—"

"I shouldn't have come to your room." He mumbles, his cheek pressing tighter to her pillow; from here she can see the tops of his ears burning, as if embarrassed.

She sits up, not wanting to hear anymore; whatever she's been waiting for him to say it's not this, not more tortured words from the boy she used to love. Her whole body seems to protest the movement as she holds the top of her sheet to her breasts, too quiet for too long. "It's okay, Wally." She murmurs even though it isn't, slipping out beneath the blankets and bending to retrieve the previous night's panties from the floor.

"No, it—" He starts the sentence roughly, catching her by surprise as he rolls back towards her; at once she hears his voice catch in the back of his throat and then die, can practically feel his gaze as it follows her fingers as they loop her panties over her hips. Feeling herself blush she pretends not to notice, instead bending hastily again to retrieve her shirt, trying her best not to hate him as he watches her redress. "... It wasn't okay."

She finishes with her sweat pants, glancing back at the neediness of his tone; he's gone back to staring at the ceiling, legs bent beneath her blankets and creasing about his hips, hiding any sort of wanting she had half-hoped to see there. "I just needed you." He mutters, voice scratching. "... You make things better."

She feels herself blush, slouching over folded arms and not sure what to say as he sits up, a mess of well-toned manhood and muscle that's hardly hidden beneath her sheets. "… You don't have to say things like that to make me feel better, Wally. I'm fine. We had sex, and— and I'm fine."

The words sound bitter, like lies being mumbled hastily out of her mouth; at once his brows furrow, as if after all this time he doesn't understand her, doesn't understand that she will never trust him with her heart in moments of tenderness like she used to before. "I'm not saying it to make you feel better." He says after a moment, the exhaustion from his voice making it break. "... I didn't think either of us had anything to feel bad about."

Despite herself she makes an annoyed noise in the back of her throat, one hip making to jut out before her ribs stop her, aching again. "Come on, Wally." She huffs, the breath rustling the hair about her chin. "... You just said last night was a mistake."

"No I didn't."

She snorts. " _It shouldn't have happened."_ She spits his words back, voice high pitched and mocking and not sounding at all like him. " _It was my fault_ —"

At once Wally's ears flare again, the red of his blush beginning to leak down into his cheeks. "I didn't meant it like that." He bursts out, one arm waving towards her before he smacks his palm against his forehead, frustrated. "I just— Us, getting back together. It shouldn't have been me acting like a wreck in the dark—"

"Getting back together?" She repeats, her voice hoarse with exasperation.

To her annoyance Wally doesn't say anything back, instead blushing deeper; at once she feels her own cheeks going off, feeling suddenly off-guard under the intensity of his staring. "Getting back together?" She repeats again. "What do you mean, _getting back to_ —" Her voice catches and she sighs, shaking her head. "Oh my god, you—" She can't stop the frustrated hiss that rips out of her throat, hands yanking on her hair as she struggles to comprehend what's happening. " _You are such an idiot."_

The crimson blush is now coloring his collar bones, blotching huge circles of his freckled skin a bright pink. "How am I an idiot?" He hurls back, glaring. "You're acting like I was the only one who wanted this. You were there too, Artemis—"

She feels something, some larger and more fragile vulnerability flare up inside her; before she can stop herself she's throwing her fists to her sides, not indulging the pain in her ribs as she sneers at him over the edge of her bed. "Yeah, I was there Wally. I was there when you showed up at my door because you knew I wouldn't say no, because you knew that I missed you—"

"So what?" He cuts her off, voice cold and clanging in the smallness of her bedroom; the tone is enough to silence her immediately, teeth cutting into the inside of her cheek. "I missed you too, okay? You don't get to use that as an excuse—"

"Then you don't get to use the storm as the excuse either!" She hurls back, a wrinkle popping up over her nose. "You don't get to come crying to me, and use me—"

Almost immediately she can sense she's crossed some sort of line; when the words come snarling out of her mouth Wally sits up straight, now positively maroon and not seeming to notice that her sheets have slipped off him completely. "Shut up." He hisses, seething. " _Shut up_."

She's never once seen him look this angry before, but she can't stop herself; feeling disgusting and bitter she keeps speaking, no longer shouting but instead addressing him in a low, cutting tone. "... What?" She sneers, careful to look only at his eyes as he seems to shrink before her, vulnerable and naked. "That's what you do, isn't it? You can't calm down and suddenly it's my responsibility, whether I like it or not—"

He winces, face peeling into a scowl. "... I'm sorry." He mutters after a moment, dropping her gaze and covering himself hastily. "I didn't meant to... I just don't know what it is about you, it's like you're a—"

" _Lightening Rod?_ " She finishes for him, feeling cruel as she says it. The word still feels strange on her tongue.

She can tell he's not expecting her to know the term; at once something on his face breaks, brows pursing as anger slips into confusion. When he speaks again the words are measured, calculated, his scientist eyes scrutinizing and seeing through her before she can figure out what she's supposed to be covering up. "… How do you know what that is?" He says after a moment, the words slow and too careful.

She shakes her head. "Doesn't matter." She hisses, not wanting to look at him; her eyes automatically find the old cup of tea from the last night, still empty. "I don't care what it's supposed to mean, or what you think I'm supposed to be for you, okay? You need to talk to someone about this." She growls, dropping her jaw severely when he shakes his head. " _I'm serious, Wally_. Me being the only person who can calm you down when you're going ballistic isn't a good thing, okay? What if—what if something happens? What if I'm not around to keep you from ripping the Cave apart—"

"You planning on going somewhere?" He cuts her off, scowling.

"Maybe."

It's a cryptic and empty threat, more said to annoy him than anything else; she feels some sort of twisted satisfaction in her stomach when he glares at her, apple eyes now little more than slits. "... So what?" He bursts out after a moment. "Last night happens and— and that's it? You're still done with me?"

She opens her mouth to say something cutting back but doesn't get the chance, Wally speaking over her off before the air is even in her lungs. "Don't lie to me, okay?" He snaps, as if knowing she's about to be vague again. "Just for once tell me what the hell you want me to do."

She nearly seizes a book from her desk for the sole purpose of beating him with it, knuckles flexing as she crosses her arms again. "I want you to date Linda." She spits at him, not meaning it.

Wally blushes again, now practically radiating anger from his side of her bed. "... That's what you want?"

 _(And it's a challenge like everything else between them_ — _another game of who needs the other more. And this time she won't be the one to cave, won't be the one to seek comfort in him the second the world goes dark. She's never going to be the weak one again, never again_ — _)_

They stare each other down for several seconds, unblinking; when she finally nods she can practically feeling her heart snapping inside her chest, pieces of it floating in the bile rising in her back of her throat. "I'm getting breakfast." She tells him instead of a real answer, turning her back on him and stomping towards the door. "When I get back you're not going to be here."

It no longer feels as if anything's even happened between them, as if the touching and kissing from last night meant nothing; when he glares at her there's an intense kind of hatred on his face, muscles taught and snarling. "Fine."

"Fine."

* * *

She slams her bedroom door shut behind her, the sound too loud and clanging in the silence of the hallway. Her feet fumble on the tile, switching directions multiple times and working in a furious little circle in front of her door. The thought of breakfast seems to boil out of her as she paces aimlessly for a few moments, the acid in her stomach bubbling and fizzing inside her— she can't eat. She needs to move, to run, to feel something pounding through her other than the frustrating swirl of anger and other less easily named emotions Wally's stirred inside her. She needs to get out of the Cave, where she can breath again; she needs to get back in there and keep yelling at him, to keep screaming until they both finally get the message— _It's over, it's over_ —

She turns back to her door too quickly, ankle twisting and sending a sharp twang of pain and common sense through her; for a long moment she stands there, breasts heaving with angry breaths and hand inches from her own door, about to ram it open and throw herself back into the fray.

... No. She knows better. Going back into her room with Wally will only make things worse. More complicated.

With a hiss she spins away, forcing her heels to pound too hard into the tile as she stomps down the hall. She needs to think things through for once, needs to not be lulled into action by her emotions or fears or Wally. She needs to find a way to get all her feelings to stop fizzing so close to her surface— she never used to be like this, never used to be so—

 _("Can I just... Touch you?" Wally whispers, breath hot on her skin. "... Please?")_

... She can still feel his hands on her, the marks he's left on her skin. She needs a shower.

She feels almost blind as she stumbles into the training room, tracing through back hallways and closed doors until she finds her way into the Team's locker room. The previous evening keeps slapping back to her in strange flashes, some so hazy she could be drunk, others almost sharper than her own reality— _nails breaking skin and stubble dragging between her breasts, Wally's hips between her thighs..._

It was a mistake, but he was the one who kept pushing for it to happen. He was the one who came to her bedroom, her broke her down with his vulnerability, who kept moving closer...

... But she was the one who went to find him in the first place. She was the one who had been selfish enough to want him to remember what they meant to each other.

She slams the shower stall shut behind her, fumbling with shaking hands to attend to the lock. But she hadn't wanted him to think they were getting back together; sure, she had been jealous of Linda, but— but that hadn't meant she was ready to start things again. Besides, Wally should have known better. Sex doesn't mean love, and last night hadn't meant anything—

But it had. She had meant to remind him that he needed her.

 _Selfish._

Ignoring the low throbbing of a headache at her temples she cranks the water as hot as it can go; God, she's made a mess of things, as always. Why can't the two of them just leave each other alone? Why can't she just accept that he doesn't need her? Why can't he stop seeing her as a source of comfort, when pretty much all she's done since she met him is screw up his life in one way or another—

She gasps, hands freezing as she makes to remove her shirt; she's been removing her clothes almost violently, the muscles coating her ribs seeming to spasm beneath her skin as she hisses out a low moan of pain, nearly doubling over and one palm slapping to the injury as if hoping to contain some of the hurt. "God." She hears herself wheeze under her breath, shifting her fingers to examine the purple bruise blossoming there, two ugly lines of yellow visible and marking the edges of the counter.

 _Fuck._

When she gets the courage to try undressing again it's better, the quick jolt of pain turning into something lower, more aching than sharp. Nothing broken, she's sure. Most likely she'll be stiff for the next few days. She supposes Wally could have hurt her much worse.

... But it wasn't Wally who hurt her, she knows that. Regardless of how much she may hate him right now she knows him, knows his gentleness, his smoothed edges. It was that... Whatever it is. That thing that inhabits his body on darkened nights, the that ignites his bones and turns him into a wreck of snarling teeth and waxy limbs. It isn't her Wally—

She stops the thought short, hating that it even entered her mind. Ignoring the pain in her ribs she plunges forwards into the hot water, skin screaming.

 _(He's not the boy she fell in love with anymore, and she's supposed to be learning to be okay with that.)_

* * *

It takes a few minutes beneath the boiling hot water to get a clear head, her emotions refolding and disappearing into the compartments she keeps them in. She can feel herself slipping into old, oddly methodological rhythms, the same snarling whisperings at the back of her mind that got her through the first few weeks of Wally's absence beginning to speak again. _Shampoo your hair, Artemis. Doll out too much conditioner, Artemis. Scrub the feeling of his lips from your skin, Artemis._ By the time she emerges from the shower stall the air in the locker room is teeming with steam and the skin between her legs is raw and red from her attempts to erase the previous evening from her body.

She stands there, towel clad, for too long; she knows she should redress, should continue on with the wreck of her day. She wants nothing more than to return to the safety of her bedroom, which she's realizing is no longer a safe place at all; more than anything she wants to hide somewhere and never have to deal with the repercussions of what happened between her and Wally, doesn't want to have to think about what it means—

"Artemis?"

She jumps when she hears her name being called outside the locker room, her towel slipping between her fingers; ignoring the way her ribs scream out in protest she scrambles for clothes, nearly crying out in pain as she dresses. "Artemis, I—" Tula stops short about the locker room entrance, eyes lingering on her for a moment as she finishes slipping the clean fabric of her gym shirt over her head. "Apologies. I did not mean to intrude."

"You're not." She mutters as she finishes with the waistband of her gym shorts, turning back to the locker to hide her wincing. "Did you need me for something?"

She makes to throw her dirty clothes into the hamper and winces when she's met with a stab of pain; she's very aware of the other girl's eyes on her as she struggles to hide the rigidness of her movements, the way her brows furrow when her arms instinctively cross, trying to contain the aching in her sides. "Yes, Kaldur'ahm sent me to—" Something must show on her face when she turns back to look at her because at once Tula's expression is sharpening, a strange mixture or curiosity and concern. "... Are you well, Artemis?"

She knows the other girl is simply being polite but the question annoys her. "I'm fine." She mutters between her teeth, hesitating before she decides to lie. "Just stiff from training last night."

For some reason Tula pauses, lips rolling before she looks her square in the eye for several seconds too long. "I see." A beat. "... You were up late training with Wally?"

It's her turn to go quiet, her chin dropping as her cheeks blush a furious red. "What makes you think that?" She asks, eyes narrowing.

Perhaps her glare is a bit too ferocious; at once the other girl straightens her spine, the whole of her weight balancing precariously on the tips of her toes for a half second before she seems to gather a bit of nerve. "I did not mean to offend." She says flatly. "Kaldur'ahm sent me to wake you and I caught Wally leaving your room. He mentioned you two had been up late."

It's very hard to not let any sort of emotion show, although she can't stop the sudden surge of crimson crossing her features; at once a small and unbearably smug looking smirk flexes about the other girl's mouth and she's forced to look away in embarrassment. "Yeah, we were up late together." She mumbles, wanting to return to the shower and drown herself because, _O_ _h god, now Tula thinks she's suffering from some sort of sex injury._ "... So Kaldur sent you to wake me?" She blurts out, wanting to change the subject.

The other girl continues to look haughty, smirking for a moment as if silently debating whether or not to continue to torturing her; to her relief Tula finally looks away, smiling in an infuriatingly demure way at the way she continues to stand there, at her mercy. "He requested your presence in the briefing room. That is all I know of it."

"Right." She mutters, re-crossing her arms and slouching over them. "I'll be there in a second, okay?"

"Of course." Tula says with an air of superiority, sending her one last lingering look before she rounds back out of the locker room.

* * *

It takes nearly fives minutes for her to recover from her own embarrassment, hovering about the locker room alcove and replaying her whole conversation with Tula, muttering under her breath the snarky words it's now too late to say; at last she forces herself to follow after the other girl, red in the face and hair still dripping wet.

"What's up, Kal—" She makes to call out when she finally reaches the briefing room, cutting herself short when she realizes they're not alone; already Garfield and M'gann are gathered around the usual disembodied screens, skin seeming greener than usual in the soft glow of the text illuminating the room.

"Morning." M'gann says sweetly above Garfield's squeal of a greeting, politely turning away from where Kaldur and Tula are currently joined at the hip; perhaps she's reading too much into it, given her own dislike of the other girl, but something about the way the Martian clutches nervously about her wrists tells her she's been standing there a while now, struggling to make small talk.

"I—" She starts, coming to a stop and immediately being winded as Garfield throws his arms around her, the swell of his cheek pressing against the tenderness of her ribs in a way that makes it nearly impossible not to wince. "Morning, Gar— Sorry, guys. I didn't think this was a Team thing."

For some reason the corners of Kaldur's mouth quirk up; as if taking a cue from her he reaches towards the disembodied screen, fingers clacking against keys. "It is no worry." He tells her. "I have just been telling M'gann— the League has been in touch with S.T.A.R Labs. They believe they have finally successfully recreated their Electro Magnetic Field tracking device."

Instantly she can feel her back straighten, old memories and trauma picking at her; Garfield must be able to sense the tenseness running through her, his mess of green tinted hair frizzing along her tee shirt as he makes to look up at her. "What—"

She's not aware of her stiffness, nor of the rigidness of her hands as she extracts herself from him; by the time she realizes she's being rude she's already less than a foot from the screen, staring hungrily at the jumble of code and text that means almost nothing to her.

As always M'gann covers for her. "That was the technology that was stolen in Metropolis, Gar."

Even the mention of the city sends the air in the room shifting, the sleepiness of the early morning fading too-quickly; vaguely she registers the sound of Garfield's footsteps crossing the room, catching up with the rest of the group. "That was the technology you and I were researching, was it not?" Tula asks vaguely, brows furrowing at the hardened expression on her face. "In the months after the initial attack. The device that tracked your... _Squid_ , was it?"

Garfield chuckles at the other girl's teasing tone, a small laugh that sounds out of place; before she can say something snapping to correct the her Kaldur is cutting across the conversation. "The EMF device was not intended to track just the squid. It was seeking out any source of EMF surges, including rouge Starro-technology, unauthorized zeta tubes, stray zeta beam radiation... The Team at S.T.A.R Labs has been working tirelessly to recreate the device, after having lost all their original data and research."

"So what does this mean?" She asks, pushing her hair back behind her ears and ignoring the dribble of wetness that lingers down her neck. "If the Light still have the original device that means they're still probably tracking zeta beam radiation."

"It means," Kaldur says smoothly, fingers clambering against keys until a map is pulled up in front of them. "That the League is now prepared to monitor surges in zeta beam radiation with a certain amount of... Caution. We learned during the new year that no amount of zeta-beam radiation is to be ignored, no matter how insignificant. The League now has high priority to track any early indications of EMF weaponization that becomes apparent to them."

The map flickers and changes, zooming in and pinpointing in red what she can only assume is a GPS location. "Which brings me to this morning. Aquaman and the team at S.T.A.R Labs detected low level zeta beam signals at an obscure location in Siberia."

Her eyes narrow and M'gann seems to raise the question for her. "Someone's setting up a zeta tube?"

"It is a possibility." Kaldur nods. "Although a very small one. Most of our technology indicates that levels are much too low for such activity."

She feels her eyes narrowing as her arms cross; out of the corner of her eye she can see Garfield mirroring the gesture. "So the League wants us to go in for a low level reconnaissance mission? Observe and report anything weird around the GPS location?"

He nods; almost instantly she can feel any sense of excitement triggered by the mention of Metropolis fading. She doesn't want to sit still, to be left alone with her thoughts— she wants action, blood pumping, something to distract her from the mess she's left back in her bedroom. "Within a few miles of the GPS location, yes. It is unlikely it will be anything of true significance… But I thought it would perhaps be the ideal time incorporate this S.T.A.R Labs technology into the Bioship for future use. I also thought it the best time to test two new Team members in the field."

It takes her a few seconds to understand what he's saying, her brows shooting up into her forehead. "Two new members?" She repeats.

Any answers she's about to get are cut off by a choking noise from Garfield, who seems to arrive to the proper conclusion moments after she does; when they all glance over at him his green eyes are wide, skin oddly pale. As if heading off an outburst Kaldur turns to him, lips stretched into a familiar and comforting smile. "If you wish to join, that is." He says slowly, almost carefully— the way one prepares to drop an atomic bomb. "You trained with Black Canary the nearly a week ago. She was impressed with you."

"Sorry." She cuts across him, wanting to get a word in before Garfield explodes with excitement. "You said two new members?"

As if he's expecting her less than excited reaction Kaldur adopts a politely cautious smile, deliberately not meeting her gaze and the disapproval there. "Tula's time as a visitor here has ended. She has proven herself as a skilled researcher and a combat sorceress. She will join us as Aquagirl."

She nearly opens her mouth, about to argue before she's cut off by Garfield's howl of delight.

* * *

Her hair is still too short, uncomfortable beneath her mask; muttering under her breath she continues to examine her reflection on the Bioship's windowed glass, swearing when the bristles of blonde hair refuse to stay contained within the confines of her elastic.

"It will be long enough in a few weeks."

She doesn't jump, instead catching Kaldur's reflection in the glass before he can speak; straightening she makes to turn towards him, the corner of her mouth half-quirking in greeting. "I know." She says moodily, giving the elastic up as a bad job and slipping it onto her wrist. "... I keep thinking I'll get used to it being this short, but..."

She doesn't finish, not sure what she really wants to say— how she still second glances her reflection every time she sees it? How it still feels like someone else's hair has been glued to her scalp? How she can't help but wonder if she left something, some part of her much deeper and important than platinum stained locks up on the rooftop in Athens, how she can feel the empty space that missing piece occupied inside of her, how she's afraid of it, of looking too close, of seeing what she really lost that night—

No, she doesn't say any of these things. She slips into silence, arms crossing and fingers running over the crisp white material of her jacket, feeling a tiny ache of pain when she finds the bulging of tensor bandages attempting to contain the bruising of her ribs. Instead of calling her back Kaldur simply stares at her for a moment, gathering his words; she can sense he wants to say something to her, that there's a reason he chose now, when they're moments away from mission deploy, to seek her out in the quiet of the main cabin.

At last he sighs, looking weary but affectionate as he crosses the room towards her; unlike the rest of them neither Kaldur nor Tula have bothered with specialized or insulated uniforms, simply trading in their usual darkened colors for white and relying on the thickness of Atlantean skin to protect them from the cold. "We are deploying in twenty minutes, Artemis." He says very easily. "If you wish to say anything I suggest you do it now."

Her brows raise, crinkling her mask as she tucks her hair behind her ears. "Who says I want to say anything?" She counters, slipping her goggles over her eyes.

"... We agreed a long time ago to be open books, did we not?"

Despite herself she snorts, a single chuckle of dry laughter sounding before she can stop it. "... I can't think of anything I haven't said before, Kal."

This isn't entirely true, and she suspects he knows it; as she makes to take her usual seat in the Bioship cabin Kaldur's eyes follow her. "Tula is a proven combat sorceress." He says flatly, too reasonable as always. "And she was significant help in earlier missions concerning the loss of EMF technology. She has been living in the Cave for several weeks now, and is privy to our secrets. Surely you do not find it unexpected that she would join the Team."

She doesn't say anything, not wanting to fight; this morning seems to have lasted several days over, her usual patience and fire for this kind of thing dulled by her own exhaustion and the stiffness in her joints. More to distract herself from the increasingly tense silence she makes a show of removing her gloves from her pocket and running a hand once over the material; she's never much liked shooting arrows with gloves on, something about not being able to feel the string against her fingers making her shots less accurate, not as powerful. "... She doesn't know how to work as a part of this Team."

"Neither does Garfield." He counters easily, expression smooth and unreadable as always when she turns in her seat to glance at him. "And neither did you when you first joined the Team. Everyone must start somewhere—"

She accidentally lets out a huffy exhale, the small noise of snark cutting him off. It's not really a fight, more of a disagreement; when she can't think of anything to say beyond the unsaid _"whatever"_ Kaldur sighs. "... You still do not like her."

"I don't like a lot of people."

She's quoting him, although she's not entirely sure if he's aware of it; it seems like so long ago that she had stumbled upon them in the library, a moment of forbidden tenderness she wishes she wasn't privy to. "I had hoped you two would come to see an understanding." He says after a moment, voice for some reason more muted, as if slightly hurt underneath his usual too-smooth tones. "... You were once one of my closest confidants. I feel as if, since Tula..."

She knows exactly what he means; there used to be more moments like this between them, this comforting aloneness and quiet conversation. Kaldur had once been the person she went to for advice, to talk things over with. And now, in the quiet of the Bioship it's becoming more obvious to her than ever— how much she's missed him these last few weeks, how badly she'd needed him and how little he's been there. All at once it's hitting her, a strange mixture of sadness and longing for an old familiarity between them; this person she once could read so easily is talking to her as if they don't know each other, the strange distance between them wider than ever. Since the other girl's arrival it feels as if they've lost part of that.

"... I know." She mumbles, dropping her gaze to the floor. "I just— Why her, Kal?"

It's said badly, the words too blunt and dry; before she can correct herself something in the muscles of Kaldur's back seems to straighten, like a warrior facing down a challenge in the midst of battle. "I do not need to justify the people I love to you, Artemis." He says at once, the words coming out quickly as if he's been thinking them for a while. "It is not your place to—"

"That's not what I meant." She cuts him off, shoving her gloves back into her pockets as she stands. "I— I know she makes you really happy, Kal. And I love that. I love how happy you are. I just— something about her bothers me. She has a history of messing with your judgment and—"

Again it's not the right thing to say, the wrong way to word things; at once Kaldur's jaw drops, cheeks bones jutting and challenging. "You feel she has replaced you."

"What?" Although this is slightly true she still shakes her head, glaring. "No, that's not even—"

"It is not your place to decide what is or what is not right for me." He cuts across her, a dull purple blush creeping up his cheeks. All the weariness, all the affection of a few minutes ago seems to have disappeared, twanging out of the room the moment she accidentally struck a nerve. "And it is not your place to question these decisions I make either. I have never once asked you why you keep returning to Wally, why you are trying to—"

"Wally?" She feels herself blush crimson, temper flaring inside her as she cuts him off. "What does he have to do with any of this?"

"Tula found him in your room this morning." Kaldur spits at her, glaring at her above crossed arms. "You told her you two were up late _training_ together last night."

The last few words are spoken with so much judgment and maliciousness that for a moment she can't believe she's really hearing them come out of his mouth; several furious seconds pass where she just stares at him, disbelieving. "... Wow." She puffs out, shaking her head. "You know what? I don't need that kind of tone from someone who spent months sleeping with his best friend's girlfriend. At least what Wally and I did didn't hurt anyone."

"That is debatable."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Before he can answer there's the sound of footsteps against the metallic floor of the Bioship; wanting to hide from whatever is coming she turns back to her seat, silently fuming. "The Bioship just finished with the S.T.A.R Labs tech, incorporation was successful." M'gann says to the room at large.

There's a tense half second where the Martian's feet slow, no doubt tasting the energy in the room; keeping her eyes fixed firmly on her own lap she listens as Kaldur sighs, turning to her. "Excellent. Thank you M'gann."

There's more quiet, this time accompanied with the sensation of eyes boring into her back; she's sure the other girl can sense that they've just been arguing. "Tula just told me the alias she's thought of. _Aquagirl._ It's nice that it matches with yours." Despite herself she lets out a snort, crossing her arms when M'gann pauses for a moment as if waiting for her to say something. "... Garfield thought of one too, Artemis. _Beast Boy._ He said you gave him the idea in one of your training sessions."

She knows what the other girl is doing; reminding them, without explicitly saying it, of what they're here to do. She has to keep it together for Garfield. "... Great." She mutters vaguely, doing her best to draw in breaths evenly through her nose.

* * *

 _"Link Established."_ M'gann's voice echoes in the back of her mind, the familiar creeping sensation sounding along the back of her neck signaling the others' presence there as well.

Missions like these always start the same; the same movements, the same planning. As she clips her line to her belt she watches out of the corner of her eye as M'gann waves a hand, the movement unfurling and opening in the Bioships' floor. _"Excellent."_ Kaldur sounds out, voice low and smooth but still sending a squirm of annoyance through her; forcing the emotion away she does her best to leave the feelings between them unacknowledged, especially given that it's so easy for the others to sense them at this moment. _"Artemis and Beast Boy, you will be deployed a Point A. Aquagirl and I at Point B. Miss Martian will land the Bioship and then rendezvous at the halfway point."_

She can hear everyone mumbling things back or nodding; not even looking at him she double checks her line. _"Fine."_

 _"Then go."_

She doesn't even look back, instead she steps forward and allows the steady metal of the ship to slip out beneath her, the air around them crashing into her in a wall of nothingness. There's a moment of exhilaration, as there always is; she's never much been afraid of heights, or falling— she knows enough of the world to understand that there are far worse ways to die. Her line unfurls above her as the Siberian horizon engulfs her, a mess of chilly northern air and snow covered trees, still icy and cold despite the fact that it's August.

It takes Garfield some time to come after her— the first time jumping out of the Bioship takes some nerve, she remembers this well. When she looks up, seconds away from yelling after him impatiently she's greeted by a loud squelching noise, as if he leapt first and transformed later. After a moment she hears the piercing cry of an eagle, the fluttering of green coated wings rustling around her.

He lands in the snow first, a loud squelching sound telling her he's returned to human form. "So, what's the plan?" He asks, hardly allowing her a second to unclip herself.

She doesn't answer at first, instead glancing over both shoulders to take in their immediate drop zone; there's in a forest of some sort, filled with dense trees and low underbrush that catches on the fabric of her winter gear. But there's no one around, she supposes, and that's better than hoped for. "Like Aqualad said." She reminds him, twisting her wrist until her bow snaps together. "We're looking for anything unusual. The tech in the Bioship can only get us within a couple miles of whatever we're supposed to be looking for, we're just doing a sweep to see if anything suspicious jumps out at us."

"Suspicious?" Garfield repeats, looking uneasy at the way she pulls an arrow and sets it against the notch in her finger defensively.

He's nervous, she's sure he is; distantly she can remember her own uneasiness on her first mission, the eagerness to please double-edged with her own insecurity. The memory feels so old, so ancient, that for a moment it feels almost alien to realize that she's only been on he Team for about a year— God, only a year? "It's hide and seek, Gar." She tells him, her smile no doubt looking bug eyed and distorted through her goggles. "Just look for anything out of place."

It takes time, weeding through the underbrush and the snow covered ice; she doesn't know where they are, somewhere far north of any sort of town or urban centre, any hope of roads or paths dwindling almost as quickly as the snow begins to seep into her boots. The forest around them seems unending, a limitless number of miles of evergreens and tree trunks.

 _(It's quiet, but not in a good way_ — _picking her way through the forest keeps her body occupied but does nothing for her mind. She can sense her thoughts swirling between arguments, between Kaldur and Wally, between her own anger and annoyance and other feelings she doesn't want to examine._

 _... Her body feels like a battle ground, her mind like a mine field; every now and then she missteps and sends a jolt of pain through her limbs, or picks at the thought that feels like poison in her head. She wishes more than once to escape from her bones and disappear into the Siberian sunshine glinting off the snow.)_

An hour nearly passes and before the sun begins to set on the frozen tundra, casting strange shadows and reflections through the frost covered branches around them. Here and there she can hear the scampering of animals in the forest, the beginning hours of wakefulness for small creatures and other, more sinister ones. "You doing okay?" She calls out in the beginnings of half light, glancing around vaguely until she spots Garfield, several yards ahead and to her right, morphed into some sort of caribou. "We're getting close to the rendezvous point."

The green colored caribou looks at her, neck tossing its overweight antlers for a moment. _"I'm good."_ A pause, in which the animal glances away, ears flexing. _"Do you hear that?"_

"No." She says automatically, pauses in her walking after a moment and listening hard. The chattering of animals, the dull thud of snow slipping off tree branches. Wind, somewhere close by, trapped in a dip on the tundra— some sort of valley perhaps... "What am I supposed to be listening for?"

The caribou's antlers sway for a moment, surveying the area around them the same way she did when they first landed. _"I don't know. Like... Vibrating. And water. Running water. They're close..._ _Sounds like I'm hearing it through ice though."_

This strikes her as strange; leaving the small path she's carved herself out of snow she takes care to trudge through the under brush towards him, frowning. "I can't hear anything."

 _"You might not be able to."_ Garfield says suddenly, pausing as she weaves around him through the brush, her hands catching on the edge of his antler for balance as she crosses in front of him, ears straining. _"I mean, maybe it's like, an animal thing or_ —"

Her boots catch on ice and she cries out, toppling down an unseen edge in the valley; it's as if she's slipped through a crack in the woods itself, her weight crashing hard onto the quiver on her back as she's sent sliding into a sharp dip in the woods, only stopping when she slams into a hard block of ice. She swears, a loud curse ringing around the tiny cavern she's slide into, her ribs aching as she tries to right herself. There's the sound of hooves over head, a thundering of sound that knocks snow down from above and onto her head.

The unpleasant squelching noise sounds out and at once Garfield is leaning over the edge, looking frantic as he calls her name. "Artemis!" He shouts, his voice echoing around the crevice she's landed in, rattling the ice coated walls.

"I'm okay." She hushes him, but it's too late; she can tell the others cans sense Garfield's panic, his fear, a flurry of voices ringing around in her head so quickly it's impossible to think. "I'm fine, I'm—" She exhales, struggling up to her feet. _"I'm fine, guys, just slipped into some sort of_ —"

She's not exactly sure what is is; some sort of narrow valley, an iced-in cave, a brief dip between two imposing edges of forest. She can hear it now, the water Garfield was talking about— in the ice underneath her feet she can hear it running, trickling far down underneath its frozen surface, hardly thawed anymore.

... But there's something not quite right about this place; for the first time since their arrival the heat of her breath seems to hang in the air, more frozen and misty than before. It's cold, unnaturally cold, with some sort of strange metallic scent in the air, like rusted metal... She does a double take, circling around the few feet of space she has as Garfield babbles above her, still worried.

 _Something unusual. Something that doesn't look right._

 _(Hide and seek.)_

It's hard to see, frozen beneath the ice; the metal has been out in the elements so long it's been washed a stony sort of grey, no longer gleaming and pristine. It could almost be a warbled edge of the hillside, nearly impossible to notice— save for the obvious bolts marking a door hinge.

Garfield is still talking to her, his words sounding oddly jumbled as she reaches out, gloved fingers straying once over the jagged patterns of frost glistening against the door. "Beast Boy." She calls, the words feeling strange on her tongue as her hand finds an edge, finger tips working their way between the frozen earth and metal; at her touch the door vibrates, an angry pulsing that feels unfriendly against her skin before it suddenly dies. "... Get down here."

* * *

The door opens and just like that the game changes; all at once she's very aware of the fact that they are no longer children playing hide and seek, but rather soldiers entering unknown territory. If Garfield notices the change he doesn't mention it, instead watching with weary eyes as she adjusts her arrow against her finger, moving onwards.

They've found the hidden entrance to some sort of building; on the other side of the door is little more than a roughly hewn cement floor and cold metallic walls. The place reeks of abandonment, like a warehouse that was once useful and proved in recent years to more trouble than it was worth. As they cross the threshold they're met with the strong scent of lingering bleach, hardly hidden beneath the sterility of the intense cold that seems to be radiating off the walls.

Her breath fogs in front of her face, the flickering lights above hardly illuminating the way ahead and instead casting strange reflections off the lens of her goggles.

"... Artemis?"

Garfield looks small when she glances at him, his excitement dulled for the first time by fear. Vividly she recognizes the mark of someone realizing they are no longer allowed the luxury of being a child.

 _(She thinks of Marie's dead body floating beneath the waterfall and wishes there was a better way to protect her son from the life he now has no choice but to live.)_

She looks away. "Don't be scared." She tells him; rather than be comforting the words come out forced, warbled by guilt and old memories. "I'm here."

* * *

 _"You are to maintain covert operations at all times."_ Kaldur sounds in her head, voice far more stern than she's heard from him thus far; beside her the evergreen fox seems to even out its pacing, as if wary of the almost silent tapping of its claws against the cement floor. _"I've sent Miss Martian ahead, she will catch up to you and bring up the rear. Aquagirl and I believe the entrance to the bunker is within two miles, we will attempt to infiltrate and ensure an exit point."_

Despite herself she looks back; the frost coated door they first came through is still within sight, unguarded and as unnerving as ever. It seems to stare at her for a long moment, reminding her that it isn't too late to turn around. Tightening her grip on her bow string she presses herself closer to the cement walls, exhaling so hard she can see her breath puff up in front of her face for a moment, hiding any fear that may be lingering in her expression. _"I know the drill, Kal."_ She catches herself thinking with a certain amount of snark, immediately backtracking when the words are met with silence. _"Observe and report. Got it."_

Because they don't have an option, do they— it's the five of them, two of them untrained. It would be suicide to do anything other than remain covert, not with what might be a whole warehouse full of mercenaries, of the Light...

Or nothing. It could always be nothing.

The hallway they've been lurking down remains darkened and empty— no cameras, no goons. The complete lack of obstacles seems almost strange to her, more a bad sign than anything, especially when they come to a corner: a cross-section of matching grey doors and walls and floors that are void of almost any meaning that would otherwise explain what this place is. _"Stay close."_ She instructs Garfield, turning blindly around a corner simply for the sake of moving. " _We don't know what might_ —"

She cuts herself off with a gasp, nearly dropping her bow in surprise; before she can finish the words the very building around them seems to rumble, the vibrating that first sounded off the door now crashing into them so violently she feels as if her very bones are about to shake out of her skin. The walls around them seems to rattled around echoes of the movement, the cement flooring threatening to crack open, as if an earthquake is smacking beneath the building, encompassing it, threatening to collapse the structure in on them—

It happens quickly and then stops; she can feel a deadly surge of adrenaline bursting through her, her breaths coming in fast. _"Aqualad, something isn't_ —"

Again she stops short, ears picking up on noise in the distance; it's sharp, piercing, like the shattering of glass—someone is shattering windows, or cracking ice, or running their nails along a chalk board. Beside her Garfield's tiny fox ears flatten back against his head, a yowling sort of noise ripping out of his throat before he can quiet it. _"There's something going on in here."_ She finally gets out, raising her bow and aiming into the unknowable darkness further along the hallway. _"This isn't just an empty warehouse."_

The silence engulfs them, suddenly so loud it hurts her ear drums; the shattering noise, though far off, has left a strange and painful ringing in her ears. _"Pursue."_ Kaldur's voice sounds in her head.

Every instinct seems to tell her not to follow the order; for a long moment she stares down the empty hallways, squinting and attempting to see past the flickering lights and into something she can be brave enough to face. As if he can sense her hesitation to take Garfield any further Kaldur speaks again, this time his voice lower, more calming. _"We are tracking your GPS location. We will be there soon."_

It does little to quail her instinct— but she trusts Kaldur. Despite everything, despite Tula... She grits her teeth, moving forward.

It continues like that for that for too long, the complete lack of obstacles and noise sharpening her senses, the silence seeming to swell to a breaking point before it is shattered by earth-quaking vibrations and the screeching of glass being broken; for nearly ten minutes they skirt around hallways, openings doorways into empty warehouse rooms and climbing staircases that lead to nowhere, each time having to pause as the vibrations and noises grow louder, increasing in sound and impact on their bodies.

This place feels wrong to her, like an old nightmare; underneath the flickering lights she can feel herself breaking out in a cold sweat, buried memories of past trauma rising up in her throat, clinging to the back of her tongue like vomit. Before long she can feel a blister threatening to pop along her forefinger, her grip on her bow string painfully tight, individual muscles in her back jumping at the sound of her own boots against the floor, of the tiny claws of the artic fox beside her as they clatter against the cement floor. She's waiting for something, for someone, for—

 _... For one of her father's stupid tests...?_

 _"Something's wrong."_ She blurts out at last, beginning to grow more anxious the deeper they wander into the frozen warehouse; there's something not quite right about it's emptiness, about the emptiness and violent outbursts of noise. _"My gut is telling me we should leave. Whatever's tripped the zeta beam reader isn't here."_

Garfield, still foxlike, pauses beside her, shivering as the snow caked along his paws begins to melt into his fur. _"We haven't covered the whole perimeter yet. Maybe we should split up and—_ "

" _You are not to separate."_ Kaldur cuts across both their minds. _"Maintain coordinates. Tula and I are attempting to locate your nearest exit, we will regroup and discuss our next_ _move."_

She doesn't like the idea of staying still; there's something eerie about this place, about it's sterile scent and fluorescent lights. She can't shake the feeling that she's been here before, has connections to this place.

She opens her mouth to argue, the words sharp on her tongue for a long moment before she sighs; she doesn't know how to put this feeling into words, how to vocalize the eeriness of the halls or the nervous sweat clinging to the middle of her back. Screwing her eyes shut for a moment she forces different words, more rational ones, to sound out inside her head instead. _"No go. We need to get out now."_ She counters, already waving for Garfield to follow her as she turns on her heel, retracing the path they've already marked. _"Something isn't right. This feels like a trap."_

 _"Artemis_ _—"_

She can sense another battle between them but neither of them have time to finish the argument; before Kaldur can even complete the thought she's no longer listening, the mind-link being cut off by by low rumbling noise, the gritting cement of the floors vibrating so loudly that it makes her toes curl inside her boots. _"I told you."_ She snarls inside her own head, no longer bothering to hide the anxiousness, the misplaced fear and allowing it to slip to the front of her mind. _"We need to get out_ —"

She cuts her thoughts off with a grunt, her arrow slipping between her fingers as she slaps her gloved palms to her ears. The shattering noise begins piercing the silence again; it's sharper now, and closer, now so loud she can feel blood threatening to burst out between her fingers, as if a thousand shrill pieces of glass were splitting inside her ear drums. _"There's something here. I_ _—_ _"_

The piercing reaches a near wailing point, so loud she actually cries out with pain; she can feel blood threatening to burst out of her ears, the noise wailing and raising all the hair on her arms. She can't think anymore, her eyes screwed up and unseeing as her boot knocks into her fallen arrow, sending it skidding across the floor and out of sight. It feels as if the shrieking of the noise is cutting through her, ripping off parts of her body; at her feet Garfield lets out a tortured sounding whine, ears flexing back on his head and tail quivering between his legs _—_

 _"Locked on your coordinates_ _—"_

Even though he's inside her head she can hardly hear Kaldur above the shrill shattering noise; it's closer now, so loud it feels as if the sound if going to drill out the backs of her eyes, feels as if it's going to burst out of her and leave her a mess of shattered bones and bloody muscles. In a second the sound stops, leaving her ears ringing and her pupils blinking away black spots; beside her she registers the familiar squelching as Garfield returns back to his human form, tiny hands clasped over his ears and expression screwed up in pain.

The silence in dizzying, a thousand times louder after the impact of the shattering sound on her body; she can hear the very blood in her veins as it pumps through the ventricles of her heart, the air in her lungs too cold, too dry. As she fumbles for another arrow she does her best to stay upright, alert, fingers shaking as she struggles to pull her string taught.

 _(She can't stay in here anymore. Something happened in here, something her instinct is still afraid of_ — _)_

Garfield remains still, curled on the cement floor; for a long moment he keeps his head tucked between his knees, as if trying to ward off the nausea she's sure he's being hit with too. Forcing herself to move she adjusts her position until she's less than a foot in front of him, keeping him pinned to the safety of the wall. "You need to keep it together, Gar." She says not unkindly, voice breaking as she struggles to set her muscles into a defensive position; the words are just as much a reminder to him as they are to her. "You need to have my back, okay?"

When he lifts his head she can tell it's hit him, the same way it's hit everyone on the Team during their first mission; what they do isn't fun. It isn't the way the newspapers make it look. It's harrowing, unpleasant, gritty _—_

"Can't you hear it?" He whispers, looking truly small for the first time in a while. "The voices?"

"What?"

She's not looking but she can hear him swallow, the bile coating his throat sticking for a moment before it goes down. "We aren't alone in here. There are people— down that hall." A strange pause. "Maybe they know what's making the noise."

She hesitates, glancing back at him for a long moment; his eyes seem almost bugged, skin sweating despite the cold _—_ for one long second he looks so starkly like Wally the night of the lightning storm that she feels her stomach twist, a whole different wave of fear running through her.

 _("And if it hits too close, it's like I can feel it... Inside of me...")_

And something inside her, whatever the noise didn't shatter, breaks too— this is wrong. This plan her and Kaldur hatched together: to save Garfield, to save M'gann. To force a little boy to become a soldier before his tenth birthday, to send him out into the ferocity of battle before he's even close to being a man. It's wrong; wrong to see a face so young look as gaunt and terrified as it does now, wrong to make him listen to the imaginary snarled whisperings of voices.

 _(She's taken something from him, the same thing her father took from her. And at the end of the day she's no better than Lawrence, is she?)_

"... I don't hear anything." She whispers, the words quiet and meaningless.

"But—"

"It doesn't matter, Gar. We're not leaving this spot." She says after a moment, setting her muscles and maintaining her guard around him; she wants to get him out of here as badly as she wants to leave herself, wants to take get the both of them back to the safety of the Cave— more than anything she wants to find some way to make good to her silent bargain with Marie, wants to find a way to fix the damage she's already done. "Aquadlad said not to move."

"But just a minute ago you said _—"_

"Doesn't matter." She repeats, voice stern. "I can disagree with him all I want, but on a mission _—"_

She cuts herself off without meaning to, ears still sensitive and catching the familiar voice before her mind can full process what it means; the words slipping out of her mouth stumble, caught on her tongue and old memories as her head snaps towards the sound.

"... How much longer is this going to take?" The Cheshire Cat drawls out, voice echoing and hardly a whisper as it carries down the sterile hallway towards them.

And she knows everyone can feel it: the surge of adrenaline and fear and raw emotion as it spikes up the back of her mouth like vomit; without realizing it she lowers her bow, heart pounding loudly inside her ears.

"Artemis?" Garfield says weakly, raising his head from between his knees when she charges forward, the toes of her boots catching on the cement floor. "Artemis!"

She doesn't tell him to stay, doesn't even look back; the Cheshire Cat calls out to her and just like Alice she always follows.

* * *

She's blind, unthinking, peeling around corners and oblivious to the fear blossoming quickly in the pit of her stomach; instead of listening to the instinct building inside her insisting she turn around she races onwards, stride light and heart hammering as she listens as hard as she can, struggling to hear Jade's voice again.

 _The Team is still howling inside her head, asking what's happened. They never understood, none of them did_ — _they don't know what it's like to watch someone leave, to watch them look at you and decide you're not worth sticking around for. And they'll never get it, and maybe she won't either_ — _why she can't resist running back to her sister, back to the Cheshire Cat that always, always comes back_ —

She throws open a doorway and hesitates at the sight of hardly lit metal stairs; beyond it she can hear more people talking, the low hum of quiet conversation and the illumination of proper lighting. "I told you." Someone else drawls out, a voice she doesn't recognize—it's lower, more lolling, an edge of coolness to it that seems to singe between the vocal chords, the kind of tone that instinctively sends a shiver of discomfort through her shoulders. "This thing has been trapped in there for who knows how long. If you directly shatter the ice you risk destroying the artifact itself."

"Better pieces than no artifact at all."

 _An artifact._ At her sister's words she starts moving, feel rolling in her boots and she creeps forward. "You and your Shadows can relax, _Babe_. Just let me reinforce the ice where it's needed and drill where I tell you to."

Instinctively she crouches as she reaches the top of the stairs, eyes hardly peeking over the top step as she places her weight awkwardly on her elbows, still trying to maintain a defensive grip on her arrow. Wherever she's come up has placed her up high, up a floor or two from the level she was on before; she's come out on some sort of balcony, the top of some a hanger, her view of whatever's happening below obscured by a waist high cement wall, her gaze only able to mark the top of something nearly brushing the ceiling— glass, maybe, or ice—

She's breathing too much, her lips automatically sealing as a frantic puff of her own breath fogs in front of her face; she's well hidden in the safety of the stairwell, but nowhere near in a position to act, to— to what? To see Jade? To talk to her? To rescue her?

 _(Why is she still running after her?)_

She can hear wind on open plain again, can smell fresh air; she's must be in some sort of garage, a hanger that leaves this part of the warehouse exposed to the elements. There's a strange clicking noise, like the metallic end of something behind swapped out for another part; there are other voices, quieter ones, a low hum of indistinct chatter that tells her there's people down there, far more than just Jade and her partner. "... Your Daddy tell you why there was such a rush?"

 _Sportsmaster._ Of course he's involved— feeling her expression sink into a scowl she slinks forward, glancing over each shoulder as she moves towards the cement barrier and listening hard. There's a moment of more clicking, like a drill bit spinning and setting into place. "I was under the impression that your father would be willing to do a favor for an old friend. No questions asked."

 _"Artemis, you are to return to the rendezvous point. That's an order."_

 _"Cheshire's here."_ She thinks as loudly as she can, feeling her heart beginning to pick up inside her ribs as she crouches there, listening hard. _"She's here with someone and they're talking about arteiacts, Kal_ —"

" _You and Beast Boy are to return to_ —"

" _Beast Boy?"_ She cut across him. " _He should be at the rendezvous point. That's where I left him_ —"

"—My father is willing to do favors to The Light, and whichever stooges they happen to employ that week to do their dirty work." The unknown voice drawls out, somehow colder than before. "And while he might not bother with questions, I do. I'm not as fond of Belle Reve as he is."

 _"Artemis_ —"

She ignores Kaldur, ignores the other voices now clanging inside her mind; forcing herself to focus she hardly dares to breathe as she raises her head, trying to remain as still as possible as she peers over the concrete railing.

She's been right all along, this place is some sort of warehouse— and she's on the upper level of what could only be a docking bay of some sort. And she can hear it— water, just as Garfield said; she can't see far beyond the massive opening of the hanger but she's sure it leads to open tundra... Maybe this place opens out onto some sort of frozen lake? Except there's nothing here to suggest the presence of naval equipment; like every other nook and cranny of the building the places seems oddly empty: no crates, no vehicles, no evidence of people inhabiting the place—

Well, save for the dozen or odd Shadows swarming below.

No, more than that; in the second or two she tries to count the black-clad figures she's sure there's more than fifteen, maybe twenty of them, crowding about the hanger floor— as she watches several of them fiddle with the metallic pieces of some sort of drill, assembling it or swapping out a part that's been dulled. So this is where every armed guard has been swept off to, the place they all honed in on, because— because of that.

She can see it properly now; the thick and nearly two story high shard of ice glinting at the far end of the warehouse, so tall and so purely frozen it stands glass-like, towering and nearly brushing the roof. Even from here it seems to glint at her, menacing, the top of it jagged and level with her eyes even from this high up. And there, at its feet—

Without thinking she lets out a low and snarling breath, ducking down behind the low cement wall before the white cloud billowing out of her mouth reveals her. Cheshire. Her sister.

 _Jade._

For a second she forgets where she is, forgets what she's supposed to be doing; without wanting to the image of her seems to be burnt onto the back of her eyelids, staining them every time she blinks. Jade, Cheshire, her sister— standing there, snarled black hair stark against the white of the snow, dull against the glimmer ice. The unfamiliarity of her uniform: the hunter green swapped out for white, exposed skin coated in protective black layers that no doubt reflect back the heat. And of course the sneering expression of the Cheshire Cat mask, mocking her.

She doesn't want to look again but like an addict she does, raising her chin to peer once more above the frozen concrete barrier. Against the mass of solid black Jade sticks out, tall and unruffled as ever as she surveys her partner through the holes in her mask. "Now, now, Junior." Cheshire finally says, her mask glinting mischievously. "What happened to Father Knows Best? You and Icicle not as close as you used to be?"

Even from here the tone unnerves her, a mixture of teasing and terrifying. Her partner— Icicle Junior, she supposes— seems to stiffen, looking uneasy as Jade advances on him, her steps deliberately slow and mocking.

For the first time she turns her attention to him— this... Junior. There's something familiar about him, striking in a way that seems to ring distantly in the back of her mind, not quite clinging to a memory. He's dressed oddly; while everyone else seems to have taken steps to protect their skin from the elements he's chosen to go barefoot, arms exposed, the skin coating his bones so pale and unearthly translucent that he's nearly blue, his wiry frame bloodless and stiff as Jade stops less than a foot in front of him.

His throat seems to bob as he swallows, the platinum hair on his head hardly shifting as he drops his jaw, no doubt trying to see the eyes behind the Cheshire mask the same way she has a thousand times over. "My old man and I are fine." He says in a slightly gruff voice, gaze falling to her sister's belt as her thumb skims the blade of a sai. "What about you, anyway? I wouldn't have pegged you for a daddy's girl. Not after all the crap he put you through." It takes too long for him to look away from her weapon.

However trivial it might seem this lingering glance reads more into his own fear than anything else; she can sense the way Jade's mouth stretches into a grin at the moment of weakness, her feet beginning to carve a slow and threatening circle around the place where Junior is still standing, frozen. "It's not your job to peg me for anything." Cheshire sneers. "Your father came to The Shadows to dispose of the artifact he was too cowardly to turn over to The Light himself. And he told you to wait in his dingy old warehouse and help me retrieve it from the hunk of ice he froze it in while trying to hide it from the idiots at S.T.A.R Labs all those months ago."

She sure her sister can sense the way every eye is drawn to her, the way even those Shadows fiddling with the drill parts have suddenly stilled in their work, observing the interaction closely; even Icicle Junior, for his part, seems to be quailed into silence, his back stiff and unmoving as Jade digs a long nailed hand into his shoulder, cutting into his skin. "But now The Light knows your Daddy tried to hide this from them, don't they? And I'm betting soon enough the Justice League will be after him too." Her sister muses, releasing him and coming around in front of him again. "He doesn't need any more problems now, does he?"

"Is that a threat?" Junior cuts across her, fists flexing.

"It's a fact." Jade drawls back, the Cheshire Cat mask cocking mischievously at him. "Let's face it, Junior. With your Daddy's loyalty being questioned as much as it is, and with the League sniffing around where they're not wanted... I'd say your only job right now is to help me dispose of your father's last mistake. Before you and Daddy Dearest both end up somewhere a lot more... _Unpleasant_ than Belle Reve Penitentiary."

There's a lot more to that vague threat than Jade's letting on, and she's sure the unknown Junior can sense it too; whatever The Shadows, whatever the Light are threatening him and his father with as the price for the concealment of an artifact... She's sure it's deadly. For a long moment the unknown Junior glares at her sister, muscles stiff and jaw taught. "Well?" Cheshire sniffs after a moment, turning her back on him and yanking a pair of thick black ear coverings around her head. "Get to work."

There's a moment, an unexpected one, where she nearly cries out in warning; Icicle Junior seems to harden for a moment as he yanks his own ear protectors on, fuming silently before letting out an inhuman shriek. Almost instinctively her fingers flex, nearly raising her bow to fire in her sister's defense— then at once the air in the room seems to freeze, ice itself beginning to blossom in great shards about his shoulders, his forearms, his hands—

And she's not ready for it, the sound slamming against her ear drums so hard she nearly cries out; the ice shoots out of his palms and clatters against the giant slinter of ice, the impact of frozen on frozen seeming to echo and break in the air. Ducking down behind the wall again she winces, her eyes screwing up against the force of the noise—

— _Whatever that thing is encased in, it's not normal ice_ —

And before she can even brace herself, before her ears can even stop ringing from the loudness of the noise the vibrating starts— it's drilling now, she's sure, the sound of jackhammering and chipping and thundering away against layers and layers of ice, against the great mass of frozen holding the precious artifact they're after. The violent shaking is worse, so much worse in here than outside; she feels as if her very limbs are about to shake loose, as if her head is about to vibrate off her shoulders, as if the balcony beneath her is going to crumble away—

And then silence again, painful silence; more mechanical clicking and the panting of breath, as if Junior, the boy made of ice, is exhausted. There's the murmuring of voices, the resetting of the drill, and—

And claws, clicking softly on the cement floor.

She can feel alarm whirring through her head, terror beginning to rise like bile through her throat— raising her head out from behind her hands she spots him as clear as day: the Artic Fox, green as ever and peering above the edge of the top step. _"Artemis_ —"

 _"Gar, no."_ She cuts across him, voice far more severe than she's ever spoken to him; pulling herself together she starts moving towards him, shaking her head. _"Garfield, back to the rendezvous point. Now."_

 _"But_ —"

 _"Now."_ She snarls at him, rounding the edge of the cement wall and not being careful about the terrifying expression on her face; the longer she looks at it the smaller the little fox seems to become, tail twitching between its legs but nonetheless ignoring her orders, stepping up to meet her.

 _"You came up here_ —"

She can feel panic beginning to set in— she can't have Garfield around here, around her sister. _"Because I'm fucking crazy, Garfield."_ She screams inside her own head, swearing at him for the first time; at once the tiny little fox seems to cower before her, frightened. _"You need to leave, okay? Rendezvous with the rest of the Team. That girl down there, is_ — _she's not like the rest of the villains you've seen on TV, okay? She's_ —"

She cuts herself off, groaning as the shattering sound of ice breaking seems to echo a thousand times over in the warehouse, ripping through her panic and making it impossible to think— impossible to tell him how much danger he's in, how important it is that they leave— "She will kill you, Gar." She hisses out, hardly hearing herself over the noise and staring at him, terrified and unblinking through her goggles. "She'll do it because it's easy, and it's fun for her. You need to—"

She's not thinking, too foolish— at once the shattering noise dies and she's not fast enough to stop the words from falling out of her mouth, nearly screamed in her panic. "Leave. _Now!"_

There's a second, a long one, in which all she can hear is deadened silence and her own heart thundering madly above the ringing in her ears. Then the cement wall cracks as the tip of a sai sinks into it.

* * *

"Move!" She screeches out, although the warning is unnecessary; the second the sai cracks into the cement Garfield is taking off in the opposite direction, a blur of green and fox fur that's rounded the corner and out of sight before she can so much as stop her boots from slipping. Resetting her arrow against the notch in her finger she takes off at a sprint, careful to keep her head well below the top edge of the cement.

She can hear javelins being thrown, can hear more metal whirring through the air; throwing caution to the wind she straightens, setting on a black Shadow target and releasing an arrow before ducking back down again. She's good, she knows she is, but she can't take on nearly twenty Shadows, some goon, and her sister alone. She can't, she can't—

 _She can't do this_ —

She's in the middle of panicking when a whirl of ice shoots out in front of her, stopping her progress along the balcony with a furrow of ice; feeling the tread of her boots slip along the now slick floor she makes to back track, realizing what's about to happen before it does. They're going to try to box her in, to trap her there, she doesn't have a choice—

She ignores the stabbing in her ribs as she hoists herself over the edge of the cement railing, throwing herself over it before she can give it a second thought; for a moment she feels weightless, her body slipping past the second block of ice already shooting where she just was, where she had almost been trapped. Fumbling for her quiver she extracts an explosive tipped arrow, setting it too quickly against her string and firing blindly, the smoke billowing out and enveloping her quarry—

In a split second she braces herself, diving into the blackened smoke with a grunt; it's clumsy, not quite right, and she tumbles forward with the impact, shoulder aching as she rolls through it. People are yelling, voices clattering inside and outside her skull and at once she feels herself slip into something feral, instinctive; feeling her boots skid over the cement flooring she forces herself upwards, not even registering that she's firing arrows at victims until it's too late, the pointed tips cutting through the smog and meeting their mark with a squelch of flesh, the spitting of blood, the stench of warm fluid in the cold air—

She reaches for an arrow but someone beats her to it, seizing her arm and twisting it behind her back; there's a kick to the small of her spine and she feels her shoulder pop in and out of its socket, her arm spasming with pain and ribs searing as she's forced to the ground, another kick splintering her onto her back.

Her hood flops off of her head and the Cheshire Cat sneers down at her, the heel of her boot pinned against her collar bone. "... Long time no see, sis."

* * *

Her heart seems to stall inside her chest as she looks up at the Cheshire Cat mask, unreadable as always; above her Jade holds a single raised fist, some sort of signal to the dozens of Shadows around her to pause in the attack. She feels her eyes darting violently inside her skull, searching for an exit point, searching for little Garfield, no doubt hidden somewhere above her—frightened, in danger, she needs to keep fighting so he can escape—

"Who the hell is that?" Junior snarls, voice sharper than what she's just heard, as if he's gotten some of his nerve back.

The Cheshire Cat ignores his question, instead bending a the waist to examine her. "Love the hair cut." Jade sneers, shifting her foot towards her throat and pressing it, almost teasingly, near her wind pipe. "Who would have thought Dad was such a gifted hair dresser..."

The last word trails off with a hiss, Jade's foot now nearly crushing her quiver beneath her as she stomps her into the floor, impervious to her fingers as they struggle to pry her boot off of her. "Go to hell." She tries to spit out, the curse becoming hoarse when Jade cuts it off with more pressure.

"That's your sister?"

For some reason Junior's tone is different when he asks this, something lecherous and oddly affectionate melting through the words; whatever it is sends some sort of new fear to her surface, a different kind of discomfort rushing through her. She can tell it's hitting Jade too— the boot on her throat eases slightly as the older girl's head snaps towards him, the Cheshire Cat turning its leer to someone else. "She's nothing to you." She snarls.

Before she can figure out what this means the boot on her throat is suddenly slamming down on her so hard that she makes a retching noise, unable to pull in air. "But she is a member of the Justice League's pep squad. Which means you—" A pause, where she's sure her sister is signaling for the Shadows to resume their work, "had better get that out of the ice before the rest of her little Team catches up to her."

She claws uselessly at her sister's leg, unable to reach her knee or any other vulnerable point as she lies there, choking; as if she's only just noticing her the Cheshire Cat turns back to survey her, grinning as usual. "Because you wouldn't come alone, would you?" She hisses, pointing the sai at her almost hazily, uncaring. "Are they close enough to hear you scream—"

Jade can't even finish the question before she's cut off by the sound of claws on metal and a roar somewhere behind her; suddenly people all around her are yelling and she sees it—a green polar bear, roaring as it peels over the edge of the balcony railing, snarling as it lands on all fours in the snow, charging towards her—

For once her sister is caught off guard by the sight of the beast, not quick enough to order her men to do anything; all them of them seem stunned and motionless and hardly braced for anything as Garfield burls into them, jaw snapping and claws flying as he knocks body after body out of the way, struggling to get to her. And all at once instinct overwhelms her; before she can blink, can speak, can decide what she wants to do or how she wants to play this something inside her seems to break—a thousand sinews inside her heart seem to snap, bursting forward with some sort of emotion she can't identify. She hears herself snarl, feels her muscles explode with movement, and before she can stop herself she's fighting against tightness in her throat, her ribs searing with pain as she swings her leg upward, latching around her sister's thigh and kicking her backwards—

It doesn't occur to her to reach for weapons, to attack her sister with anything other than her hands; for the first time in her life she gets the jump on Jade, the other girl's sai swinging wildly through the air as she's kicked into the floor— she doesn't even try to fight, doesn't turn her arrows on her sister, instead forcing herself to her feet and sprinting towards Icicle Junior, towards the artifact—

She may have caught her off guard but she should know Jade better than that—the shock of being slammed into the floor only shocks her older sister into focusing, into formulating a plan; in an instant the other girl is on her feet again, chasing after her, faster as always and seizing her by the jacket, yanking backwards—

She's thrown to the ground again and then the drilling starts, snarling and shaking and violent; being on the ground so close to the source is jarring, her teeth rattling and the floor beneath her impossible to stand on. She can hear the feral groan of Garfield, can hear the snorting and snapping of the polar bear as he's swarmed by Shadows— they are losing, and it is her fault, and she can hardly hear Jade over the din as she reaches for her sai. "Enough!"

The drilling stops and in the second it occurs to her that she might be killed the Cheshire Cat is hurling the sai through the air— but it's not towards her—

The gigantic ice shard shatters, a thousand pointed knives of ice cracking and bursting out from the point of the sai's impact; instinctively she starts scrambling across the floor, out of range, yanking over quiver over her skull and praying that Garfield has the sense to run, to get out of the way. It's a thousand times worse, the shatters enveloping them, clanging all around, bursting a ripping through those who aren't smart enough to do anything other than stand still, watching it fall—she dives behind the edge of a doorway, listening to the final few sounds of impact.

The shards settle, and through the strange mist of frost and frozen air she sees it: the artifact. It's small, flat, about the size of a dinner plate; the brown clay it's set in is carved, but not ornately— it's a mess of strangely pointed symbols, like twigs recently removed from branches. Even from here she can see the long edged crack down the middle.

It's broken.

"Junior!" Jade screeches from somewhere in the haze; all around her there's movement again, as if the initial stun has worn off everyone and chaos is free to resume. Instead of remaining hidden like she wants to she forces herself to hurl herself back into the thick of things, her boots slipping as she struggles to track her way through the wreck separating her from the broken artifact nearly twenty feet away.

And she spots Cheshire, already on her feet and moving before the air is even out of her lungs, not indulging the wounded as she moves through the wreckage; her sister rips the protective cover from her ears and fumbles with a radio, exchanging signals and frequencies. "Let's move. Now!"

And she doesn't know why she does it, what she means by it; before she can stop herself she's broken into a run, scrambling over shards of ice and nearly slipping as her voice rips out of her throat. "Jade!"

 _(She can't leave, not again...)_

She can't remember the last time she said her sister's name out loud, let alone screamed it; the word sounds desperate as it rips out of her throat, violent and starving for something she's sure there isn't a name for.

 _("You can't leave. We're the ones who have to keep this family from falling apart_ —" _)_

And there's a second, less than that even, where the other girl hesitates. And all at once it's as if two different worlds are colliding, as if she's suddenly ten again and her sister is 15. She watches as a gloved hand freezes around the shattered pieces of the strange and ancient plate, and the eyes of the Cheshire Cat find her.

 _(It's a hesitation, a fraction of something— of lingering feelings, of habit, of old memories that don't belong to either of them. But it's there; it's there and it's long enough for her to look at her sister, really look at her, for the first time in years.)_

There's more sounds behind her, the rush of water and the hum of electricity—Kaldur and the others have found them, caught up and engaged with the attack; as she slips on overturned ice she has enough time to watch Icicle Junior buffet past Jade and scrape what's left of the ice-coated artifact into his arms; the slight impact seems to be enough to knock sense into the other girl, who at once turns to lead him into the open end of the enclosure, the two of them escaping into the emptiness of the tundra. _"Cheshire has another one of Sandsmark's artifacts."_ She thinks as loudly as she can, finally slipping past the mass blocks of ice and taking off at a run to follow them. _"Her and the other guy are escaping with it now, I'm pursuing—"_

 _"Go."_ Kaldur orders.

She's hardly cleared the end of the warehouse's overhang before there's a loud snarling to her right, the sound of flesh being knocked aside; when she takes a second to glance over her shoulder Garfield is breaking into a trot to catch her, his large polar bear teeth snapping. _"Get on!"_ The little boy screams inside her head, and before she can second guess taking him along he's beside her; leaping into him she seizes green tufts of his fur, legs swinging over the broadness of his back.

 _"Fast, Gar._ " She orders inside her head, not even pausing to secure herself as his muscles pound beneath her, polar bear paws slamming into the snow and covering ground much more quickly than she would have on their own—there's no woods out here, hardly any snow drifts, as if they're charging into the middle of what she's now sure is a long frozen lake…

They're coming up on their quarry fast; yanking an arrow from her quiver she sets it against the notch on her finger, debating for a moment between her two targets—she could take Cheshire out, she could take her out so easily—

Instinct wins out more than anything, as does a sense of duty; Junior has the artifact, Junior is the priority. The second she releases it she knows it's going to miss—Garfield is too jostling beneath her, his polar bear stride too wild. Instead of catching her target about the knees her arrow strikes the ice still jagged along his arms—but it's enough, enough to startle him into dropping the artifact—

Junior cries out and the arrow bursts through the ice coating his forearm, a loud shattering noise cutting through the air; in an instant the broken artifact is bursting from his hands, her arrow jostling his movement so bad he stumbles—

Jade doesn't even blink, hardly looks when her companion drops—as if she's been expecting it her sister doubles back, snatching the artifact pieces but making no attempt to help Junior, no attempt to even stare her down as Garfield and her pound towards them. No, her sister is planning something, has an escape route, as always—

And at once she can hear it; a helicopter, not in range yet but coming up on them and fast. And this is it, if she wants to catch up to Jade, wants to finally beat her sister— without blinking she braces herself, legs flexing around the mess of fur and bear beneath her for a second before she kicks off, hard—

Junior gets his bearings quick enough to shoot a shard of ice in her direction, missing her entirely as she makes to move. She hears Garfield let out a feral sounding grunt as he veers off slightly, but she doesn't have a second to spare for him; forcing her weight forward she rolls roughly through the snow, skidding for several feet and getting a mouthful of cold—

The bright green polar bear doesn't look back for her, continuing to move; now that she's not on him she can feel the way his paws seem to clang into the ice, small twangs firing through it telling her that he's cracking parts of it, making the surface unstable. _"I'm in pursuit."_ Garfield sounds out at the back of her mind, already breaking into a sprint after Cheshire. _"Watch my back."_

She's hardly on her feet again, boots slipping on ice and uneven ground; in a second an unfamiliar but deadly fear cuts through her, prompting her to shout after him. "Beast Boy!" She snarls, charging forward. "Don't—"

Whatever warning she's about to give is silenced when she's forced to duck, Junior now back on his feet and sneering at her; reaching for her quiver she seizes the first arrow she touches, not even bothering to feel for the familiar feathers marking pointed tips or explosives. Feeling reckless and terrified she notches whatever fate may give her against her finger, releasing before the joints of her shoulder can properly set.

The explosive tip misses where he's sprinting towards her but the puff of smog is enough to give her the element of surprise; although she's sure there's something inherently inhuman about him he still has the same weaknesses, the same instincts clothed in ice. As her arrow sends snow and smoke and waterlogged ice spewing forward he winces, the half second of hesitation all she needs—

The smoke clears and at once she fires again, already setting another arrow before the first one meets its target; before he can fire ice at her a pointed tip shatters the frozen edges of his bicep, shards of ice glittering in the air as they fall before her second finds the exposed fleshy joint of his shoulder, splitting through the translucent blue of exposed skin, skimming him—

Junior screams and so does she, shouting above him and the flurries and the terrifying emptiness of the tundra. "Garfield!" She slips up, his real name spewing out of her before she can stop it. "Beast Boy!"

There's not enough time to make it more than the two steps after him; in a flurry of deep purple blood another frozen bomb is thrown at her. She's not fast enough, too emotional, too weak—she slips on ice, arms throwing out wildly, the edge of it catching on her bow.

The ice freezes about the top tip and even though she instinctively reaches for another arrow she knows it's useless; the weight of the weapon is now off, unfamiliar in her hands, unbalanced, and before she can even figure out how to adjust her stance to suit it Icicle Junior is sprinting towards her, looking wild and bloody as she notches an arrow against her finger, firing and missing—

He's closer, less than ten feet, and with a certain amount of reckless abandon she tries again, feeling panicked as she reaches for her quiver— _come on, come on—_

He's three feet from her when she makes the decision, abandoning her quiver and instead swinging her bow around like a staff—there's the crunch of ice smashing against ice as her bow collides with the side of his bleeding shoulder, a spurt of blood bursting between the frozen flesh as both what's on her bow and his arm shatter again, shards flying through the air.

The force of the blow jostles him off balance, the whole of her weight flying around with her bow as she flexes it in her fists again— _the ice is gone now, she can do this, she can do this—_ whirring around she snaps her bow into position, reaching for another arrow and already marking the center of his chest, his throat, the multiple vulnerable points he's presenting her as she flexes her fingers towards her quiver—

 _(Somewhere she hears a roar, a ripple of pain from a wild animal_ — _her heart leaps up into her throat, eyes straying from her target in panic_ — _)_

 _((No, no no no_ — _))_

She makes to draw an arrow the same time he launches ice at her; she hears the snarl, sees the daggers shoot out from his skin, feels her feet shift, fumbling over slippery ground as she tries to evade the attack—

The ice encloses her hand and drags her backwards, furling around the sleeve of her jacket as the force of it knocks her over. At once all the nerves in her wrist scream out, a mixture of agony at the cold and the pain of being slammed against the frozen lake-top. She cries out as her head cracks against the ice, black spots and strange bursts of light erupting at the front of her vision as she's forced onto her back, the arrows spilling out of her quiver as she's pinned atop her it, vulnerable as a rabbit snared in a trap—

And she knows it's pointless to struggle; the ice is too thick, the air too cold, her arm practically welded to the frozen lake. She can hardly see, can feel vomit climbing into her throat and dizziness over taking her as she claws at the thick wad of ice pinning her to the ground, unyielding as she struggles to sit up, trying desperately to yank her hand free.

She hears the snarling chuckle as she rolls onto her stomach, pressing herself to her arm in the hope that she'll somehow be able to melt the ice. "So," she hears him drawl out, his bare feet crunching in the snow as he approaches her. "You're the little sister, huh?"

The light reflecting off the snow is blinding through her goggles, her arm still uselessly frozen to the ground; in an act of desperation she looks around wildly, lunging forward like an wild cat and clawing towards her arrows— _towards something, anything—_

She screams when a calloused foot stomps her fingers flat against the snow, the other effectively kicking her remaining arrows and scattering them out of reach; before her cry can even stop echoing in the emptiness around them another shirek is being ripped out of her throat as he aims a kick to her ribs, forcing her onto her back again.

The noise seems to bother him; as she lies there panting and in pain she can see the wince on his face, the disgust at the sound of her weakness playing out in the unfamiliar blue-lipped expression for a moment before he hides it, crouching beside the place where she's pinned. "... You'd be what, sixteen now?" He asks after a moment.

She's sure she imagining the words, no doubt the result of a concussion; the question is too personal, almost offensively so. Feeling her noise wrinkle and shoves the pain to the back of her mind, instead nearly spitting at him as she snarls. "Fuck off."

It's strange, almost as if he doesn't expect her to swear at him— for a moment she registers the raising of his brows, the amused tug of his smirk. No; she's being taunted, played with. Or— her head pounds the longer she lies there, not sure what to make of him; before she can stop it a surge of unknown rage floods through her and all at once she's lunging for him.

She lets out a gasp of pain when she kicks her leg up but doesn't indulge it, hooking the back of her knee around his bloody shoulder and attempting to slam him into the ground beside her, her free hand scratching towards his face and clawing at his eyes—

Her one handed maneuvering isn't enough, his cheek only skimming the surface of the ice before he's fighting back; she screams again when a too-cold hand clamps down on the top of her skull, her teeth slamming together as a bony elbow collides with her cheek— she hisses, swearing, struggling, screaming as he clambers on top of her, pointed fingers ripping her goggles from her eyes and scratching the skin beneath her mask—

His fingers catch her eye sockets before ripping her mask clean from her face, and before she can even so much as attempt to blind him for it he's on top of her, dripping blood onto the white of her jacket; at once he's got her free hand pinned beside her skull, his hips slapping her thighs to the ground and a single hand splaying threateningly across her collar bone. It's like being wedged between two panels of ice, the cold instantly penetrating the layers of clothing and skin and sinking into her bones, and unwilling shiver ripping through her—

 _(She hears blades of a helicopter and a feral snarl; the stars beginning to blossom along the skyline are blinding, too bright in the growing darkness_ — _)_

She nearly screams again, feeling an unpleasant twitch of fear bubble up inside her as he hovers over her, staring hard at her naked face. She can feel the nerves in her skin freezing over, the tendons in her wrists beginning to numb as she continue to struggle, to attempt to throw him off, to get out from underneath him and his staring.

He continues to survey her, to study the emotions crossing her face; as her anxious breath puffs a burst of white mist into his face he leans into it, as if wondering what she tastes like. "... Well." He says after a moment, eyes tracing the curves of her cheeks bones and the hollows under her eyes, lingering too-long on the chapped skin on her lips. "You've grown up, haven't you? Haven't changed though. Used to fight me like this when we were little too."

An unpleasant lurch sounds in her stomach as the hand splayed along her collar bones twitches towards her breasts. "Do I know you?" She snarls, feeling her nose wrinkle.

For some reason the leer on his face twists into a smirk; in an instant his hand tightens on her chest, pressing her tighter to the ground. "You should." He tells her, more of a warning than anything. "We used to play together as kids."

She has no idea if this is true or some sort of means of toying with her some more; her confusion must show on her face because he lets out a strangely crackling laugh, a bitter slap of metallic and mint flavored breath hitting her as he shifts his weight, looming over her further. "You're Artemis." He tells her, the end of her name sounding twisted, sour coming out of his mouth as he moves to touch her.

She feels her brows furrow but doesn't say anything back, instead twitching her chin as far away from his hand as she can when his fingers make to adjust a wayward piece of her hair. "Come on." He teases, finally seizing her about the jaw and forcing her to look him in the eye, the webbing of his thumb pressing into her chin. "You remember me, don't you?"

Something's wrong, she can sense it; she can feel something awaken inside her, the same thing that once used to wake around Jade when she was younger— she can feel her lower lip quivering with a low building terror, some larger instinct, or memory, revving to life inside her. It takes all the courage she has to hold his gaze, wide-eyed and shaking in a mixture of cold and repeated struggling to escape his grasp. "I don't know who the hell you—"

She cuts herself off with a hiss of pain when the ice bursts out of his finger tips, now frozen talons that are cutting into her face; she can feel the blood welling along her jawline, her cheeks, down into the muscles of her throat as he leans into her, face twitching into a snarling sort of leer. "Yes you do." He hisses, watching as the shallow lines of blood begin dribbling down into her hair. "You do. What's my name?"

"I—" She feels her chin begin to tremble as he drags an icy talon down her cheek, catching on the neck of her uniform. "I don't—"

She screws her eyes up when he slices a clean line through her jacket, hardly scratching the exposed skin under the Kevlar; she can taste the bitterness of his breath inside her lungs as he leans in closer, panting in her face. She winces when she feels the Siberian air stinging against her skin, the frozen claw now cutting a line down the dib between her breasts, slicing through the material of her jacket and her uniform, cutting through her sports bra and making to follow the curve of her breasts. "You don't remember?"

"Aqualad—!"

She's cut off before she can even finish screaming, no longer able to croak out the words when the icy talons seize her by the throat; Junior continues to glare at her, shaking her slightly until she's forced to emit a pathetic squeaking noise. "You don't know who I am?" He snarls, slamming her by the throat back into the ice and looking pleased when she gags. "... I'll just have to make a more lasting impression this time. Won't I?"

He releases her, her throat emitting a retching sound as she struggles to pull in air; though the black spots bursting at the front of her vision she can sense him moving, shifting on top of her, ice-sharpened fingers running down her collar bones—

She feels the knife like fingers slice around the curve of her breast, cutting through her uniform and sinking into the skin there; she can still hardly breathe, her muscles acting more out of adrenaline than purpose as she starts struggling against him, his fingers, the hands now groping her and slicing wounds into her skin. She's screaming again, the sound hoarse and animalistic as she starts grappling harder than ever before, starts fighting against talon-like fingers and the too cold hands as they slap her, choke her again, start pulling her legs apart—

"No!" She hears herself screech out, less voice and more breath, panic welling inside her as a hand splays along her hip, cutting open her uniform and slicing into her inner thigh. "No—"

He shifts between her legs and just as the final burst of adrenaline pumps through her; she's a mixture of deadly skill and desperation, of instinct and fear— like the wild creature her father raised her to be she lets out an unearthly scream, her knee kicking up between the two of them and her foot wedging into his stomach, prying him off her as he lets out a grunt of pain—

There's more struggling as he's forced backwards, not off her entirely but far enough away to get her legs working; she kicks him back, again and again, gnashing and spitting like a bob cat trapped in a corner, her boots catching him in ribs and in the diaphragm, in the chest, the chin—

He catches her foot and yanks it so far to the side she's practically ripped open, his ice-cold body slamming between her legs as she makes to sit up. "You bitch—" He snarls at her, one hand seizing her round the throat and the other clapping over her face, forcing her on her back again. "You fucking bitch—"

There's ice bursting out of him at random now, like a shield impervious to her kicking or her free hand as she tries to pry him off of her; with a grunt he rams her back into the ice, her head slamming into the ground so hard she sees spots again. "You remember me now?" He screams in her face, lifting her by the throat again and slamming her head-first into the frozen lake once more. "How about now? _Now?"_

She can hear the ice cracking, can feel the water underneath it beginning to sop along the back of her hair— more water, gushing over her eyes, filling in the places where her vision is blackening, filling up the spaces in her lungs—

—The wind is picking up, an engine is running, a helicopter—

 _(_ — _She's shivering._

 _She's eight years old and looking especially small in Jade's old jacket. She doesn't know why she's here, in this place where the walls are cold and the cement floor seems to only reflect back the frozen Siberian snow._

 _Lawrence scowls when she shivers, throwing an annoyed look at Paula behind his mask. "I told you we should have left the brats at home."_

 _The room_ — _a conference room of some sort, empty of everything except an overlong table and some chairs_ — _is filled with only the four of them. Beside her Jade sends her a severe sort of look, as if upset that she's making her look bad. "And I told you," Paula sighs, Huntress eyes glaring at her husband. "The day I leave Jade home alone is the day I decide we can afford to let the landlord keep the damage deposit."_

 _Time passes and moves on, and just when she's lost feeling in her toes the door opens. "Sportsmaster."_

 _Her parents rise from their chairs and hands are being shaken; she does her best to burrow inside her overlarge coat, afraid of this man she doesn't know and men flanking either side of him and the fact the temperature in the room has dropped several degrees since his entrance. "Kids." Paula says warningly, eyes flashing behind her mask_ — _without needing an explanation she gets out of her seat, already moving before her mother finishes the order. "Hallway. Now."_

 _"Wait." Lawrence shoots out a hand. "Jade. Stay."_

 _Jade and her lock eyes, the older girl sensing no doubt that she's afraid to be alone in this too cold building. She doesn't understand it now but she will, years later: her father wants another body in there, another person to throw in front of himself if his business deal goes awry, even if that person is his thirteen year old daughter._

 _Although she can sense her mother's glare behind her mask Paula doesn't make to stop it. They all ignore her when she calls out for her older sister, unable to fight back against the hands pushing her out of the room._

 _The memory slips and fades out, picking up in the fluorescent light of the hallway. The door shuts behind her and before she has time to burrow into her coat again someone is talking to her. "Did you get kicked out of the meeting too?"_

 _The boy is her age, a few years older, slouched and moody against the wall opposite the door. "Dad always kicks me out when he meets his big partners."_

 _For some reason she blushes, feeling very childish in her pig tails. When she doesn't immediately say anything back the boy keeps talking, running his too-pale hands up and down his folded arms. "I'm Cameron." A pause, where she knows she's supposed to introduce herself but for some reason can't even get the courage to lift her head above the collar of her jacket. "You know, when someone introduces themselves to you you're supposed to say your name back."_

 _"... I'm Artemis." She fumbles, blushing some more._

 _"That's a stupid name." The boy tells her, getting to his feet; he's taller than her by several inches. In the few steps he takes towards her a draft of icy air washes over her, seeping into her bones. "Your jacket is too big for you."_

 _She can't think of anything to say back and blushes again._

 _Time passes again, more memories blurring in and out of each other_ — _she sees this boy more than once over the passing years, their visits infrequent and always uncomfortable_ —

 _((They're in a board room and she's hiding behind her father; when she peeks out from behind Lawrence's back she can see him already staring at her.))_

 _((They pass each other in a hallway. He tugs on her pig tail and she blushes.))_

 _((She makes the mistake of lending him a book. When she gets it back months later it is in tatters, the pages water stained with melted ice.))_

— _And there's another memory, a more powerful one; she is crying in a board room, the too-cold air soothing on her rapidly bruising skin. The words her father has shouted at her are still ringing sharp in the back of her mind, the mark he's left on her face stinging. She had wanted to go with him and Paula, didn't want to be left behind_ — _and she had made a childish mistake, a fatal one that had resulted in a slap ringing across her cheek_ —

 _Cameron finds her, as he always does; in the year or so they've known each other he's gotten too good at finding her hiding places, better even than her older sister who is no doubt still searching for her in the chill of Icicle's warehouse. "Does it hurt?" He asks her, coming to a stop where she's sitting cross legged beneath the table._

 _"Yes." She sniffs, too young to pretend to act tough; instead of lying she wipes her nose on the back of her wrist, accepting the hand he offers to help her up._

 _Cameron's blue tinged face is full of concern when she gets to her feet, hand lingering too long in hers before releasing it. "Looks bad." He tells her, wincing when the slap mark emblazed on her cheek catches the light. "Hold on_ —"

 _His hand is too-cold on her skin when he flattens his palm against the reddened mark on her face, ignoring the way she tries to pull back and instead ensnarling his fingers in her hair, making it impossible to move without having her pig tail ripped from her scalp. "The cold is good for it, stupid." He tells her._

 _And she's not sure how it happened; how he looked at her, if she should have known better. But as she winces against the feeling of his skin on hers he leans in, lips pressing clumsily against the edge of her mouth._

 _She remembers being still, shocked and afraid; Cameron's fingers seem to seep frostbite into her, the cold against the sensitive skin shocking her into pulling back. "... Cam." She mutters, blushing._

 _(She wasn't ready to lose her first kiss, the last bit of childhood she had been trying to save for someone special; it wasn't supposed to be taken from her, stolen, like every other good thing_ — _)_

 _"I told you, the cold is good for bruises."_

 _"I_ —" _She's forced to be quiet when he kisses her again, ignoring her when she tries to pull back. She's too young to know instinctively how to fight against these things, not understanding yet how big of a danger a boy who won't accept the word no is. "Don't. The cold stings_ —"

 _The palm on her face shifts down to her neck, cold fingers flexing around her throat threateningly as if testing the pressure; her words of protest are cut off with a whimper. "Be quiet." He tells her, fingers loosening around her windpipe. When she draws in a desperate and rattling breath his brows raise, curious._

 _She doesn't know what to do; her attempts to fight him off growing more feeble when he leans in again_ — _she is still young, wary of hurting anyone her parents don't tell her too. When she kisses him back the fingers on her neck ease off entirely, and at once her first kiss is tainted by the need to survive, the need to avoid danger_ —

 _The door opens with a rattle, her sister already drawling out in an annoyed sort of voice. "Artemis, you better be in here. This is the fourth room I've tried and if I don't find you before Dad gets back he's going to_ —" _Her sister stops short, eyes widening. Cameron pulls back and is too slow to remove his hand from her throat._

 _A clean second passes where the surprise shows on Jade's face, an emotion so rare she's sure it's genuine; before she can memorize the way her sister's brows arch delicately onto her forehead or the almost pretty way her grey eyes look when they're that wide the expression is gone, replaced by something sharper and more grown up. "What the hell is going on here?"_

 _"Nothing." Cameron grunts out, folding his arms across his chest and looking surely._

 _She slouches against the edge of the table, wanting to look as insignificant as possible when her sister's eyes find hers. "Artemis?"_

 _She can understand the hidden question in her sister's voice as easily as she can her own mother's; it's a silent demand to tell the truth, and now, or else. "Nothing." She confirms, looking at her feet and allowing her pig tail to swing forward, hiding her. "... Cam just kissed me."_

 _(She doesn't know why she adds the last part, or why her words sound as ashamed as they do; the bruised skin along her cheek sears, still irritated from the cold. Whatever is hidden in her voice Jade seems to understand_ — _there's a long moment when she can sense her sister's eyes on her, trying to see the injury she can't see, the invisible invasion and demolishment of the last bit of childish innocence she still had.)_

 _It happens so quickly she doesn't even see her sister move, doesn't even have time to feel surprised; all at once Jade is on Cameron and he's screaming, the two of them snarling and colliding with furniture and hurling curse words too foul for children at each other across the room. And people are coming, and blades are being drawn, and she remains frozen, as if in ice, against the edge of the table_ —

 _That night her sister lies motionless in her bed, bruised and bloody from Lawrence's beating. The wad of ragged fabric pressing to her face is stained a sickly red. "... Jade?" She whispers in the darkness, hardly daring to raise her head from her pillow and look her in the eye properly._

 _Jade doesn't reply, the only sound from her the vague rattling of phlegm bubbling in the back of her throat. Her sister is half dead, and she knows it is her fault._

 _They never speak of what happened again and she shoves the memory deep inside her. A year later the Cheshire Cat slinks out of the apartment and she forces herself to forget_ — _)_

Ice nearly slices into her again as the hands around her throat are yanked away, the weight of Junior's body knocked off her as her head bursts out of the freezing water; crouching and shivering in the harsh wind of the Siberian tundra she rolls onto her stomach, spewing water out of her lungs and dribbling it down the exposed slices of skin peeking out from her mutilated uniform. She can hardly hear anything above her own coughing, can hardly see anything between the vivid lights bursting from the backs of her eyes and the water now freezing to her lashes— somewhere close by she hears grunting, the sound of a sai being drawn—

There's a blunt noise, like a dull edge against skin; when she tries to locate it she can only see darkness, the stars reflecting off the snow and disorienting her. "Artemis—" She can hear her name being called, all her senses blurred by the pounding in her head; scrubbing water from her face she coughs again, sending a mixture of bile and fluid down her front. "Artemis—"

And it must be a dream, a hallucination of some sort; at once the Cheshire Cat mask bobs in front of her face, crouching in the snow and watching with a demented sort of grin as she struggles to breathe again. "Artemis!" Her older sister screams in her face, the deadly grey of her eyes peering at her, a clawed hand reaching for her, a sai extending in the air.

 _("Artemis?" Jade says, the unasked question hanging silently in the air.)_

 _((Is she imagining her cheek stinging_ — _))_

She hears the seams of her jacket rip, can hear the sai as it slices around the fabric of her shoulder, ripping the sleeve of her ice trapped arm and forcing frozen nerves to move out from underneath their icy prison with a savage yank; the air seems to freeze inside her dampened lungs, making breathing impossible. "... What are you doing?" She tries to say, the words hoarse and intelligible as her sister slides her arm free, rolling her until she's more than a foot away from the hole her head has made in the ice—

 _(The Gotham apartment is quiet and her sister's breathing loud; there is a blood soaked bandage sticking to her cheek, a wad of fabric that is stained crimson_ — _)_

She's on her stomach, her cheek pressing into the snow; something warm and wet is dripping down the sides of her neck, caking into her hair. Her right arm feels cold, as if instantly frost bitten the moment it was exposed to the cold. For a second she is convinced she's nine again. "Jade...?"

She's not sure what's she's asking, not sure if she imagines the feeling of a hand pressing to the back of her head, using what's left of her sleeve to staunch the wound; feeling as if she's dreaming she looks over her shoulder, the blackened edges of her vision revealing nothing.

 _(She doesn't know how much time passes, how long or even if her sister remains there, crouched beside her— the few seconds of peace seem to last a life time, a whole universe compounded into mere moments.)_

It seems to take too long for her to remember what's really happening, where she is, why Jade stopped being Jade all those years ago; she can feel her heart picking up, loud enough to drown out the sound of helicopter blades and brawling. "... Where is he?" She asks suddenly, trying to move.

Clawed hands pin her down in the snow, not hard but more than she can fight back against. "Junior's down, Artemis. Don't worry."

Maybe it isn't Jade; she can't remember talking like this with her sister, can't remember a time when the older girl spoke to her with such care, such comfort. It doesn't do anything to quail the emotions bursting out of her, only egging on her anxious thrashing in the snow. "Where is he?" She repeats, nose wrinkling when she swings an arm up, fist hardly clipping a chin. "Where is he?"

 _(Where's Garfield? Where's Garfield?)_

She screams again, so loud that she might as well be tortured; ignoring her ribs as the sheer force of her shrieking makes them ache she thrashes as wildly as she can against the Cheshire Cat, hissing when her head is forced tighter to the ground. "What did you do to that little boy?" She snarls, throat breaking as she screams again. "What did you do—"

"—Artemis—"

It's as if the ocean's opened up, swallowed them whole; she's drowning again, a thundering wave of water crashing into them both. The hand on her head is gone and every part of her is drowning—

 _(She lost Garfield. She lost him.)_

 _((Let her die right now, please_ — _))_

 _(She ruins everything, she ruins it_ — _)_

But she's breathing again, the weight on top of her gone— and there's screaming, more screaming, shrieks and bellows and snarling coming from all sides— she tries to sit up and nearly falls over, the world spinning as she forces herself to her hands and knees. She's soaking wet now, a mixture of water and her own blood weighing her down. Someone is calling her name, the wind is picking up and threatening to freeze her alive, and her sister is gone, gone again—

 _(And he's there, a few feet from her and unconscious; Icicle Junior, but Cameron as she knows him, the angles of his jaw sharper than they were in boyhood but familiar, all over again_ — _)_

"Artemis!"

She can't listen, can't focus— forcing herself to her feet she ignores the way her matted hair is freezing to her head, her limbs heavy and unbalanced as she sends them quaking into life, clumsy and frozen alive as wind ripples off helicopter blades—

 _She can't decide where to go, who to seek out first_ — _her mind feels fogged, unfocused, dulled by panic and adrenaline and injury. Jade or Garfield, her sister or_ —

And there are voices all around, yelling out to her inside her head and out; it's disorienting, blinding, and despite not meaning to she stops moving. Distantly she sees a green spot on the horizon.

Someone's hands brace against her forearms from behind, making to catch her when she stumbles. "Gar." She says, because that's all she can see in the moment— an animal, four legged and all green, charging towards her.

"He is alright." Kaldur tells her. She doesn't notice the gashes still bleeding on his palms, or the way the crimson smears over her uniform as he shifts her in his arms, holding steady.

He says her name again, the word meaning nothing to her as she tries to turn her head, surveying the damage; Garfield, limping but four legged and moving closer, Tula, with mused hair but otherwise unharmed. She blinks once and realizes M'gann is right in front of her, looking at the tatters of her uniform and putting two and two together.

She pretends not to see the look she exchanges with Kaldur, instead brushing off the hands holding her upright; she doesn't want to see the pity there, the discomfort as their assumptions begin building inside their minds. "Where's Jade?" She asks, looking around at all of them. "Where's my sister?"

No one answers.

* * *

 **AN: Another chapter up! And over 25,000 words long. Hopefully it was well worth the wait.**

 **To all of you who sent kind messages to my inbox checking in that I was okay: Thank you. Between my university midterms and the unfortunate stint of a family member in the hospital in the last few weeks I was basically forced to disappear from the face of the earth. If you were one of the people who took time out of your day to remind me how beloved this story is, you're the best. And I thank you for your patience.**

 **However, one thing I don't tolerate as an author is people coming into my inbox to yell at me. Fan fiction is something I write for myself and post because I think others will like it, and it's really sucky to be in the middle of working on a chapter while people leave nasty messages about how slow I am at posting.**

 **My chapters average around 15,000 words. That's about 35 pages single spaced. I am a full time student with a full time job and a pretty active social life. Even as a fourth year English student specializing in Creative Writing, my own professors wouldn't expect me to turn something like that in without one month of work.**

 **I am honored to know that my story is loved enough to have people literally begging for more. And for every mean comment I receive I get about 5 amazing ones. For those of you frustrated with me, I'm sorry** — **I'm doing my best to keep up with demand, but I unless someone starts paying me to write this I just can't.**

 **That's all** — **just wanted to remind you guys that I'm only human, and the updates will speed up once I graduate in April!**

 **Please read and review!**


	35. Lightning Crashes

**AN: Woohoo! Finally posting this chapter. Enjoy!**

* * *

The Bioship is quiet.

It's not the kind of silence she likes. It's not breathless nothingness with Wally after a particularly long laugh, or the few seconds pause after Zatanna hums out the end of another story about another boy; this is the kind of quiet that peels underneath her cuticles, that settles in dead weight over her chest, that lingers along the joints of her shoulders and sends the muscles twitching, writhing, spasming—

 _(It's the kind of silence that reminds her of books and an empty apartment.)_

The thought leaks out of her mind before she can stop it, an unpleasant memory that throbs out from the point where Icicle Junior smashed her head through the ice. Before she can stop the impulse her fingers twitch towards the injury, towards the place M'gann had hidden beneath bandages and tensor fabric, beneath knitted brows and a bitten lip—

Her fingers are cold.

Her hand feels numb as she presses it against the back of her head, foreign as her fingers thumb clumsily over bandages.

 _(She's shaking, still wearing damp clothes and blood, still exposed and cut open in places. For the first time in a long time she feels too small to be sitting in her Bioship seat, her muscles quaking every few seconds as shock ripples through her_ —)

 _((_ — _Cameron and Jade and Lawrence and_ — _))_

She's afraid to meet her own eyes, to examine her own reflection as it bounces off the window in front of her; as she raises her head to look at herself she's not sure what she feels, not sure if there's anything even left inside her to feel anything. Rumpled blonde hair poking out of bandages. Scratched open cheeks and lines of dried blood that disappear down her chin. Shoulders hunched and elbows braced along the edge of her control panel, hiding her ripped jacket and exposed wounds. Knees pressed so tightly together she can feel them bruising.

 _("You've grown up, haven't you?" The blue lips drawl, Cameron's breath fogging up between them. "Haven't changed though... Used to fight me like this when we were kids too...")_

Another shiver, this time so strong that her ribs cry out at the movement; blinking hard she sucks in a breath, looking away.

 _(Don't be a baby.)_

 _(Keep it together.)_

She can sense eyes on her as she turns in her chair, looking for something to distract her from her body and the trauma welling just underneath her surface; the seat beside her, Garfield's spot, is empty. And it's quiet still, the painful sort, but underneath her headache she can hear voices somewhere, hushed undertones coming from the back room she had refused to occupy when Kaldur had half-dragged her onto the Bioship.

 _(("I think you're concussed, Beautiful."))_

 _(Wally?)_

She clenches her teeth, resisting the urge to press her hand back against her skull— something else, some other sort of memory from too long ago, is bothering her, picking at her and trying to tempt her into weakness. Rolling her head on her neck she forces her eyes to remain open, nose wrinkling as she catches M'gann's stare across the room.

Grey irises cut into brown, the other girl not quite fast enough to conceal the concerned look she's sure has been boring into her back for the last however long they've been flying— two hours? Maybe more? "... Twenty more minutes." M'gann says after a moment, voice gentle.

She's about to nod in acknowledgment when she catches the look the other girls sends her— pity, plain as day and scratching into her as the chocolate eyes flicker over her exactly once before returning to staring emotionlessly straight ahead. It's the kind of look you send to a dying person, to someone whose ailments are too fatal to be acknowledged— it's the kind of look you send to a dog that's lying half dead in a gutter.

"... What was that?" She huffs, eyes narrowing.

Green fingers flex uncomfortably around controls. "What?"

"That look." She says severely, nose wrinkling as she turns more surely in her chair. "Why did you just look at me like that?"

"Artemis—"

She feels the familiar creep of artificial emotion crawling up the back of her neck, curling under her skull; letting out a noise of disgust she actually makes to slap it away, fingers struggling against an invisible invader. "God, M'gann—"

She stops mid-snarl when a second glance reveals a tuft of green stained hair peeking out from behind the other girl's shoulder, the half-second of hesitation enough for M'gann; the artificial calm seems to seep through her veins like sedative, dulling her anger under a layer of exhaustion. Letting out a single click of frustration she slumps forward, elbows bracing onto her knees as she struggles to keep a glare on her face.

At the sound of silence Garfield peers out from behind the back of his sister's chair, no doubt wondering why she's stopped her snarling. He looks so small, so much smaller than she remembers, standing there with dirtied skin and a single bloody bandage cut across his shoulder.

Despite herself her expression softens, the glare fading about the corners of her eyes. "Sorry." She says to the room as a whole, not really sure what she's apologizing for. "I... Sorry." Her tone is soft, one hand pressing her hair back behind her ears, struggling to arrange her face into a gentle half smile. There will be time to feel broken later. "How's your shoulder, Gar?"

The question is innocent enough, hardly probing as she glances in the little boy's direction. For some reason it's at this that Garfield loses his nerve, ducking back behind M'gann's chair and hiding again. "... Gar?" She repeats, feeling her brows furrow she sits up, frowning.

Her voice is soft, far softer than she would allow anyone to normally hear; still, the little boy remains hidden. "... Garfield?" She says again, glancing a little helplessly at M'gann and finding no comfort in her confused expression.

 _("Artemis?" Her father's voice echoes through the apartment, bouncing off walls and breaking the week's long silence. "Artemis!"_

 _The footsteps pound along the smoke stained carpet, doors smashing open as he searches for her, wanting to check that his youngest daughter hasn't escape him like her older, better sister; there's the sound of liquor bottles being pulled from cabinets, glasses clinking in the cupboards, her own heart thundering so loudly she's sure he'll find her, hidden and frightened behind her mother's dresses in the back of a forgotten closet_ —

 _"Come say hello to your old man!" Lawrences roars. There's the sound of glass breaking._

 _She knows better than to ignore a direct order; slipping out of the closet she goes to him. Hours later she picks shattered glass out from underneath her skin_ — _)_

Her stomach seems to seize up, the coldness inside her increasing a tenfold the longer she stares at the unmoving tuft of hair. He's hiding from her.

... He's afraid of her.

 _(The same way she's afraid of her father.)_

The thought alone is enough to make her feel sick, her likeness to Sportsmaster churning unpleasantly through her veins. Somehow it's this, a childish moment of cowardice, that hurts more than anything else she's endured tonight. Feel her stomach squirm with discomfort she ignores the bile brewing in the back of her throat, mouth dry as she tries to swallow. "... What's wrong, Gar?" She asks, voice hoarse as she sits there, dreading the answer.

Nearly half a minute passes before he straightens, all forehead and eyes as he stares at her over M'gann's shoulder. "... You knew the other girl." He blurts out, voice hushed as if afraid of making her yell again. "The one with the cat mask."

Her stomach seems to plummet somewhere about her knees, her eyes flickering once to M'gann; to her surprise the other girl is already staring at her, eyes silently critical as if waiting to see if she'll lie.

Seconds pass, far too many for her liking, before she gets the nerve to speak. "... Yeah." She says somewhat gruffly, shoulders rolling; automatically her eyes drop to her boots, elbows digging hard into her knees. "Yeah, I used to know her."

He hesitates, lifting his head higher; she doesn't like that he can only come out of his hiding place when she isn't looking. "She said that you were her sister." She nods her head, the movement making her nauseous; she doesn't want to say anything else, instead waiting for him to get the courage to continue. "But she's... Bad."

Another nods that makes her teeth clang together. "That's true."

There's a long pause where she can sense Garfield's head poking fully over M'gann's shoulder, trying to see the expression on her face. "... So what does that make you?"

The question nearly makes her laugh for some reason, her head jerking up to look him properly in the eye. Although he tries to erase the fear crossing his face he's not quick enough to hide anything from her. "I'm Artemis, same as always." She says as plainly as she can, wishing there was a better way to explain this— and wishing, even more, that she believed herself. "Jade and I... We're not the same, okay? I'm not my family."

He doesn't duck down, instead staring at her intently as she sits there, unblinking. She wonders now what Garfield must think of her. Wonders if he'll always be afraid of her, of what she was born into, of the raw truth she never wanted to have him hear. Because she is so tired of trying to convince others, of trying to convince herself, of trying to force the world to brand her as something other than a Crock.

It's very hard not to feel a small twang of heart break as he continues to keep his distance, no doubt scared. "…Y-your sister went back for you." He says slowly.

She's not expecting this. "... What?"

Although he quails slightly when her brows furrow Garfield keeps talking, hesitating before poking more of himself out from behind the chair. "Her and me were fighting." He mumbles, and despite herself her eyes fall to his injuries: the slice mark of a sai along the back of his knuckles that's now covered in white gauze and medical tape, the tear of the collar of his uniform and the blood soaked bandage that's too red for such a small body. "She heard you scream. And then she left me. Threw aside the pieces of the artifact." A beat. "... She went back to save you."

She can sense it's her turn to say something, to give details; rather than say anything she closes her eyes, one hand gliding unconsciously to the talon shaped cuts still on her face. Maybe the movement reveals more than she wants to, some sort of weakness she doesn't want to show— at once Garfield steps out from behind the chair, watching her closely. "... Why would she save you if she's bad?"

Her nails catch on the dried blood about her cheeks, scratching one of the wounds open; blinking back the unexpected pain and squints at him. "I don't know." She says honestly.

Little feet mark exactly three steps across the room before they hesitate, stepping back towards the safety of M'gann's chair. "... You save people." He says childishly. "How can you two be so different if you both save people?"

The question is so innocent, so brazen in its honestly that it breaks through the exterior of her heart; she wishes these things were easier to explain, that there was a way to make him understand without telling him the truth. As if sensing the emotion whirling inside her M'gann glances at her, clearing her throat. "No more questions, Gar." She says firmly. "You're making Artemis upset."

The little boy glances between them, looking a mixture of frustrated and confused; before either of them can brace themselves his green cheeks are blushing, one tiny fist rubbing too hard at his eyes. "I'm sorry." He blurts out suddenly, chin wobbling. "If I hadn't let her get away—"

She's taken aback when the words are cut off with a sob, Garfield's features screwing up with childish tears. "Oh, Gar." She murmurs, getting to her feet and trying not to wince when she moves towards him, limbs aching as she crouches. "Come here—"

He doesn't let her touch him, instead scampering back behind the safety of M'gann's chair; suddenly it's very hard not to cry herself. She's silently thankful when M'gann covers the sticky moment, voice soothing. "You did a great job out there today, Gar. You know you did."

"Of course he does." She agrees, shifting on the floor and pretending not to notice when he scampers around the chair, still afraid of her. "You did way better than I did on my first mission."

"Or me on mine."

Garfield lets out a very wet sounding sniffle. "I ruined it." He whines. "We were supposed to observe and report."

"No you didn't." She tells him, her voice shaking as she tries and fails to adopt the usual firm tone she takes with him. "Listen, you'll understand after a few times out—reconnaissance missions hardly ever go the way we plan, okay? Besides... I was the one who screwed up." She tells him kindly, the words tasting sour when she forces them out. "I haven't seen my sister in a long time. I got… Excited. To hear her voice."

If this is comforting to Garfield he doesn't show it, instead sniffling again. Trying a different approach she ignores his hiding, limbs aching when she forces them to circle the chair, catching his arm as he tries to get away. "You were great out there, Gar. I mean it. Without you there we never would have managed to get a piece of what those goons were after."

She gestures to the back cabin with her free hand, to the place she's only half sure the artifact fragment is; although the memory is only a few hours old it's foggy, dulled by the fuzziness of a concussion and a brewing headache—

 _(_ — _Garfield, bounding towards them on four legs. Garfield, wolfish fur matted with blood and canines clenched around part of the plate Jade had been after, spittle and fluid and blood caking in the sharpened lines carved into it. Walking past the back room where Kaldur and Tula were pouring over it, mind too fogged to think—)_

Garfield removes his arm from her grasp, sending her single untrusting look before he scampers away.

* * *

She blinks too much when the Bioship glides its way into the mountainside, the rapid fading of darkness into bright lingering too long against the fronts of her eyes; as the ship skids to a halt she ignores the tears burning hard at the behind her lids and the fact that Garfield has yet to resume his place in the seat beside her.

When they land M'gann is on her feet before she is, not even allowing her to get properly out of her chair before embracing her. For a long moment she stands stock still, as if it's suddenly months ago and she's not sure how to react to such closeness; no words pass between them but something larger, unsaid, seems to fill the gaps between their bodies, settling quietly in the nearly five seconds it takes for her skin not to crawl at the sensation of a cold body pressing against hers.

Her hands pat once, too hard, between the other girl's shoulder blades before she pulls back.

As always she knows M'gann understands, can sense the strange swirl of emotions she's not able to sort through as they swarm beneath her surface; again the predictable wave of artificial comfort passes over her as the other girl's hands drop to her side, not wanting to intrude. "… Garfield will come around." She whispers, the words so quiet she can hardly hear them. Over the other girl's shoulder she can see the little boy already hovering by the doorway, wanting to get away from her as quickly as possible. "He's just not used to things here yet... How things are going to be from now on. It'll be okay. And— and you'll be alright too." A strange pause. "Right?"

Although she hardly catches the whisperings of comfort she doesn't miss the way the other girl's eyes survey her, checking and double checking injuries as if childishly hoping they'll have disappeared. "... Yeah." She says between her teeth.

The word is more ferocious than she means it to be, and old barrier jutting up inside her—but to protect her from what, she doesn't understand. From pity? From her own vulnerability?

 _(From the fact that Garfield's right_ — _Jade came back for her. From that fact that that has to mean something.)_

M'gann's fingers knot together in front of her stomach, feet tottering for a moment as she takes a tiny step back. "We should get you to the medical bay." She tells her, louder this time, with a glance back over her shoulder; she must send some sort of look his way because at once Garfield disappears through the doors, sending her one final wary glance before he goes. She wonders if the other girl can sense that she's close to breaking before she can, if she's trying to help her by making sure there's as few people to witness it as possible. "… You're still bleeding."

Almost self-consciously she glances down, feeling a dull pang of surprise sound through her when she spots blood dribbling down her stomach—the cut beneath her breast hasn't clotted yet, a slow stream of crimson staining the slab of skin visible through the sliced open portion of her uniform. She wonders why she can't feel it—why suddenly every wound in her body, even her ribs, seems to have gone numb...

 _((_ — _"Artemis?" Wally calls out to her, sounding far away as her head seems to spin on her shoulders. She registers the sensation of steady hands pinning her back against a wall, boyish freckles swimming at the front of her vision. "Artemis, can you hear me?"_ — _))_

Before she say anything back to this she registers the sound of the back room opening. "It will have to wait." Kaldur tells the room at large, emerging behind Tula. "Artemis, a word."

M'gann actually opens her mouth to argue, stepping protectively in front of her before Kaldur shakes his head. "I am sorry, M'gann. It must be now." A strange pause, where all she can see of the martian is the stiffening of her back. "… And it must be alone."

The words aren't harsh, but something about the way M'gann's jaw drops tells her whatever argument the other girl had been thinking of throwing out is fading; although she can only see the back of her head and the tangles in her auburn hair she's sure she's biting her lip. "Come find me when you're done, okay?" She whispers, sending her one last glance before turning to leave.

The sound of M'gann's heeled boots has hardly faded along the metal floor of the Bioship before Kaldur clears his throat. "… Tula." He says warningly.

For some reason she can't stand to watch the affronted look the red haired Atlantean sends him, nor the emptiness of his expression when he refuses to meet her gaze; instead she drops her eyes to her feet again, staring at the black fabric of her boots until she hears the dull sound of bare feet slapping against metal, signaling that the other girl has left too.

Again, it's quiet. As she stands there she can sense him openly looking at her for the first time, can sense his eyes studying her injuries: the bandages on her head. The cuts along her cheeks. The kevlar along her neck that's been ripped open. The cuts in her uniform between her breasts, the tearing exposing the underside of one. The slices along the inside of her leg, exposing the pale skin between her thighs.

 _((_ — _She spits vomit from her mouth, struggling to focus on the puddle of sick she's left on the pavement. Warm hands are lingering about her shoulders, flicking her pony tail down her back_ —))

She doesn't like him looking, doesn't like the fact that she can practically hear his mind working, piecing together what kind of actions would warrant these injuries and marks. She can feel embarrassment running through her, can feel shame for some kind of weakness she can't name as she stands there at the mercy of his milky eyes; shrinking slightly she crosses her arms, wishing he would stop.

"… Artemis?" Kaldur says at last, her name inexcusably gentle on his lips.

"I'm fine." She tells him, jerking her head up and focusing on a point somewhere above his left shoulder.

 _(She wonders why it took her so long to realize that the words "I'm fine" are something she only utters so she won't have to talk about what is churning inside her, about all the feelings wanting to get out but unable to find their way. She wonders when "I'm fine" began meaning "I'm going to be set fire by my own secrets.)_

They both know she's lying; rather than call her out for it Kaldur's jaw drops. "... Aquaman was the closest League responder to our location in Siberia." He tells her slowly; she can sense he's trying to brace her, to settle her with facts before he moves onto something messier and less easily talked about. "The remaining Shadows and the warehouse are under investigation by League authorities. Icicle Junior is on his way to Belle Rive as we speak."

She nods, the movement sending a dull ache to the front of her skull that makes her stop. She's not aware of the way her hands shift beneath crossed arms, clutching at her jacket as one palm presses the blood below her breast back into her skin.

Kaldur pretends not to notice the movement, going quiet for a long time again; at last he sighs, one hand extending upwards to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "… I must ask, Artemis." He mutters. "You understand why I have to."

She swallows, feeling something gritty—bile, maybe—sticking to the back of her throat. "… So ask." She mumbles, evasive.

The hand on his nose drops, milky eyes turning to her in a pained sort of way. For a moment he seems to flounder, trying to find the right words. "Did he—?"

He can't finish the question. For some reason this comes as a relief—she's not sure she can stand to hear the words out loud. "No." She says after a moment, listening as he exhales. "… No. Icicle Junior—" It's her turn to stop short, her mind actually throbbing as the night comes back in flashes: ice pointed fingers, blue lips, cold skin—

 _("No!" She had screamed beneath him, thrashing against invading hands, ice splattered claws ripping her legs apart. "No! No_ —" _)_

"...I knew him." She hears herself say, voice hushed. "Jade and I both did, when we were little. Our fathers were friends."

And before she can stop herself the words are coming out of her, sticking to her tongue as she spews them up: hearing Jade talking to him, going after them across the lake. The way Icicle— _Cameron, Cameron_ — had seemed almost deranged when she hadn't remembered him, shoving her head through ice. And then it had come back, all of it, including the reason why she had blocked it out in the first place—

"And Jade came back." She whispers, voice growing hoarse from all the talking. "Like before. She saved me—the Cheshire Cat always comes back…"

This last part doesn't make sense to him; when she finally looks him in the eye Kaldur's brows are furrowed, confused. "The Cheshire Cat always comes back?" He repeats.

She inhales through her mouth, tasting blood and bile on her tongue. And at once it hits her, all at once—tonight and other evenings all falling into place and making sense. "Whenever I'm in trouble, Jade protects me." She breathes, hardly speaking to him anymore; automatically one hand raises to run through her hair, getting caught in a mess of tangles and bandages as she yanks on the platinum ends, ignoring her headache and trying to focus. "Always. And Red—Roy, I ran into him. He had been looking for me, trying to tell me that Jade had been missing, that he couldn't find her, that he was worried she was in too deep again—" Her breath hitches. "… Because she'd only been working with Shadows before. But now she's with my Dad again, and he's—"

 _((_ — _She blinks at a triangular mask, staring too hard at the apple eyes when they crinkle, a crooked sort of half smile that sends her stomach twisting. "Let's have a loot at that, okay?" He ask easily, gloved fingers brushing against her chin softly, too softly_ —))

"… He's got her working with the Light directly. With him. Because…"

Because why? The question seems to hang in the air, just out of reach—why would Jade go back to Lawrence? It's one thing to work indirectly via the Shadows but the way Jade had been talking to Cameron… It was like she was doing this under his orders. Obeying him again. But… Jade would never do that.

 _(So why, then? What does their father have on her?)_

She can sense Kaldur isn't following her, and maybe she doesn't understand her own thoughts either—all at once the rush of understanding seems to teeter to a halt, smoking out. "Where's Jade?" She asks suddenly, grasping at straws as her thoughts begin to muddle again.

"… She escaped with the other half of the artifact. Her Shadows were waiting for her in a helicopter."

Absently she glances towards the back room, mind now churning forward again. Sportsmaster has Jade collecting artifacts now. She's directly involved in Metropolis, in Athens, in everything—

 _(Jade is working with Lawrence.)_

 _(Which can only mean one thing_ — _She's in trouble.)_

Before she can second guess the instinct she's taking a few jutting steps back, reaching for her quiver and swinging it over her shoulders. "I'm going after her." She tells him, extracting her bow from where it's compressed against her hip and opening it with a snap of her wrist. "Did anyone put a tracker on her?"

When she glances at his face she can see the surprise etched there, the whites of his eyes very sharp against his dark skin for a moment before his brows contract, no doubt studying the slightly maddened expression on her face. "… I do not believe so."

"Then I'll take the artifact—"

"—Artemis—"

"—she'll have to come after me then, then I'll—"

"Artemis _."_ Kaldur cuts across her, stepping between her and the back door of the Bioship when she makes to move towards it, both his arms raising as if prepared to shove her backwards. "Artemis, you must calm down. You are in shock."

 _((_ — _"Wally." She tries to say his name, blubbering over the syllables and missing letters. For the first time since her mother left she allows herself to reach for someone, her vomit caked fingers extending towards him_ — _))_

As he says it she's suddenly aware of the fact that her hand has reached up without her knowing to fumble with an empty quiver, the whole of her limbs shaking slightly with a kind of barely restrained madness as they struggle to hold a defensive position. "… No I'm not." She says quietly, hearing her voice waver.

 _(Arrows, she needs arrows. She can stop at home. Or one of Oliver's weapon caches. Or at the Cave, if she can make it to the Cave she can get more arrows_ — _)_

"Artemis." He says patiently, following her clumsy movements with ease as she attempts to get around him. "... You are trembling."

She knows he's right, her mind fogged and her limbs exhausted with the effort of holding herself upright; letting out a noise of frustration she snarls at him, nose wrinkling and lips ripping back to expose her teeth. "Kaldur—"

He's hardly phased when she makes another bumbling attempt to duck past him; despite his gentleness as he drags her backwards the movement still sends her stumbling. "You are not up to your usual standard, my friend." He tells her patiently, not looking particularly concerned when she swears over him. "You are not up for another fight, even against an opponent as patient as I am."

It's a challenge, one she nearly is baited into accepting— there's a very tense moment where she simply stands there, aching muscles quivering as she attempts to set them, bones unwilling as she raises her limbs into a fighting position. "I—" She starts, voice breaking with exhaustion as she glares at him; seconds pass, and at last she feels the tightness in her face break, her fingers trembling as she lowers her fists. "… She saved me, Kal." She exhales, straightening.

 _(And that has to mean something.)_

"I do not think you are remembering correctly." He tells her gently, finally lowering his hands when she takes a step back. "You are not well, Artemis. When I found you she was pinning your head in the snow. You were screaming."

She blinks, ignoring the pain still throbbing at the back of her skull; clutching at her head she forces herself to breathe, looking him in the eye as steadily as she can. She makes it nearly ten second before she breaks, chin wobbling. "… What if she's in trouble, Kal?"

She's not sure where the words come from, why they sound as broken and small as they do; something twists about the corners of her eyes, and at once she can feel all the emotions stirring inside her flooding to the surface, not hidden even when she hides behind her hands.

 _(And although she knows that there's still sore feelings between them— that the two of them are both still reeling over the harsh words they exchanged before the mission began, and maybe they'll never forgive each other for hurling the truth in each others faces— she can sense him shoving all that aside as he takes a step towards her, drawn to her like a parent comforting a child. And maybe that's something she's always admired about him; how easy it is for him to bury his feelings, to hide them in the heat of the battle or the low burn of the aftermath, while she can't stop them from igniting her from the inside out—)_

"Tonight is not the night, Artemis." He tells her gently. "You are injured. You are tired. You need rest."

Her chin wobbles again, the breath she tries to draw in only rattling in the back of her throat and not providing any oxygen. "I don't care—"

"You do not have to." He says not unkindly, although when she finally glances out at him from behind her hands there's something slightly stern about his eyes. "You are to go to the medical bay. That is an order."

Despite these words he reaches for her, placing a hand in a reassuring way on her shoulder; she can sense that he wants to hug her, to hold her, but is holding off—is he afraid of her too? For some reason the thought hurts her, her face screwing up as she ducks her head, trying to hide from him and what she's feeling.

 _(And maybe Wally was right on the 4th of July_ — _she doesn't allow herself to feel things. She ignores her emotions and then they burst out of her, vivid fireworks of trauma and bad memories. But this, what's happened today, what's happened tonight_ — _fighting with Wally and Kaldur, failing to protect Garfield, being attacked by Cameron, and seeing her sister, wanting to run after Jade_ — _it's all too much, all too much at once, how is she supposed to feel so much at once without falling apart_ — _)_

He takes his hand back before she wants him to, instead remaining silent for a moment as she tries to hold herself together, the breaths she's pulling in emitting a tiny squeak in the back of her throat. "Quiet now." He tells her softly. "There will be time for crying later."

 _((_ — _"Artemis, it's alright." He whispers_ — _))_

She doesn't listen, one gloved hand reaching up to scrub at her eyes.

"Hush, Artemis." He whispers, voice more stern as he gestures towards the exit. "I will go with you. It is time to leave."

Something inside her—the same small and innocent thing that was once attacked by Cameron all those years ago, the same thing that was beaten again tonight—seems to stir in the pit of her stomach. She's felt it before, in times of weakness; that wild impulse to want to be treated like a child, to be taken care of in a way she hasn't been before. And she's never indulged it, not like this at least—wiping at her cheeks again she pulls in a strangled sounding breath, reaching for him.

 _(And although a part of her—the one that puts up walls and reinforces barriers and winces when people try to touch her—screams at her to stop... She doesn't. She doesn't keep it together. She falls apart, a thousand bricks tumbling inside her as she wraps her arms around his middle, demolished.)_

 _((_ — _And as Wally peels her mask off her face and touches her cheeks with tenderness she is too bruised for she feels it; her own hardness sharpening, tightening, fighting back against the confused tears that are throbbing behind her eyes. Because he is being so kind, so sweet, when he could be like anyone else and leave her bloody and down; and for a moment she nearly sobs out for him, nearly opens up, nearly cries_ — _))_

 _((_ — _but if she opens, will she ever be able to stop pouring_ — _))_

 _(And all the distance between her and Kaldur—the old fights, lingering grudges, the marled edges that come with these kinds of friendships—don't matter anymore. Nothing does.)_

She doesn't cry, doesn't sob. But for the first time ever she allows herself to feel... This.

She clings to him.

And for the first time in months Kaldur is there, steady and sturdy as always.

* * *

Shocks wears off and is replaced by exhaustion, a kind of weariness lingering in her bones that makes her feel heavy, weak; by the time Kaldur coaxes her out of the safety of the Bioship all the wounds in her skin are no longer stinging but instead aching quietly, dulled by the buzzing that's returned to her mind after so long.

 _(She has never known her body to be anything other than a battleground. And it is harder than she ever imagined to turn a warzone into someplace where the ghosts of those she hurt before don't haunt her, don't cling to her from beneath the dirt hardly coating their graves_ — _and maybe the fog will never really fade, and the coldness in the deepest parts of her will never thaw. But she is trying, trying to get better and feel more and stop thinking about the weight carved into her ligaments from all the bad she's ever done.)_

 _((And that has to count for something.))_

 _(And even if she's too much of a coward to let herself be that weak again, even if she is embarrassed over her crying and her childishness and the delicate thing inside her she's so set on protecting... Maybe somewhere_ — _underneath the ghosts and the walls and the dirt_ — _she can admit one thing to herself: crying felt better than all the screaming she's ever done.)_

As promised Kaldur stays with her, guiding her with the occasional encouraging nod as she wanders, so absorbed in her thoughts she's nearly blind, through the halls. She can tell he doesn't want to touch her, either out of respect or fear or because he simply knows her too well— can tell that despite the moment they just shared she's determined to never be touched by anyone ever again, can tell that the feeling of another person's hands on her sends an actual wave of revulsion through veins; as if the weather can sense it too she winces at the feeling of static clinging to the ends of her hair, rain drops beginning to patter distantly against the ceiling of the Cave.

… Waking up to Wally this morning feels like a distant memory from another lifetime, a snapshot of another girl's life more than hers. But that's how it always is, isn't it? Wally was hers to lose from the beginning—a prize she wanted but was never meant to have, a brief flicker of normalcy in her otherwise twisted existence. And no matter how much neither of them may like it, no matter how many storms—like the one brewing overhead—may try to force them back together… She knows that it can't happen. Not now, certainly; maybe not ever. Not as long as she's so screwed up. Not as long as her father is still out there—

 _(And not as long as Jade is still at his mercy...)_

Kaldur's hand finds its way to the small of her back as her footsteps drag slightly at the thought; when she flinches at the contact he does his best to hide the emotion that crosses his face, fingers retracting before he nods encouragingly onwards. No… As long as Lawrence is still out there, she's in danger. Jade's proof of that, isn't she? Proof that escape is only temporary, a lull of freedom in the monotony of their imprisonment, until the next moment her father finds something to use against them, something to place them back under his control…

Her boots are filthy as they pace along the tile, her body exhausted and feet dragging as they walk onward. She wonders what he's got on Jade. Jade, who's always been so independent. Jade, who's never needed anyone. Jade, who's proof that the only way to survive is to play the game according to one rule: _every girl for herself._

The rain grows louder, making it difficult to hear her own thoughts and sending them puttering to a halt; at the same time Kaldur pauses, bare feet skidding to a stop against the tile as his brows knit together. "... What?" She asks, throat gruff as she glances once at the set expression on his face before following his gaze to the opposite end of the hall.

"... Nothing." He says after a moment, still looking forward. "I thought I heard—"

She doesn't listen to the end of his sentence, ears already picking up something in the distance; below the rain there's something else—her eyes narrow, mouth opening, but before she can speak—

The walnut scented air bursts through the hallway seconds before Wally does, a wreck of speed and limbs as he comes stuttering to a stop; in his haste his feet fumble over each other, the whole of his weight slamming shoulder first into the wall. Her stomach seems to clench and then drop, a familiar wave of dread running through her; he's been moving fast, even for him—she hears him let out a ruddy sounding exhale as he slaps himself upright, looking almost drunk as he staggers towards them—

"Where is she?" He blurts out, not realizing who he's stumbled upon. "What happened? I just met M'gann—"

The words cut off, apple eyes finding grey. Wally looks at her, a wreck of emotions and human weakness.

At once her stomach seems to have twisted and plummeted to somewhere about her ankles, hands automatically curling into fists. It's like looking in some sort of demented mirror, as if she's seeing everything she's felt tonight reflected back at her, raw and defined. Terror, adrenaline, torment, heart-break—it's all there, staring back at her so ferociously that suddenly it's easier, much easier, to simply close her eyes.

"Kid." She exhales, voice wavering as she struggles to keep her tone gruff. "I'm—"

 _(_ — _Fine.)_

She means to finish the sentence but can't, instead leaving it hanging in the empty air. She inhales roughly through her nose, willing herself to be more than a wreck of screwed shut eyes and too tense muscles; again her mouth opens, the word not coming out before she grits her teeth shut.

 _(She was never good at lying to him.)_

Whatever she's hiding from is still visible to Wally, his words hushed and sharp as they fire out at her. "... The truth, Artemis." She doesn't know why the words sound unkind, the tips of his ears beginning to glow with a type of anger she doesn't understand. "What happened?"

She winces, but whatever excuse she's about to make is lost when Kaldur steps in front of her, effectively cutting between them when Wally makes to get closer. "Kid." The older boy says warningly, pulling himself up to his full height. "Now is not the time."

The rain seems to pick up against the ceiling, thrumming along to the anxious pounding of her heart; Wally's footsteps are hardly audible as he keeps moving towards them. "Like hell it isn't." He snarls, voice taking on that unwelcome rough edge she so hates. "Move, Kal."

To his credit Kaldur doesn't back down in the face of Wally's snarling, spine stiffening as the other boy moves closer. "Stand down, Kid." He says flatly, fingers flexing into fists. "Artemis needs rest. You can speak with her when she is out of the—"

"I'm talking to her now." Wally cuts across him, nearly bellowing as he comes to a stop less than a foot away, ears a deadly crimson. "Get out of the way—"

"Hey." Her voice much quieter than either of their yelling but somehow more commanding; she doesn't like being talked about as if she's not in the room, as if she's a child they're trying to decide how best to deal with. Feeling her nose wrinkle she steps around Kaldur, ignoring the dull purple blush coloring his neck. "It's okay." She says with as much authority as she can.

The words are soft but severe, her nobly fingers stiff as her nails cut into her palms; despite the command he doesn't move, his milky eyes pausing from their glaring at Wally to glance at her. "You are to go to the medical bay, Artemis." He tells her. "That is an order—"

"I'll take her." Wally cuts across him, jaw dropping and suddenly looking older than she's seen him look in a while. "Just give me 5 minutes."

Kaldur doesn't look convinced, jaw swinging between them for a long moment before he fixes her with some sort of stare she can't read. "I'll go." She says at last, nodding only half-convincingly. "Just let me… Deal with this."

" _This?"_ Wally repeats, eyes narrowing into apple colored slits when she adds the last part. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Shut up."

Kaldur's eyes find hers again, blinking with a silent sort of understanding; still, Wally's gaze swivels angrily between the two of them when they finally nod. "Fine. I will see if there are any updates from Aquaman." Kaldur mutters, at last stepping out from in between them. "... 5 minutes."

For some reason Wally's head to turns to glare at the other boy as he makes progress down the hall, the two of them exchanging something unpleasant and unsaid before he turns back to her, still scowling. "So that's what I am now?" He sneers. "Another thing for you to deal with?"

Her head is beginning to throb again, one of her hands reaching up to press a stray piece of hair back into her bandages when it's ruffled by her own annoyed breath. "Right now you are."

"Fuck you."

She doesn't mean to wince when he swears at her, palm shifting along her skull to ward off another, deeper wave of headache. Wally must notice the movement because at once his expression softens, anger breaking into some other emotion she can't quite place. "... Sorry." He says gruffly, one hand seeking his neck.

The apology sends a strange roll of affection through her, something about the familiarity of the movement that goes with it comforting; for a long moment the hallway is silent except for the sound of the rain, still pounding furiously against the ceiling. She not sure what she's supposed to say.

... He's looking at her, really looking at her; as the quiet stretches on she can sense him taking in her wounds, the marks on her body and the slices in her uniform. And for the first time she looks just as closely back—he's pale, freckles sticking out like pock marks against his skin. The whites of his eyes seem more noticeable, buggier, a single muscle jumping in his cheek—

Her brows furrow. "... Are you alright?" She asks after a moment.

The words are too soft, more tender than she means them to be. For some reason Wally snorts the second the question is past her lips, hand flying from his neck in exasperation. "You're kidding." He scoffs, stepping closer and ducking his jaw to better look at her. "You come here— looking like that— and you ask me if I'm—"

The words flounder and putter out, another snort firing out of his nose as he clamps a palm to his forehead; for some reason she blushes, arms crossing. "... Can we just get this over with?" She mutters after moment, slouching as her eyes find her feet. "Can you just yell at me, or call me stupid, or whatever you want to do?"

"You're not stupid."

He sounds so sure of it, so confident when he immediately corrects her; at once she can feel emotion begin churning inside her stomach, hot and vulnerable and afraid of him. And she's always been weak around him, this much she knows for sure— as Wally falls quiet she feels her throat tighten, ears straining to register something, some sound, anything to distract her from the feeling of him staring at her. "Well, whatever." She mumbles, the words warbled. "... 5 minutes, remember?"

Sneakers skim the tile as he steps closer. "... I saw M'gann." He tells her again, voice softer but still oddly ragged; she pretends not to notice the intensity of his eyes as she raises her head to look at him. "And Tula, when they first came back. They said something about… Cheshire. And some guy. Some guy tried to hurt you."

The buggy eyes flicker once, too quickly, over her body again; she feels a squirm of discomfort run though her when they return twice to the sliced open fabric between her thighs. "… You need to go home, Wally." She says lowly, tightening her arms around herself. "There's a storm coming—"

"So?" He cuts across her, brows crinkling as another muscle jumps in his neck. "You think I'd just leave? After I found out some—some guy tried to—"

His voice breaks and the words die; with a wince Wally drops his jaw, shaking his head as if the thought is too disgusting to allow within his skull. The hands at his side clench and unclench, as if he's trying to force feeling back into his fingers. "That doesn't matter, okay?" She tells him, voice catching on phlegm in the back of her throat. "That—I mean—not right now. You need to leave, Wally. You can't—"

"Of course it matters!" He cuts across her, voice hitching and nearly yelling; the words burst out of him violently, followed by immediately by a few haggard breaths that are pulled in so sharply she's sure his lungs are aching. It takes nearly half a minute before he can speak again, voice shaking as he spews out half-thoughts, stuttering and talking too quickly for her to really understand. "—We take care of each other, that's what you said— that's what we do. You need me. You need me, so I came—"

"Wally." His name doesn't sound right when she says it; it's obvious she's beginning to get frightened as his voice stops coming out altogether, indistinct whispers rolling out under his breath. "I don't need you, okay? I don't know why you— what you were—" Her head throbs, a low panic beginning to pulse through her. "You have to go, Kid. There's a storm coming—"

"You think I care?" He throws at her, taking a step forward until he's practically bellowing in her face. "I don't give a damn what happens to me."

She's expecting it when he tries to touch her, palms flying up as if to yank her by the elbows towards him; feeling her nose wrinkle she takes such a violent step backwards that she nearly stumbles. "No." She hisses, lips curling back so far she can feel the dried blood on her face cracking. "You don't get to— not after tonight." She mutters lowly, stretching out the words until they linger on her tongue, bitter. "... Please just... Don't."

 _(She doesn't trust herself to hold it together with him close, doesn't trust herself not to spill over her edges and drown him. And most of all she doesn't trust that kind of touching, not anymore, not when she's not sure if his warm hands will suddenly feel like cold ones...)_

Wally's ears blush crimson, mouth twisting and spasming into a frown as his hands fall back to his side. "... I'm here." He whispers, throat cracking. "I just need to— I don't care about the storm."

"Well... I do." She doesn't know why it takes her a second to gather her nerve, drawing in a rattling breath before raw emotion seems to burst out of her. "I care, Wally!" She says coldly, speaking so loudly that the words send an odd ringing in her ears. "… I care, okay? I can't—I can't be whatever you want me to be right now. I can't stop you from tearing yourself apart, or ripping through whatever's in your way when you're going that fast. Not tonight. I'm not... I'm not strong enough. I can't hold you together, not when I'm— I can't."

 _(As she says it she tastes bile on her tongue, the words bitter in the back of her throat as she forces them out; it's childish, hating to admit weakness, she knows it is. But she can't—can't be his Lightning Rod, be a landmark, be whatever it is he needs her to be. And not just tonight; she's never going to be strong enough to keep him safe, to protect him from that electricity running through his veins, to love him the way he wants her to...)_

They're both quiet for a moment, irises locked on each other and glaring at each other the way they used to. She hates that she's the first one to look away. "It's been 5 minutes." She says flatly.

Wally hardly gives her second to breathe before he's starting again, scowling when she steps around him. "Go to hell." He hurls after her, footsteps already pounding after her when she tries to leave. "Don't walk away from me!"

"Stop following!" She snaps back childishly.

She nearly trips over her own feet when he speeds in front of her, hair flipping into her eyes as he comes to a stop. "You want me to stop?" He snarls at her, scowl rooted into his features and making them suddenly sinister, un-Wallyish. "Then fine, I'm done. I'm finished chasing after you."

The words are so malicious that they catch her off guard, the wrinkle on her nose flattening as the corners of her glare muddle with confusion. _"Fine—"_

"Because people either want to stay or they don't, right?" He talks over her, breathing heavily. "You'd know that better than anyone."

 _(_ — _Paula and Jade and Lawrence and Wally_ — _)_

 _(It's the list, the one tattooed inside her, of everyone who has ever let her down.)_

She feels as if he's just slapped her, the words stinging her cheeks and soured by the walnut scent as they collide against her face; feeling herself color she ignores the pain in her ribs, drawing herself up to her full height. "You are such an—"

"I thought this was what you wanted." He sneers across the cuss, ears now practically maroon. "I thought this was, like, a test or something. That you were trying to get me to prove how I felt about you.

"But I get it now. I get people like you— people who are always running and too fucking busy hating themselves to see what other people might be feeling. I thought I was supposed to chase you. I thought I was supposed to come after you to keep you from getting too far gone. I thought if I could just—"

The words putter out, all the anger inside him too much for a moment; it takes him nearly ten seconds to get his train of thought back, a single violent shiver ripping through his spine as he tries to focus. When he speaks again all the emotion from his voice is gone, replaced only by a strange sort of exhaustion. "... It's okay, I mean." He mutters after a moment, palm snagging through his hair. "I'm tired of all this running too."

She knows he's expecting her to yell, can tell by the way he winces as his hand falls back to his side that he's waiting for her to scream a few dozen swears at him. Expecting her to hit him, to make him pay for spewing all her faults between them. And maybe, for a moment, she nearly slaps him.

 _(She wonders what Jade would do.)_

Dimly, somewhere inside her, she can feel hurt settling in— can feel the impact of his words and his anger cutting through her, slicing her deepest parts open. She can feel the tears behind her eyes as his meanness washes over her, as what he's just said bashes against every vulnerable part of her that's been exposed tonight. She can feel him watching her, wanting her to cry, to snarl, to scream.

... But she is tired. And even worse: she knows he's telling the truth.

She blinks about a half dozen times, glassy eyes dropping to the floor. "... Okay." She mumbles hollowly. "Can you move now? Please?"

She doesn't look but can sense his surprise, can tell by the way his walnut scented breath bursts out with a distinct drop in his shoulders that she's caught him off guard. "... Artemis?" He mumbles, the question behind her name so soft she can pretend not to hear it.

"Move." She gets out, voice shaking. "Please."

 _(She can't cry. She can't be weaker than she's already been tonight.)_

 _(Useless.)_

 _(Pathetic.)_

 _(Worthless.)_

 _((What would Jade think?))_

She grits her teeth, keeping the whirring emotion bottled in the darkest corners of her mind. As usual Wally doesn't bother to listen, not even when she raises her head to try to glare at him again; rather than quail at the expression his brows only knit together, seeing through her. "… What happened?" He asks suddenly, eyes flickering between hers. "What did that guy do to you?"

"Move—"

"Artemis."

She feels her chin begin to wobble, her lips sealing together for a moment as she struggles to keep herself together; giving up she steps around him, walking so quickly it sends all her limbs aching. It takes more effort than it should to get the edge back to her voice. "... You don't get to ask those kinds of questions, Wally—"

"But Kaldur does?"

The questions is so unexpected that she nearly trips over her own feet, a scowl splattering across her cheeks as he catches up to her. "Kaldur?" She chokes out, glaring through her tears at the loudness of his sneakers against the tile. "What does he have to do with anything?"

For some reason Wally exhales, letting out an angry sounding breath, keeping pace with her easily. "Everything." He hisses, running a hand through his hair. "It's always been like this—you two keep secrets behind my back. It's like you're both part of some little club I can't figure out how to get into, and you make these decisions—"

The two of them round the corner towards the briefing room, the rain somehow louder in here than in the hallway; distantly she can hear other people talking, any words they're saying being drowned out by her sigh. "I thought you were done with chasing after me." She reminds him, wiping her eyes angrily on the back of her hand.

"Don't change the—"

She winces when he makes to grab her wrist, catching her hand as she's lowering it from her cheek; feeling her nose wrinkle she rips herself from his grasp, the movement so violent she nearly stumbles. "Don't—" She snarls, shoulder aching when she slams into a wall, not allowing herself to feel pain as she flattens herself against it, pinned there like a cornered rabbit. "Don't touch me, Wally."

She can feel her breasts heaving as she hisses at him, face contorted and wild and strained against her own desperation. "Artemis—" He sighs, taking a step closer and only looking impatient when she flinches.

"I'm serious. I can't... I can't."

There's something in her voice, something even she can place— something hidden underneath the fear and the ragged breathing and the way she doesn't trust herself to look away. She knows he can sense it to, can tell by the way he suddenly frowns, by the way the fingers that had just touched her tremble before they curl into a fist at his side. "Just—" She bursts out, exhaling hard. "Just leave me alone, Wally. You being here is— is—"

She doesn't know what she's trying to say; without even finishing the sentence she silently hurts him, his eyes tightening at the corners before he looks away. "... I told Kaldur I would take you to the medical bay." He says flatly.

It's not the answer she wants to hear; suddenly the wild part inside her seems to spasm with unfurled adrenaline, a violent need to survive pumping inside her."So?" She bursts out, beginning to lose patience as she stumbles along the wall, trying to escape him and only growing more frightened when he keeps pace; they're so close to the briefing room she's sure her voice is carrying but she doesn't care, doesn't care about anything, can't think, can't breathe can't hear when he tries to say her name—

"I don't know how many times you've come to a skidding stop on your skull, Kid, but let me make this clear." she snarls, trapped by the edge of the doorway and her own trembling knees. "You don't get a say in my life, or what happens to me. You don't get to guilt me into giving a shit about you because you're still stupid enough to think I want you to drop everything whenever I get so much as a hang nail—"

"Shut up!" He snarls, the tips of his ears blushing a deep maroon.

"You aren't my boyfriend!" She yells over him, not caring about people hearing; she hates Wally, hates him, wants to humiliate him, hurt him. "I don't know how many times I have to say it. We aren't together. You aren't my boyfriend, you aren't—"

"Oh, yeah." He cuts across her, suddenly so angry now that he shaking, a sinister looking white blotching through the crimson on his skin. "I forgot. I'm just the guy you sleep with—"

"Fuck you!" She screams out, blushing a deep crimson. "You are such a—!"

He swears at her before she can finish, her ears ringing and balance warbled as she tries to stomp away; she can hardly think, the words echoing after her as she enters the briefing room with him still at her heels, both their feet clattering angrily against the tile. She doesn't care anymore, about who heard what or all the foul things they've just said to each other; her pulse is banging so loudly against her ears that at first she doesn't register the conversation they've walked into, doesn't place the yelling that signals they've found their way into another argument.

"Then we need to act now—"

"Not as I see it. I am telling you the same thing I told her: not tonight." Kaldur says severely, voice raised. "I am not taking a squad to rescue a known member of the Shadows."

She blinks back the anger from her eyes, dimly registering the illumination of the computer screen and the cluster of people gathered around it as she makes her way into the room, Wally still impossibly at her heels. Almost all the Team is here for some reason: M'gann and Connor with little Garfield between them, Dick and Kaldur in front of the screen, and yelling at them now—

"She's in trouble." Roy snarls back, looking as shrunken and rough as the last time she saw him; his hair is overgrown again, the scruff on his chin patchy and overlong. He's wearing his uniform still, the quiver on his back over half empty and his skin damp looking, as if he's just come in from the weather outside. "I've been trying to track her for weeks, if she's making deals with the Light—"

Her feet stop against the tile, boots squeaking; automatically all the heads in the room turn towards them. "What's going on?" Wally asks for her, voice still ragged and rough. "Red? What are you—"

"You." Roy bursts out, rounding on her and looking slightly unhinged as he starts moving in her direction. "Sweetheart. You saw her—Cheshire. You saw her, right?"

The ringing in her ears reaches a boiling point, forcing her to wince as he gets closer. "What—" She starts, cutting herself off with a hiss when he seizes her roughly by the forearms, dragging her forward.

"Hey!" Wally snarls behind her, the noise echoed by several other people in the room as he rushes after them, attempting to pry the older boy's bony hands from her skin.

She trips when Roy releases her, swinging her round to the center of the argument without so much as looking at her properly, oblivious to the holographic screen faltering as her hand slips through it. "You saw Cheshire. You fought her, didn't you—"

"What—I mean, yeah." She muddles out, straightening and seeking out Kaldur's eyes; for some reason he won't look at her. "Yeah— yeah, she was in Siberia, with the Shadows."

The words pass with a beat of silence as Roy continues to stare at her, eyes wide and creasing about the edges; after a moment he lets out a frustrated noise. "And?" He prompts her, practically snarling as he advances on her. "That's it? She didn't say anything to you?"

"I—"

"Because you're her sister." He throws at her, speckles of his saliva flying at her. "Everything she does is to protect you. You're tied up in this somehow, that's why she—"

She feels her nose wrinkle, the accusation stinging; before she can yell anything at him she's caught off guard when Dick places a hand on her shoulder, cutting across them both. "Enough with the 20 questions, Red."

Roy only makes another frustrated noise, whirling back to Kaldur; as if he can sense she's still on the verge of snarling something Dick's hand tightens, a silent warning to stay quiet; shrugging out from underneath his fingers she glances towards him, not comforted when she can't read anything behind his usual too dark glasses.

 _(Her head is aching, the lights in the room too bright. The ringing in her ears won't stop.)_

It takes less than a second to ignore the silent order. "I'm not tangled up in anything, Red." She sneers, fists clenching. "Am I missing something?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I'm just wondering what month it is." She growls, looking round at them all through narrowed eyes. "Because I thought I left accusations of being a mole behind in December."

"Nobody's accusing you of anything." M'gann says smoothly, rushing forward. "You need rest, Artemis. Garfield will take you to the medical bay."

For some reason she feels a flare of annoyance bubble up inside her, her temper fizzling low about her temples as she watches M'gann motion the little boy forward. She's being shooed away like a child, forced to let others decided for themselves what happened, piece together parts of her life for her; ignoring the throbbing about her temples she raises a hand to stop Garfield's unwilling progress towards. "Like I'm going to leave when—"

"You're still bleeding." Wally points out dryly, voice hardly audible above the rain as it begins to swell to a breaking point above them.

The skin on her knuckles nearly breaks open as she turns towards him, on the verge of lunging across the room to throttle him; this time it's M'gann who hinders her progress, gliding in front of her unexpectedly. "You're concussed, Artemis." She reminds her gently. "Nobody's accusing you of anything. You're just not thinking straight."

"You are going to go to the medical bay."

"Come on." Connor says gruffly, jerking his head towards the hallway that leads to the kitchen. "Don't make me drag you there—"

It's confusing, all the voices in the room seeming to blend together and the artificial wave of calm leeching up the back of her neck; again her temples throb as another hand makes to touch her, guide her, take her away from unravelling the mystery of Jade— No, she can't leave, she can't—

 _(_ — _Jade_ — _)_

For some reason she hears Roy most clearly, her disorientation swelling and then fading when she jerks out of M'gann's grasp; from a few feet away his voice sounds almost booming, eyes flickering over her. "Medical bay?" He repeats, brows furrowing. "Cheshire attacked you?"

She blinks, trying to sort out the memory as Kaldur starts speaking for her. It takes too long for the words to tumble out, cutting off the same unsure explanation he gave her back on the Bioship. "No." She blurts out. "It wasn't her. Icicle Junior. He…"

She doesn't want to give details, to him or anyone else in the room; instead of finishing she trails off into silence, one hand reaching automatically to press against the wound below her breasts, listening as the static begins crackling in the air.

Like everyone else Roy silently finishes the explanation for her, eyes straying to the rest of her injuries and studying the crimson stain that lingers on her fingers when her hand drops back to her side. After a long moment he makes an indistinct sound in the back of his throat. "… Hm. Well, you're used to that. Aren't you, Sweetheart?"

It's a cruel thing to say, although almost no one in the room understands it; she feels her face sour as Kaldur's expression snarls into a rare glare. " _Roy_." He says warningly. "Now is not the time to—"

"What does that mean?"

 _(No. No. Not now.)_

The words are low, dangerous, her eyes automatically flying to Wally when he says them; he's grown paler in the last few minutes, breath hitching slightly in his chest as his gaze flickers between the three of them, eyes bugged and blood shot. "… What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He repeats, cheeks more blotched white than maroon.

 _("I have never made a surface woman blush before." Garth grins, oblivious to the wrinkling of her nose as he moves closer. "The crimson color is quite pretty on you...")_

She bites the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes blood, hardly daring to glance at Kaldur as if afraid of giving anything away. "Wally—" She starts, sighing.

For some reason Roy laughs, looking at the mixture of confused faces and tension with amusement; she's beginning to think being alone, being with Jade, maybe hunting her for so long as made him slightly unhinged, crazy. "They never told you?" He scoffs, sneering when Wally only remains silent, still breathing heavily.

"Roy—"

"I told you not to call me that, Kaldur." The older boy snarls, spitting again before he turns back to Wally; her temples throb again and her vision becomes speckled with strange wavering spots, making it nearly impossible for a moment to read Roy's expression. "That's the reason why Garth and Tula were kicked out of the Cave all those months ago." Roy says roughly. "He took too much of a liking to Artemis on our trip to Athens. Waited till they were alone."

 _(Garth seems to expect her somewhat frantic lunging, stepping in between her and the Doctor's desk. "You are being naïve, Artemis." He sneers, moving closer until she can feel the wooden edge pressing against her back. "My heart beings to Tula. But if Kaldur is sampling my prize, perhaps I should sample his...")_

A beat, a long one, where Roy merely looks at the tortured expression on Wally's face and back at her, as if enjoying watching the havoc he's causing. "... Lots of secrets around here." He muses, glaring at her as if he's punishing her for something she's not aware of doing.

 _(As if he's making her pay for taking Jade away.)_

 _(As if, somehow, he's right. As if this is her fault.)_

The static in the ends of her hair seems to frizz about her ears, sparks sounding about her cheeks; as she watches another muscle in Wally's neck jumps, sweat beginning to bead at his temples. "I—you're lying." He gets out, looking between the three of them for some sort of confirmation. "He's lying, Artemis."

She swallows, trying to take a step towards him; again she's stopped by M'gann's hand on her arm, the martian's gaze fixed on Wally as if she's sensing what's about to happen as well as she is. "Wally." She tries to say in a smoothing tone, voice instead coming out rushed and anxious. "You need to leave, okay? You need to take the zeta tubes home."

The rain is getting louder, the pressure in the air making her ears pop; Wally continues to look at her, muscles jumping as he begins to shake. "He's lying. Tell me he's lying."

"Go home, Wally."

"Tell me!" He snarls, veins beginning to pop beneath his skin, his voice so loud it echoes several times over in the silence of the room.

She bites the inside of her cheek again, swallowing thickly when she tastes her own blood. "It wasn't anything!" She blurts out, struggling against M'gann again. "Nothing serious happened, he just… He was a creep, I told Kaldur, it was finished, okay? You need to—"

"And you knew?" Wally hurls out, practically screaming as he rounds on the Atlantean, beads of sweat beginning to dribble down along his temples; as he paces towards the other boy she can feel the air shifting, the pressure intensifying— her head is aching, pounding along loudly to her own heartbeat, the sound so intense she can feel vomit churning inside her stomach. "You knew and you didn't tell me?"

"Wally." Kaldur says evenly, trying to keep calm as the other boy screams in his face. "Now is not the time to—"

The words die when the zeta tubes whir to life, buzzing and flashing yellow and white, drawing all their attention towards it; the vomit is burning at her throat, dizziness swirling in her skull— it's too much, she needs to sit down, or stay still, her knees wobbling—

 _"_ _Tempest. B-10."_

Before she can even turn feel the dizzying dread unfurling in the pit of her stomach Garth is materializing, rushing forward and hardly registering them all, one hand pushing his onyx hair back from where it had fallen in his face in his rush. "I have just spoken to Aquaman." He tells the room as whole, finding Kaldur's face and charging towards him, out of breath. "He has just told me—in Siberia. A female in your squad was injured. Is Tula—"

And suddenly she knows what about to happen, can feel the static and the pressure in the air ignite to a breaking point. The ringing in her ears squeals out as lightning strikes beyond the Cave's walls, clattering and numbing and nearly drowning out the sound of a groan of pain—

Wally screams as the computer screen flickers into nothingness, atoms vibrating and cells seizing up; before Garth can even finish his question they're all hit with a blast of air, her eyes shutting as the sound of knuckles slamming into flesh fills the room.

* * *

It's anarchy, nobody but her realizing what's happened; before anyone else even has their eyes open again she's ripping her arm out of M'gann's grasp and charging forward. "Wally!" She shrieks, spitting hair out of her mouth. "Wally, no—"

She can hardly see the movements of his limbs— he's moving fast, faster than she's ever seen, pinning Garth to the floor and slamming punch after punch into his jaw, his knuckles ramming against bones and eye sockets and the splitting skin of the other boy's lips. All around her she can hear other cries of her Teammates, of people realizing what's happening, rushing forward to help. "Wally!" She cries again, not hesitating before she latches onto his forearm. "Stop it, stop it— listen to—"

But it's not enough, not in the wildness of the briefing room; before he can even still at her touch Garth is retaliating, catching one of his hands and shoving him off, his elbow catching her in the jaw— she gasps, blinking spots out of her vision as she stumbles; it's almost embarrassing, how easily the blow takes her out, how quickly she's tripping and slamming to the floor, letting out low hiss of pain.

 _(Pathetic.)_

Like always the noise—her noise— makes Wally hesitate, turning towards her with a maddened sort of expression as she lies there, blinking confusedly at the splotches in front of her eyes that are hiding him from her. As if dreaming he takes one hit and then another to the jaw, each time his eyes finding hers, locating her, a landmark to help him calm down before he's thrown backwards by another blow, his skin bruising and blood, she smells blood—

He stumbles towards her and at once there's a feral sort of snarling noise; with a squelch and a roar an emerald colored tiger is jumping over her, haunches raised and fangs bared as it flicks its tail, jowls snapping as little Garfield _(who hates her, is afraid of her, who has just realized what kind of scum clogs up her veins_ ) roars out in her defense. And before she can even blink it's too late—Garth lands another punch and Wally is snarling again, launching himself back into the fray and not looking bothered as Roy seizes him by the shoulders, attempting to throw him off.

She's not even sure what's happening, who's fighting who as she gets to her feet, being buffeted by Dick as he rushes into the blurry looking mass now trying to subdue Wally—Wally, who is only getting more upset by the sound, but the screaming, by the violence; there's another crack of lightning that seems to clang around the inside of her head, vibrating her bones as she tries to stand, tries to move forward—

"Wally!" She screams out, eyes following the great green tiger as it lunges forward, hissing. "Wally, listen to me, it's Artemis…"

Is she even screaming? Or mumbling? She can't feel the words trying to come out of her mouth as she makes to run forward, iron-clad arms encircling her from behind before she can even stagger closer. "I've got her." She hears Connor say, not bothered when she tries to struggle against him, her nails clawing and legs thrashing as he lifts her off the ground.

"Wally!" She screams again; he's being buried in bodies, in people attempting to both fight and help—she's yelling again, she has to be, his head turning towards her—

The lightning strikes and the lights flicker, leaving only black where his face should be.

* * *

"This is going to sting a bit."

Although this is fair warning she still winces when the cotton swab touches her face, something sterile flooding her nostrils; when she makes to pull back Black Canary places a steady hand about her chin, holding her still. "I know, I know." The older woman says gently, continuing despite the low noise of protest she makes in the back of her throat.

The medical bay smells too clean, the walls and floor too white. Somewhere beyond her line of sight she can hear machines whirring, a low hum of electricity filling the room. The fluorescent lights overhead flickering twice, just enough to bother her eyes. "Are we done now?" She asks impatiently.

 _(She doesn't like it here, doesn't like that the room smells of nothing and something all at once. She doesn't like the too hard twin bed Connor's unceremoniously dumped her on, doesn't like the fact that she hasn't been allowed to move from it since she got here. Doesn't like that the way her questions have been ignored, doesn't like that the few people trusts in this world have spent the last hour or so forcing her out of her clothes and into an itching hospital gown, pretending not to hear as her voice grew more desperate, her breathing more ragged, pretending not to notice when she had started crying, repeating the one question again and again—)_

 _(("Where's Wally?"))_

She shifts, wincing away from the gentle fingers as they clean her wounds.

 _(_ — _She doesn't like the bed, doesn't like how high it is off the ground; she doesn't like that only her toes touch the tile, doesn't like that this bed makes her feel like a specimen on display_ — _)_

"Now?" She asks again, cheek twitching.

Dinah is being patient with her, blinking exactly once as her whining echoes around the empty room. "Almost, Artemis. It'll be faster if you stop asking every minute." The swab lowers from her cheek and is discarded onto a metal tray, the older woman turning away and reaching for a long line of gauze and medical tape.

It's just the two of them now. The medical bay seems almost hollow as she glances around it again, marking their place amongst the rows of empty beds; the place is much too big for just the two of them, as if at one point the mountain was used to serving more than dozens of occupants. "Alright." Dinah says after a moment. "We've got the cuts on your face and neck cleaned. Bandages on your head are changed—I always forget how much head wounds bleed. You're lucky though, the cut is pretty small, no stitches… Now, you might be a little sensitive for the next few days—"

"I know." She interrupts, glancing at the door.

"—You'll be sensitive to light and sound, may have low level cognitive based symptoms— issues with short term memory, sleeping, emotional stability—"

"I've had concussions before."

For some reason Canary's brows raise and then furrow. "Then you'll understand why I want to keep you here overnight." She says slowly, the amused smile on her lips dulling with a sigh; before she can even open her mouth to argue Dinah's cutting her short. "You leave when I tell you to, Artemis." She says patiently. "That's an order."

She feels her eyes narrow, scowling at the older woman when she goes back to examining her medical chart and not bothering to argue— she knows when a fight is lost better than most people. Ignoring the throbbing at her temples she glares as hard as she can at her bare feet, not even bothering to look up when the older woman speaks again. "… Last thing, I promise. I can't leave without checking out that other cut."

Despite herself she glances up to follow the Canary's gaze, feeling suddenly self-conscious and small as she sits naked beneath the ugly yellow of the scrubby gown she'd been forced into by M'gann; the cut beneath her breast is still bleeding, tiny crimson marks staining the fabric. "Oh." She says dumbly. "… Right."

Dinah raises her brows when she hesitates, wincing when she reaches up to the tie of the gown behind her neck; as she fumbles with the fabric for a moment she knows it'll be impossible to hide the bruises Wally's left on her ribs, the cut from Cameron sitting so close to the other injury. With a sense of foreboding she yanks the tie free.

At first the older woman is polite, looking away and pretending to be busy with bandages and gauze as she presses her palms to her breasts, attempting to both hide her nakedness and the worst of what Wally's done; hunching slightly she does her best to ignore the way Dinah stops dead when she turns towards her, a line of bandages going still in her hands. "… Hm."

She doesn't like the tiny, displeased sort of sound the she makes, and instinctively she starts thinking of excuses; the lie comes out of her too easily, just as it used to when she was a child and was trying to hide her father's marks. "He kicked me a few times." She says, not looking at the older woman as she slouches, ignoring the jolt of pain that sounds through her ribs. "Icicle. Before he… Yeah."

There's a long moment of silence before Dinah makes an indistinct noise in the back of her throat, resuming her business with the bandages. "There's an edge mark." She says slowly, glancing at her. "Was he wearing steel toed boots? Sit up straight."

It takes her a second to recognize the order, wincing as she does so; if the older woman notices she doesn't say anything. "I don't know."

It goes quiet again, Canary's brows knitting together as she places a bandage underneath her breast. "You know, I've gotten a lot of bruises in my life." She tells her, seizing some tensor bandages and setting an edge in the middle of her stomach. "Hold that... This one almost looks a day or two old." She feels her eyes narrow, cheeks turning the faintest pink as she's forced to stop covering herself to pin the bandage against her ribs; when the Dinah glances up at her she's sure she's about to be caught in a lie. "… You sure he kicked you?"

She winces when she starts winding the tensor bandage around her ribs, hiding the injury in question from view. "I think so." She says vaguely, going back to covering her breasts when it no longer becomes necessary to hold the bandage in place. "… I mean, the few minutes before… It's the concussion, like you said. It's... foggy."

She can tell Dinah doesn't believe her but for the first time the older woman doesn't push her, instead pinning the tensor bandages in place with a silver clip and looking away tactfully when she makes to retie her gown. There's a silence, a sticky one, and when she speaks again there's a strange edge to her voice, something tired and bitter and out of character. "... I wish I could tell you that what happened to you tonight was an exception." She mutters darkly, arms crossing. "That Icicle was some sort of creep… It's just part of being a woman in this kind of work. It's not unusual."

She nods, not wanting to have this conversation; beneath the ugly gown she's wearing she can feel her skin prickling, a shiver running through her and seeming to linger on the places too-cold hands touched her. She wishes she were alone.

"… I hate that I want to tell you that you'll get used to it." Canary sighs. "I hate it. The first time is always the worst—"

"It's not the first time." She says impatiently, not wanting to waste time with being cared for. "That guy, Icicle… I knew him when I was a kid. He's… He's done stuff like this before."

The older woman's face goes blank, so deliberately restrained that at once she's sure Dinah is hiding her surprise. "What does that mean?"

"N-Not… I mean, not exactly like this." She backtracks, hating that she can practically see the notes that Canary's mentally adding to her file, another scrap of information to help piece her together. "I don't really—I kind of blocked it out. But tonight… I don't know. I just remember him as a strange little boy who tried to... Kiss me. Once. And then—"

She stops short, not wanting to mention her sister. For a long moment Dinah looks at her, studying her face and the scratches on her cheeks; at last she must get the sense that she's telling the truth, a heavy sounding sigh slipping through her lips. "… I haven't done a very good job protecting you girls." She says after a second, sighing again. "You're in my office tomorrow, okay? 3 o'clock."

The older woman won't look at her anymore, instead busying herself with cleaning up the scraps of bandage and gauze littering her bed. "… Dinah?" She blurts out, not taking it as a good sign when she doesn't even look up. "… Where's Wally?"

A long pause, a calculating one. "... He's fine, Artemis." Canary says, patience fading from her voice. "The League is on their way to handle him."

"But—"

"But nothing." Again Dinah avoids her eye, gesturing to her bed as she makes to leave the room. "You need sleep."

She doesn't think she needs to be kept here, alone and monitored; her mouth is just opening in argument when Canary reaches the door, fumbling with a security system beside it. "Goodnight, Artemis." She says not unkindly, the electronic key pad chiming out shrilly as the door shuts behind her.

For a long moment she stares at the place where the other woman has just disappeared, brief pangs of disbelief sounding through her; as if she's going to spend the night here, alone. Not after everything's that happened, not after Wally—

Wally. The last time she had seen him he had been snarling, too-pale and shaking as Dick pinned him to the floor. Even as she remembers it now she can still hear the inhuman sounds he had been making, his skin waxy as it had blurred beneath the others' blistered fingers, struggling to escape as he had been pinned down…

 _Is that even a real memory? Or something she only thinks she remembers..._

The machines hum around her, the floor cold as she slips off the bed. There must be room for fifty patients here, beds stretching out on either side of the ward, each one as sterile and unused as the one she's occupying. It's all so impersonal, unfit for a building full of children— no, this is a ward for soldiers, for military, each station as cold and empty as the next: a bed, a fading yellow curtain, a black metal cabinet—

Her fingers find the metallic notch of her own drawer and pull, not surprised when it doesn't open. Still, she can guess what's in there— a copied file documenting her medical history, something Canary can make notes in before transferring to her more permanent record. For a half second she considers removing the pin from her bandages and picking it— but no, there's no point. She knows what she'll find in there—

The second drawer is larger, taking up more than half the cabinet and opening sluggishly when pulls it forward. Clothes. At least seven plain looking grey tee shirts and several pairs of loose fitting pants, each identical and unisex and— and all her size. Folded too neatly and crammed into the drawer. Waiting for her.

... Her mind is still moving slowly, staring at the drawer's contents with furrowed brows and not sure what this is supposed to mean. Straightening, she glances around, taking in the number of beds and the identical black cabinets; ignoring the stiffness in her ribs she walks to the next bed over.

Top drawer: locked. Second drawer: clothes. All size small.

Another bed. Top drawer: locked. Second drawer: clothes. Size small.

The next one— top drawer locked, and clothes, clothes, clothes all size— large.

Her head throbs as she glances around at the mass amount of empty beds, at the identical cabinets and curtains and bed spreads. She doesn't understand why her stomach is twisting, churning unpleasantly as she crosses the strange empty isle between the rows, hip bumping against the edge of the bed opposite as she approaches the other cabinet.

... The bottom drawer is empty.

And the top one is— unlocked, but—

Empty. Pristine. As if it's never been opened before.

The tile is cold on her bare feet as she walks back to her bed, mind bogged down as she glances around, thinking hard. Dozens of beds, dozens of clothes. Dozens of locked drawers.

 _(Like they're waiting on dozens of patients.)_

 _(Dozens of heroes.)_

Her bed is close to the door. The seventh bed, on the right hand side.

 _("Artemis. B-07.")_

 _(Does everyone have a bed here? A cabinet? Clothes?)_

... And if so, who do all the other beds belong to?

Her stomach is still squirming as she comes to a stop beside her own cabinet, bending to retrieve a shirt and pants from the drawer. She knows she has no reason to distrust this place, knows that the medical bay and the beds within it are simply another part of her second home. And maybe one night here, in this strange, unnerving place, won't kill her. But she can't shake the feeling that—

Her eyes catch something glinting on the top of the cabinet, half buried beneath a roll of gauze and medical tape; placing the carefully folded clothes on her bed top she reaches for it.

The reflection of the fluorescent light off the delicate golden A bothers her eyes even though the plastic bag— a sole possession, the only thing she had on her when they brought her here. The chain seems to stare at her, blotted out in some places by militaristic block writing, detailing her name and alias and number; ripping past the seal she dumps the tiny necklace into the palm of her hand.

 _... Wally._

Feeling her face sour she makes to yanks at the back of her gown, feeling the rough fabric slip off her skin and drop to the floor. She doesn't know why her fingers tremble when she fumbles with the clasp.

She doesn't know how long she stands there, naked and wearing only Wally's necklace; all she knows is that the instant the delicate metal touches her collar bone it seems to settle into her, melting into her skin and sitting between her clavicles, as if a part of her body.

Distantly, she hears thunder.

... No, there's no way she's going to stay here tonight. Not when Wally needs her. Not when she's the only person who can— the thought stops short inside her head as her feet flatten against the floor, her knees wobbly as she stands. Can what? Calm him down? Keep him safe?

 _She's the only one who can be his Lightning Rod._

 _(And even though she's not sure what that means_ — _she knows it has to mean something.)_

She's hardly aware of getting dressed, slipping the utilitarian clothes over her skin almost blindly, taking care only to tuck the necklace beneath the collar of her shirt. A Lightning Rod, whatever that is. Whatever any of it is, the confusing mess between the two of them, all the damage they've done between last night and this one…

She's almost surprised when she finds herself face to face with the door, her hand already braced on the unmoving handle; to her right the keypad offers no clues, screaming shrilly when she punches in random numbers and pound signs.

 _(_ — _This place is... A distraction. A strange one, she's sure. But she can't_ — _she can't afford to pay it any attention, not when Wally's out there, lost, trying to find his way back to_ — _)_

So what now? She could break down the door, she supposes. As soon as the idea raises itself she takes a hesitant step back, muscles aching in a mixture of pain and exhaustion; for a long moment she stands there, hands raised and knees trembling as she measures the door up to size, buzzing mind struggling to find a weak point. But—no; dropping the stance she sighs, impatient with her fatigue, with the fact that she's running on very little sleep, that she can't do this—

 _What is this, anyway?_

Letting out a frustrated noise she runs a hand through her hair, fingers becoming tangled in bandages. She can't do this: can't be trapped here, can't be tired, can't stop herself from thinking of Wally. And Wally—she can't do any of that either: can't stop herself from wanting him, from hating him, from missing him…

 _But can she stop being his Lightning Rod? Whatever that's supposed to be?_

 _…_ _How is she supposed to let him go if this… Whatever it is keeps bringing them together? How is it fair to either of them?_

 _…_ _Is that it now? She's just supposed to drop everything to take care of him?_

 _How is she supposed to do that when she can barely take care of herself?_

She doesn't know how to answer that question, nor the conflicted feelings that seem to be brewing inside her; before she can muddle around the thoughts inside her head she's distracted by movement on the other side of the door, footsteps appearing as black shadows through the gap above the floor. At once she's forcing emotions aside as she flies towards them, ears straining to hear the intelligible whispering on the other side—

The door bursts open with a startling bang, the sound alone making her jump; ignoring the pain that strikes up her bad leg as she stumbles she does her best to straighten. "What—"

She's only allowed a moment of confusion before Zatanna seizes her around the neck, ignoring her squirm of discomfort as she hugs her. "I heard what happened." The other girl says into her shoulder, pulling back to send a worried sort of look to her bandages. "M'gann told me. I couldn't stand the idea of you spending the night alone—"

She ignores this sentiment, instead extracting herself from overlong black hair and clinging hands. There will be time for sentiment, for feelings, later. "Where's Wally?" She cuts across her. "Is he still at the Cave?"

"I—" The emotion on the other girl's face seems to dull, as if she understands that something much bigger than the two of them is happening; she watches as the familiar azure eyes glance behind her, brows furrowing at the mass of beds. "Yeah. They took him to the Underground. Artemis, what's going—"

"What's the Underground?" She interrupts. "The whole Cave is underground."

"Even more underground." Zatanna clarifies, looking troubled when she dodges around her and into the hallway.

She doesn't question it. "Take me there." She commands, voice rough and almost snarling; for the first time in a long time she can feel memories of Huntress stirring inside her. "I need to see him."

Instead of responding with the urgency she wants the other girl sighs. "Artemis." She says carefully, voice too gentle. "You've been through a lot, okay? You need rest, and quiet—"

"Zee—"

"He's restrained, okay?" The other girl talks over her, voice raising slightly. "He won't be able to hurt anyone. Members of the League are still dealing with what you guys found in Siberia but the Flash is coming to help us—"

"Zatanna." She practically snarls out, nose wrinkling; it takes her a second to pull herself together, exhaling loudly and catching on phlegm in her throat. "I need to see him. I can—I can help him." Despite the fact that she can feel her cheeks reddening pushes onward, voice urgent. "I've gotten him out of this before. Trust me."

She doesn't like the fact that the other girl hesitates, doesn't like how long she stares her down; she can tell she's looking for something, something to doubt or make less of. But she knows Zatanna, and Zatanna knows her. And she knows that when the younger girl sets her jaw like that the battle is won. "Black Canary won't like it." She says at last, the words not even out of her mouth before she's moving, pacing out a few quick steps for her to follow.

Her heels ache as they pound against the tile, her balance unsteady as she follows Zatanna around the turn of a corner. "Since when have either of us cared about being liked?"

* * *

She feels separated from her body as she follows Zatanna into the depths of her Cave, her mind running so quickly over what little information the other girl is hissing over her shoulder that she can hardly process it—Wally's restrained, in confinement. He had tried to hurt them, Dick has a black eye. He won't stop screaming, won't stop fighting them—everything, all of it, doesn't sound real as her heels clang into the floor, the desperation inside her tuning out any kind of pain, storing the ache of injuries to be felt later, much later—

She can only remember being like this once, maybe twice in her whole life—so completely detached from her own reality, her own suffering, and so focused on someone else; as she peels around the corner thunder rolls overhead, letting her know that somewhere, somewhere lightning is about to touch the ground close by—

" _It feels like the lightning is running through me—"_

 _(And suddenly she's not in her bedroom in the dark but in the bloody snow of Metropolis, trying to call Wally back as he slips someplace where the sound of her voice can't reach him—)_

She's been to this part of the Cave before, the same mess of nondescript door-lined hallways appearing on either side of them as they keep moving. "Right down here." Zatanna instructs her, glancing over her shoulder the same way she's been doing every second step, double checking that she hasn't stumbled or fallen behind in her haste. "There's a door—"

It's as plain as the others, a single door at the end of a short hallway; when they push it open she's immediately met with the downward shooting staircase and a cold-smelling dampness. "I didn't even know the Cave had a level this deep." She hears herself say, muscles aching as she follows Zatanna down the stairs.

"None of us did." The other girl admits after a moment, offering her a hand as she reaches the bottom few steps. "It wasn't even on any of Dick's maps. Black Canary only knew about it from confidential League files…"

Zatanna releases her hand and the first thing she notices is the cold; it's as if this part of the building is older, operating under another heating system that's hardly turned on, the air smelling damp and almost musty. The other girl doesn't move beside her, instead allowing her a moment to take in the empty looking hallway, looking suspiciously at the stretch of doors and opaque looking windows that she can't see through...

She doesn't know why she hesitates, why she takes an extra look around; unlike the rest of the Cave, which is modern and well-cared for to the point of being almost too-comfortable, this place feels... Off, deliberately hardened and impersonal. "… You're getting a weird feeling too, right?" She says under her breath.

Zatanna doesn't say anything, instead watching as she takes a few steps forward, her toes feeling almost clammy against the cement floor. The further she moves down the hallway the less opaque the windows become, masses of reflective black fading into a lighter grey the closer she gets— She pauses, staring through now hardly tinted glass and into the room behind it; she's expecting to see another boardroom, a dozen chairs neatly gathered around an overlong table, the same drab and boring décor as always—

Almost instantly she feels her stomach twist in discomfort. No board room, no boring carpet. Beyond the tinted glass she sees only white walls and a white floor.

… And a single chair. And a table.

"… The Justice League needed interrogation rooms?" She hears herself say, feeling slightly unnerved as she turns back to Zatanna, brows narrowed.

The other girl merely shrugs, joining her beside the glass. "I guess so." She mutters, glancing at her reflection.

For some reason the thought makes her a little sick; the idea of keeping someone here, depriving them, hounding them for answers until they broke. She doesn't like the fact that she's been sleeping over this place, unknowing, for months.

She lets out a ragged sort of exhale, her breath fogging up the glass. Between this place, and the medical bay...

 _No. She can't think about this. Not now._

"... Come on." She says after a moment, turning away.

Again the other girl hesitates, biting her lip and not making to follow; after another moment she sighs, seeming to gather her nerve. "I don't think the Underground was just for interrogations." She blurts out, waiting until she turns around to look at her confusedly. "I went looking through the other rooms. I think… I think they kept people down here. For a long time."

"… Like a prison?"

"I don't know." A loud pause where Zatanna inhales and exhales with apparently uneasiness. "... But Canary thought of it pretty quickly. As if she'd seen... Like they'd had to contain someone here. Someone else who they couldn't control."

A strange surge of dread seems to rush through her, the chill in the air sending the hair prickling on her arms. "… Where's Wally?" She asks, eyes narrowing.

"... Artemis—"

She ignores the other girl when she reaches out a hand, apparently to comfort her; feeling bile rise in her throat she turns on her heel. "Wally!" She yells out, breaking into a run and ignoring Zatanna when she yells after her. "Wally! Wally!"

She rounds a corner, not daring to look through any of the windows anymore, her lungs aching as she continues to yell; behind her she can hear Zatanna running after her, trying to catch her, calm her down—

"Artemis?"

She near trips turning another corner, hardly taking in what's in front of her—M'gann curled on the ground like a cat, Dick and Connor standing, cross armed and serious—at once she only sees a door and a window, a prison, where they're trapping Wally—

She skids to a stop and ignores their questions, slapping her palms hungrily against glass.

* * *

He doesn't look like Wally, doesn't look like the boy in the desert— he doesn't really look human anymore, if she's being honest; between the spaces of her fingers she hardly recognizes him through the waxy mask his skin has become, shrunken and too tight and clinging to his bones, veins bursting along his skin and marking gaunt paths towards his heart.

They've got him tied up like some sort of animal— pieces of plastic and rope that are keeping his legs pinned to each chair leg, arms bound behind his back, and something— her fingers whiten as they flatten against the window— a belt, thick and sturdy enough to only belong to Connor, strapped across his chest, keeping his back flat against the chair. Bound there, trapped, unable to run; she watches in horror as parts of him begin to blur, his atoms singing against the restraints, a dollop of blood bursting down his nose when he cries out, forced to stop— dribbling down into his mouth, choking him—

She can't hear him, the glass too thick and the walls too insulated. But she can feel it, can feel the way he drags in snarling breath after breath, shaking, vibrating, rigid; she doesn't want to look, doesn't want to watch as his jaw tightens, snapping, eyes bugged as he screams, pieces of phlegm and saliva spewing from him, veins bursting along his neck. No, this isn't Wally— this is the demon that haunts him during the night, the thing that settles into his bones the second the first branch of lightning touches the ground. This is not her Wally, not her anything— this is a stranger, with sweat dribbling in steady lines down his chin and eyes that stare in horror at the blankness of the walls.

He screams again, and somewhere inside she does to; she watches as his breath seems to rip out of his lungs, pieces of his hair sticking to his forehead as he shrieks, again and again—

 _("I just need to run. I feel it in my body, and if I don't move it's like I'll_ — _I'll be burnt alive. Or explode. Or_ —" _)_

The memory flares hard to the front of her mind, incredibly loud in the silence of the hallway; even with her back to them she can sense everyone watching her, reading her, trying to figure out what she'll do next. If she's entirely honest, even she doesn't know what her next move it.

Someone— Connor, she thinks, judging by the size of the palm— places a hand on her shoulder. Ignoring this she shrugs away. _Next move, Baby Girl. Come on._

She screws her eyes shut, thinking hard. "… Let me in there."

When she turns round to glare at them all she's sure she's just missed the exchange of bewildered looks. "… Artemis." M'gann says gently, rising from her place on the floor. "You should go and get some rest. You've had a very long—"

She steps past the comforting hand the martian extends towards her, instead fixing her scowl on the door behind Connor and doing her best to ignore another round of looks. "Let me in, Con." A pause, a loud one, where he only stares down at her, frowning. "I'm not asking again."

Before Connor can do any more than cross his arms Zatanna is snorting behind her. "I think you're fighting a losing battle, Arty." She says teasingly, quailing slightly when she catches her nose wrinkling at the nickname. "M'gann's right, you need rest."

"Says the one who brought her here." Dick chimes in, scowling for a moment before he winces; behind his usual dark glasses she can see a nasty purple mark tainting the skin around his eye. "I thought I told you to make sure she stayed put?"

Zatanna makes another annoyed sound, an angry huff of breath rustling the onyx waves about her shoulders. "Easier said than done, Boy Wonder." She mutters. "The girl's half dead and still asking for him. I don't think a few well-chosen words from me is going to—"

She's tired of their arguing, tired of them talking about her as if she isn't there; cutting them both off with an angry sounding hiss she makes a show of pressing her hair back behind her ears, thinking hard. "Where's Kaldur?" She talks over them.

An awkward silence in which no one answers her; she assumes the quiet means he's still dealing with the sudden appearance of Garth. "… Look." She snarls after a moment, fingers catching on bandages for a moment. "You guys have to let me in there."

"So he can attack you the way he tried to half the Team?" Zatanna sneers. "Yeah, right. I think you've taken enough hits for—"

"He won't attack me." She bursts out, head aching as she struggles to find the words, to remain focused on Wally and not the pain and exhaustion mounting inside her head. "Not after—I mean, okay, he will at first. But then—" She fumbles wincing, and looking helplessly between M'gann and Connor. "You guys know he won't. He won't hurt me."

She locks eyes with Connor first, the blue of his irises almost piercing as he stares at her, jaw dipped; for a moment that first night, that first time alone with Wally in a storm seems to ring so loudly in her ears she can hardly hear herself think. "Meg?" He says, turning to find M'gann.

A look passes between the three of them, something dark and meaningful; beside her Zatanna huffs again. "What does that mean?" She pouts, walking between the three of them. "What do you guys know?"

M'gann glances at her and at once she's tempted to do the cowardly thing, to let the other girl explain it; gathering her nerve she swallows several times, trying to find the words inside her. "Wally's been like this before." She starts, dropping her hands to her sides. "I don't really… I don't know what causes it. But I know there's always a storm. A Thunderstorm.

"None of us really understand it." She sighs, looking back at him through the glass and watching for a second as he struggles against his restraints again. "… And it gets worse every time. If there's lightning hitting anywhere close by it's like… He told me he can feel it inside him. And it makes him want to run, like if he doesn't he'll—"

Wally screams again, face screwing up and edges blurring; she can't look anymore. "He called me his Lightning Rod. When he gets like this he's like an animal, he can't—he can't tell what he's doing. I'm a landmark. Something to remind him where he is. Who he is."

It's quiet, the cold in the air chilling her as she crosses her arms. "… How come we've never seen him like this?" Zatanna asks, voice hushed and edged.

"I have." Connor nods, shaking his head. "Once, almost 6 months ago. I couldn't pull him out of it."

"But I can." She insists, looking around at all of them. "Usually I catch him before he's been in it too long. It's—it's easier to get him out of it if he's not really gone yet." She doesn't know where the words come from, doesn't know how she understands their truth, but she trusts them; finding Dick's gaze she stares him down as hard as she can. "Let me in there." She repeats, lips tightening around her teeth. "Every second you keep me out here is another second he's trapped in that— place. That wherever he goes where I can't call him back—"

Dick hesitates, fingers running along his jaw; for a long moment he's lost to his own thoughts, palm slipping round to the back of his neck. At last he nods to Connor.

Nobody has even moved yet and M'gann is already at her side. "… We'll be on the other side of the glass." She says quietly, no doubt sensing the churning in her stomach and placing the emotion better than she can. "If anything happens we'll be there."

She swallows. "I know that." She says not unkindly, twisting the handle.

* * *

The door isn't even shut behind her before the cold hits her; all the heat seems to have been sucked of the air, leaving her with the sudden sensation of having been submerged in freezing water. Before she can stop it she's letting out a small gasp of discomfort, the noise hardly louder than a breath as a shiver runs through her, the door cold on her back as she leans against it.

 _(There is a moment, a weak one, where she nearly turns on her heel and leaves.)_

 _(She's afraid_ — _and even though she should be okay admitting that, even to herself, the thought still digs into her shoulders unpleasantly.)_

Wally looks round at the noise, expression waxy and eyes unseeing as he snarls at her, lips ripped back over bloody teeth as he lets out a pant. The breath he's pulling in catches on phlegm, the fluid rattling at the top of his throat and choking him.

 _(She's afraid.)_

 _(But she can't be. She can't be. She can't be, not when Wally needs her.)_

 _(Even if he's not her Wally right now.)_

And for a long moment she stands there, frozen against the door and feeling overwhelmingly like an hare with its heel snared in a trap. She can tell by the veins pulsing around his eyes, by the stark white against the blood shot irises that he's not really seeing her— his mind, she knows, is far away and fighting against whatever it is trying to take him. He's still snarling, a few half growled noises ripping out of him as he struggles repeatedly against his restraints, his atoms vibrating and his blood flowing hot and thick from his nose down to his chin.

She has faced her father, her sister, looked death in the eye a thousand times over— but never before now has she ever been gripped so fiercely by the impulse to run. The urge seems to flood through her, hitching about her lungs and wobbling at her knees, all the muscles in her body tense. She wants to, needs to run— to hide, to lock herself away, to take any measure possible to escape this, this… This _thing_ inhabiting Wally's body, this thing that's snapping it's jowls at her and exposing teeth, this thing that has taken over the one person she thought to be safe and turned them into a monster, a demon, another thing to haunt her at night, another thing to be wary of, another thing that only promises death and pain and hurt if she goes near—

 _(Artemis is a born runner.)_

Her fingers fumble for the door knob for a moment, muscles jumping beneath her skin as she locks her joints in place. She grips the metal so hard the rounded edges nearly cut through her.

 _(... No. No.)_

She tries to inhale and finds no oxygen. "Wally?" She tries to say.

The words are warbled, hushed and broken and hardly audible despite the quiet of the room; Wally continues to snarl at her, his repeated struggling now sending his weight ricketing about the chair legs. She swallows again. "W-w..." Her voice breaks; inhaling so hard her ribs ache she forces herself to leave the safety of the door, aware as she does so of the eyes watching her through the pane of glass. "Wally?" She whispers, willing her voice to be louder. "... Can you hear me?"

The snapping teeth turn towards her, coated in blood; she raises her hands, half expecting him to fly at her, to slip past his restraints and start throttling her. "… You need to listen to my voice, okay?" She says quietly, feeling as if she's advancing on a skittish coyote as she moves further into the room. "Focus on me. It's Artemis—"

She's can't even finish her name before he's screaming, watching with a gasp as he starts chocking on his own blood as it pours down his throat; like the coward she is she flinches towards the wall, expecting a fight, expecting a struggle, watching helplessly as he rickets against his restraints, now struggling so badly he topples forward, the chair tipping sideways and sending him slamming to the floor—

She grimaces against the white paint, tears burning at the corners of her eyes, not wanting to watch the nightmare in front of her; the scream dies as the force of the blow rattles him, the chair scraping against the floor. "... It's okay." She whispers into the wall, not sure if she's talking to herself to him as she stands there, fighting off the urge to cry. "It's o-okay."

He makes some sort of noise— something terrible and helpless, a strange cross between a whimper and a snarl that seems to stick against the insides of her ears, echoing and forcing her to hear it again and again. She wants to leave, to run, to sink down along the white wall and clasp her hands against her ears, to dig the sound out of her mind and never hear, never remember—

 _(Focus.)_

It's harder to breathe, the smell of blood filling up her lungs and poisoning her. It takes nearly a minute before she's able to turn away from the uncomforting sterile white of the wall.

He's on his side, pinned beneath the chair against the tile, cheek smashed against the ground and blood oozing out onto the floor. He's still trying to snarl, trying to fight, shaking and blurring and—

And crying.

And maybe that's what forces her to move, what always forces her back to him; she hates seeing him in pain, seeing him hurt and lost and frightening and needing her. She hates this part of him, the part that needles through her walls and her coldness and forces her to feel things, forces her to go to him, forces her to move when every instinct inside her is screaming to run, to leave, to save herself—

The sweat on her back clings to the wall when she forces herself to take a step forward. "It's alright." She whispers, voice breaking as her throat tightens. "It's okay, Wally. I'm here."

The few steps forward she takes are hard fought, muscles aching and adrenaline fighting her as she gives him a wide berth, circling the room and not daring to look up to where she knows the eyes of her Teammates are staring at her through the blacked out glass along the wall. "You're alright." She tries to say as gently as she can, working her way around the room until she's behind him. "Just another storm, okay? You've been… Lost. For a few hours." She bends slightly, hesitating as she comes to a stop behind the chair. "But I'm here now. Focus on me, Wally. Artemis."

 _(Wally and Artemis.)_

 _(Just the two of them.)_

 _(The way it's supposed to be.)_

She can't tell if he's listening to her, his shaking only continuing to intensify; at the sound of her name again he cries out, the scream less desperate than before, shorter and meek. "You're okay." She tells him, reaching out to the back of the chair. "You're fine."

He groans when she hoists the chair upright, lips sputtering up blood as he tries to gasp in a breath; unconsciously she glances towards the glass, biting her lip.

"That's right." She whispers soothingly, watching as the tightness in his jaw tilts towards her, trying to find her behind him. "It's Artemis. You're alright."

And she knows what has to happen next, how to finish the job; unconsciously her hand shifts along the chair, reaching to touch him. But—

She doesn't.

Her fingers tremble just an inch from his shoulder, from the lines of taught muscle and bones that are beginning to become familiar again. She knows she has to touch him.

 _(The cold hands grope her breasts, slice apart her thighs. She screams, and screams again, but no one is coming_ — _)_

She can feel eyes watching her through the glass, staring as her fingers hover over him, not touching. She wonders if they can see the pain in her eyes as reality sets in— if she wants him back, she will have to touch him.

 _(Even if she can't touch anyone without feeling her skin crawl.)_

She tries to breathe, tries to focus. Tries to bite the raw inside of her cheek, tries to use the taste of her own blood to force herself to do this. Her fingers shake before returning to her side.

 _(She can't do this.)_

 _(And she wishes she were better at easing pain. And that she had the courage to be the soldier, had anything left inside her in this moment to bring forth words of comfort to stop him from falling apart. She wishes she could piece the both of them back together, wishes they could return to the people they found each other as_ — _the boy with the freckles and the girl with the overlong hair. But she can't. She can't she can't she can't.)_

 _((She wishes she had anything left inside her to give him. But now_ — _when her body has been bruised and ravaged by his hands and torn into and beaten by colder ones_ — _she can't find anything left. Nothing else to pour out to save him.))_

The hand that almost touched him curls into a fist, skimming against her thigh as she rounds towards the front of the chair; his shaking has changed, switched from violent tremors to uncontrollable trembling. He's still waxy, covered in sweat as she bends in front of him, staring hard at his unseeing eyes. "Come on." She whispers, voice more desperate as she gets to her knees, begging him. "Come back, Wally."

A great shiver runs through him, his limbs shaking so violently he nearly rocks the chair forward; instinctively her hand shoots out to catch him, a jolt of pain running up her arm and pooling near her ribs as her palm cuts into the back of the chair. She feels sick, vomit spiking into the back of her throat when she smells walnuts; and he's close, so close, his muscles jumping and lips parting, struggling to pull in air, to pull back to himself, his sweat and blood dribbling down his face.

"You're almost there." She pleads, wanting to touch him but afraid to, her eyes stinging with tears as they flicker between his unseeing ones. "...Come back to me, Wally." She whispers. "Please."

The unseeing eyes blink, blood coated lips dragging the taste of her breath inside his mouth. The pupils blow out, and suddenly she knows what about to happen.

Unseeing, he leans in, dragging the last bit of life out of her.

* * *

His mouth locks on hers and she feels the first tear slip down her cheek.

For the first time in her memory she has to force herself to stay still, not to pull back when he kisses her; it's very hard to force the vomit, the trauma, back inside her, impossible not to screw her face up into a grimace as her body is violated all over. She hates it; hates the taste of blood and the reminder of the stain of Metropolis. Hates that as it happens she feels all her muscles flinch with revulsion, with hate, with fear for her life. She hates that her body suddenly feels like this thing others get to use, something that belongs to someone else for their needs rather than hers.

 _(She hates that kissing Wally has become another thing that scars her.)_

 _(Hates that someone else has taken something precious and comforting and turned it into something she is too broken to stand.)_

 _(She hates it, but it doesn't matter how she feels_ _—_ _right now, in this moment, she has to be a soldier. And no matter how battered and beaten it may be, her body belongs to this mission. To her Team.)_

 _(To Wally.)_

His lips are ice cold, unmoving against hers for the first few seconds; more than ever she can feel the eyes on the other side of the glass staring at them, watching as she screws up her face, trying not to cry. Almost forcibly he pries her mouth open beneath his, inhaling the taste of her and shuddering at the warmth she sends flooding into him.

 _(And at once it feels no different, Cameron on top of her and Wally kissing her now—either way it's not what she wants, not something she's doing of her own free will. Again the small thing inside her curls around her heart, wanting to run away, wanting to hide, to protect her from this violation, from another boy wanting to take something from her—)_

 _((But it is different. With Wally it's always different. And this is the same thing as taking a bullet for him, or dragging him to safety though the dirt—they take care of each other, this is what they do—))_

 _(She would trade parts of her to keep him safe. And this is no different, no different_ — _)_

She tastes walnuts without wanting to; not able to take it anymore as she pushes him off her, wincing at the sound of the chair toppling back onto its legs, another eerie shudder running through him as he opens his eyes—

As she makes to hastily wipe the tears from her cheeks she can tell he's back, can tell that he's inside his own head again; she hears the ragged sounding exhale that bursts out of his mouth as she wipes the taste of him from her mouth, swallowing the scent of walnuts from her tongue.

 _(She will never be able to kiss him again.)_

Her cheeks sting as she scrubs them clean, finally raising her eyes to meet his; at once his pupils blow out, eyes blinking rapidly as he stares at her, taking her in. "Artemis?" He breathes.

He tries to move, to raise an arm in comfort, the binding along his arms and chest stopping the action before she has the chance to flinch back from it. At once she can see the confusion billowing out at the backs of his eyes, the apple orbs flickering down to where he's restrained in the chair, to where he's sweat through his clothing, to where the blood has dripped onto his shirt. "Wally…" She starts to say, listening to his breath hitch as he starts to panic. "Listen—"

He swears, the curse echoing around the room and ricocheting of his muscles as they begin to tremble. "Again?" He bellows in her face, waxy skin wrinkling as he screams. "It happened again?"

The shouting makes her head throb, a mixture of pain and panic spiking through her; ignoring them she swallows thickly, words spewing out in their place. "I'm sorry." She whispers, voice thick as her chin wobbles. "I-I tried to get you out of there but there was just so much—"

Wally's face twists up in anguish when she apologizes, head dropping until he's staring at the blood stains on his chest. "Oh my god. Oh my god." He repeats again and again, rocking against his restraints but no longer attempting to escape them. "What did I do? I-I hurt you again, didn't I?"

He's working himself up again, muscles beginning to jump at odd intervals along his neck; when she doesn't immediately answer he lets out a loud groan, the noise gut-wrenching against her ears. "What did I do?" He yells into his lap, voice growing thick as his ears redden. "What did I do?"

Again she's overwhelmed by the instinct to run. "Kid." She says, voice low and stern; biting the inside of her cheeks she forces herself to move towards him, her knees pressing into the tile. "Kid, come on. Look at me."

Like a child he shakes his head, ignoring her as she settles between his knees. "No." He whimpers, jerking his head away from her hand when she raises it to try to force herself to touch him. "I don't—I don't wanna see what I did. I don't want to—"

 _(He's breathing hard, the walnut scent like poison as he slaps her across the cheeks; she can't do this, can't be close to him, can't save him like she's supposed to—)_

And she should be kinder about it, her own trauma and emotion getting the better of her; the ringing in her ears seems to reach a fever pitch as her nose wrinkles, snarling under her breath. Seizing a fistful of his sweat slicked hair she yanks his forehead back, forcing him to look at her. "You didn't do anything to me." She tells him firmly, unblinking as his gaze flickers between her eyes, looking for a lie behind the scratchiness of her voice. She does her best not to look at the blood dribbling from his nose. "I promise."

Wally winces when she releases his hair, brows furrowing as they stare at each other; she's sure it's only her use of the last two words that convince him. "… What happened?" He whispers at last, staring her down. "What _—_ where are we?"

It takes her a second to figure out how to word it, biting her cheek and shifting her weight uneasily as her knees begin to grow sore against the tile; almost unthinkingly she looks away, watching as her fingers move of their own accord, hovering over his skin for a moment before they pull away. "We're below the Cave. Zatanna called it the Underground." She mutters. "Some sort of place for... I don't know."

She fumbles the end of the question, not sure how to give him information without upsetting him; as if aware that she's withholding something Wally frowns, glancing about the room. "What happened?" He repeats, looking at the blackened window before glancing back at her.

"... Same as always." She mumbles, watching his ears color again. "Only this time the whole Team was there. The lightning struck and you _—_ you lost control. They took you down here to stop you from attacking everyone."

His sweat lingers between her fingers, sticking to her skin as she wipes her hand repeatedly against her thigh; Wally's breath rustles a piece of her hair as he exhales, watching her carefully. "… How long?" He breathes, clearing his throat. "How long was I… Gone?"

She settles her weight back onto her heels, hands twisting anxiously in front of her stomach. "I don't know." She says honestly. "They took me to the medical bay, I couldn't… A few hours at least. I… I'm sorry. I tried to get to you but—"

"Don't." He cuts her off, shaking his head. "You don't have to apologize. This isn't—this isn't supposed to be your problem. I mean, you were right—this morning, everything you said. I can't depend on you for… Everything."

There's weight to the words, enough that when she meets his eyes she's struck very suddenly by how intense the look on his face is—so this is it. He's done with needing her.

 _(Why does that hurt the way it does?)_

And she knows what she wants to tell him _—_ that he can depend on her for some things. That they're still friends, despite everything _—_ but the longer she stares at him the more the words bury themselves inside her, unspoken. She never could lie to him, and maybe that's what the words are now _—_ now that she's been bled out, now that she's more damaged than she's ever been. Maybe she'll never be strong enough to be anything for him, ever again...

Even though she drops her eyes to the floor he keeps staring at her, watching as she struggles to keep whatever she's been feeling hidden from him. "The Team sent out a League wide alert." She says after a moment. "… The Flash will be here soon."

"Right."

He's still looking at her, staring at her as if she's some sort of lifeline he's clinging to; shifting uncomfortably she gets to her feet. "So…" An awkward pause. "So I'll un-tie you."

When she makes to reach for Connor's belt still strapped across his chest Wally flinches, actually attempting to lean back from where her fingers brush against his chest. "I—Don't." He mutters, ears reddening. "I don't want to… I don't want to risk anything. If you're staying."

Her hand falls back to her side. "… Do you want me to stay with you?" She asks after a moment, voice oddly hoarse.

For some reason Wally winces again, suddenly unwilling to look at her. "You don't have to." He mutters, staring at his lap. "... It's just easier. If you're close."

The last part is so quiet she can hardly hear it, the meaning plain when his ears blush another shade of crimson. "... Wally." She sighs, feeling her stomach sink.

"I know." He interrupts before she can finish. "I know, I remember what you said when _—_ I know." He says plainly, wincing. "You don't have to _—_ we don't have to. Just... If you're in the room."

Her head throbs as she drops her jaw, staring at him and trying to see through his mumbling; when she doesn't immediately say anything back Wally backtracks, blushing. "I'm sorry." He winces, shaking his head. "I'm probably the most selfish person in the world for asking that. You probably _—_ you probably want to be alone. After tonight, after everything _—"_

"No." She hears herself say before she can make a decision. "I mean—I can stay."

She's not sure why the words come out of her mouth, why they sound so sincere. This isn't what's supposed to happen—he's giving her an out, an excuse to run away from him the same way she did this morning, the same way she's been itching to since she first walked in here. He's trying to be a gentleman, to let her tend to her wounds in private, to let her sprint out of here and into the worst parts of herself to try to recover from... Everything. And she's supposed to leave, to turn her back on him the same way she's been trying to since she first left him, alone and cold in front of their window.

She wants to leave. But _—_

 _… Why is this so hard for her?_

… Why can't she just let go of him? Just leave him alone? Why is it that the second either of them attempt to move on they're shoved back together again? Why can't she make up her mind, why is she so caught between wanting him and hating him, between wanting to forget and wanting to hold on, between walking out of the bedroom in the morning and dragging him closer in the darkness—

Apple eyes meet grey, his brows furrowing as she exhales loudly through her nose; feel frustrated with herself she turns her back on him, walking exactly three paces until she's less than a foot from the white paint of the wall. "… Have you slept yet?" He asks her.

She allows herself a second to compose her features, aware of his eyes on her back as she crosses her arms, stiffening. "No." She admits, turning back to him. "I'm fine though. Too much… Excitement."

"You'll feel better if you sleep." He says flatly.

"I said I'm fine, Wally."

This is a lie _— she can't remember the last time she's been less fine_ _—_ and as usual Wally sees through her; as she tucks her hair back behind her ears she senses the muscles around his throat tightening, his jaw tilting and scientist eyes turning to her, looking for a distraction. "You never used to sleep much." He tells her. "… I think last night was the only time I saw you get a full night's sleep."

The words are sticky, toeing around something she doesn't want to talk about; instead of replying she makes a show of leaning back against the wall. "Hm." She mutters vaguely, allowing her knees to give out as she slides her way down to the cold tile.

Wally's eyes drop to the speckles of blood on his shirt, his ankles flexing around the restraints pinning his legs to the chair—not as if to escape, but almost as if testing them, mentally debating their strength, their structure. "Three or four hours." He mutters, not looking at her. "I stayed up once, trying to count. Three or four hours and then you wake up. Right?"

When he glances up at her she feels her eyes narrow, feeling very suddenly like a subject in one of his experiments; biting hard on the inside of her cheek she doesn't say anything back.

The silence, as usual, isn't a deterrent. "I used to think it was me." He mumbles. "That I was tossing and turning too much. But you're a heavy sleeper. For those three or four hours it would be almost impossible to wake you up, you were... So peaceful. At your most beautiful—"

"Wally." She cuts above him, nose wrinkling.

The interruption is enough to get him to pause, apple eyes beginning to grow glassy as he slips into another thought. "I loved watching you sleep." He tells her, not quailed when she scowls at him. "When you're awake it's like you breathe fire _—_ you're always making a face or glaring at me. I never noticed how beautiful you were until I saw you sleeping."

She doesn't want to hear this, can't stand to have it thrown at her so easily; pulling her knees tight to her chest she focuses on the ringing in her ears, the sound not quite enough to block him out when he keeps talking. "That night on the couch, I remember... I was all pumped up about my Dad. I couldn't even focus on what we were watching." Despite herself she places the memory _— Wally, storming in and upset, finding her on the couch and making a deal not to talk about it._ "We must have sat there for an hour before I finally figured out what I wanted to tell you, how much to say about home and _—_ and you were asleep. Beside me. Like that was normal for us.

"We were barely even friends." He chuckles unexpectedly, still staring at her. "But I just _—_ it was like I was seeing you for the first time. Like I was just noticing all the little things about you: the way your hands were sculpted from pulling arrows, the freckles on the side of your neck, how the tips of your eyelashes are almost white, how the center of your lips are always chapped... I should have kissed you, when I walked you back to your bedroom. I wanted to, I wanted _—_ I wanted to go to bed with you and just lie there, just watch you, just see every little thing about you all that glaring used to hide..."

She feels her knees knock together as she blushes, too afraid to say anything back; at the movement Wally blinks, breath hitching and stuttering out of his chest. " _—_ Serotonin." He mutters, eyes growing buggy again. "In most medical studies patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder have altered levels of serotonin, leading to an inability to sleep and nightmares—" His breath catches on a piece of phlegm, a rippling shudder running through him so violently he can't speak for a moment. "You have nightmares. And, after Athens _—"_

He's working himself into a panic again; feeling her own fear twisting in the pit of her stomach she sits up, muscles tight against the wall. "Wally _—"_

" _—_ the nightmares were about Garth, weren't they? _Weren't they?_ And you ran from me, you ran from me _—"_

"Wally!" She snarls, her voice so loud it jars him into silence; for a long moment there's no sound between them other than slightly ragged breathing. "Stop it. Just… Stop."

She doesn't want to hear how screwed up she is, how her flaws haven't escaped his notice; curling her legs tight to her chest she hides behind the tops of her knees, not wanting to watch him continue to stare at her.

"… Why you didn't tell me about Garth?"

The words are low, the quiet kind of accusatory; feeling a low burst of shame in her stomach she can hardly gather the courage to glance at him, to see the hurt branded on his features. "… There were a lot of reasons."

She knows this isn't enough of an explanation; when his eyes only narrow at her she inhales, ducking back down behind her legs. "We were fighting." She whispers. "Because of me, and—the way that I am. I was never good at being close, at being… Who you needed me to be." For some reason her throat tightens, an awkward pause cutting off the words for a moment. "… You already knew how screwed up I was, even if I wasn't telling you. And we both knew you thought of me as a pity case. Do you really think—I mean… How would telling you what happened help anything?"

She's expecting him to deny the dig she throws at herself, expecting him to argue and save some of her dignity; for some reason her heart seems to fall through the white tile when Wally nods, chin bobbing twice before he bows his head, staring into his lap. "… You still should have told me."

"So you could have what?" She counters, scowling at her knees. "Punch Garth a few months earlier?"

Out of the corner of her eye she can see Wally open his mouth, face tight and ears reddening; after a moment he seems to think better of the argument, lips sealing shut. "… I don't know."

 _(There is something there, something she can't read; for a moment she's expecting him to tell her she's selfish, horrible, the most horrendous person he's ever met. He could say it, and it would be true_ — _she is every awful word she can think of. Her, and all her secrets, are the reason things between them fell apart; the reason neither of them are happy.)_

 _((He loved her. He loved her but she couldn't give that back, because she's too bruised and too cynical and so incredibly fractured in all the wrong places. And Wally West can't love someone like that. She won't allow it.))_

Finally they look at each other properly again, matching scowls screaming towards each other from across the few feet of emptiness between them; for the first time it feels as if there's very little that's unsaid between them, as if very suddenly nearly all of their secrets and splayed in front of each other, unhidden.

Wally's the first one to break, scowl twinging when he lets out a bitter sounding half chuckle. "This is never going to be easy, is it?" He sighs, nodding to the space between them. "Us being friends."

"It never was." She mutters, head aching when she tilts it back against the wall. "Remember?"

Another strange sounding chuckle. "... Right." He snorts, raising his head in time to watch her glance away from him and to a point somewhere on the opposite wall. "What are we, then? If we're not friends?"

"We are friends." She corrects him, eyes narrowed despite his teasing tone. "Just not the kind that... I don't know. See movies together."

"We watch movies."

"You know what I mean." She sighs, finally giving in and repeating her own words back at him. "We just _—_ we take care of each other. That's what we do."

 _(Yes, they are the kind of friends who take care of each other. They save each other from themselves. They hold each other in the darkness, even if it doesn't entirely make the darkness go away. Because the world is full of their own personal hells, their own demons to fight. But even if the nightmares are still walking maybe they're the kind of friends who hold each other when they aren't feeling safe, and maybe they're the kind of friends who just make things seem better. Maybe they are the kind of friends who can whisper "It's alright" and "You're okay" and other lies when they just need to hear it. Maybe they are the kind of friends who can, for a moment, make the darkness not seem so bad.)_

 _(And she understands now why he came running to her the second he heard what happened out in the Siberian snow. It wasn't out of love, or wanting_ — _although this may simply be the two of them denying things. But Wally came running because it's what they do, it's the same reason she will risk her life out in a storm to pull him back in, the same reason she left the safety of her bed to seek him out. They take care of each other. They take bullets and they suck out blood and they kill the soft places inside of themselves if that means protecting one of them from the kind of violence they're both too young for. They take care of each other because that's what they do, because if they didn't_ — _who else would?)_

Wally nods. She can tell he's really mulling over her words, attempting unsuccessfully to shift against his restraints; as he tilts his head back against the chair she feels her eyes lingering on the stubble beginning to blossom around his throat, the red hair blotting against his skin like freckles. "… I called Linda today." He says to the ceiling.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We're going out next week."

It breaks her heart to hear it; without questioning why her tongue licks out to taste his blood, still trapped in the creases of the chapped skin on her lips. "… That's great." She says, trying to mean it.

He doesn't look back at her but she still watches as his overlong ginger lashes blink at the ceiling, listening hard to the silence that follows these words as if hoping to find a meaning she isn't sure is there. "… Artemis?"

He's growing tired; she can sense his exhaustion as it creases around the letters of her name, sounding like so many other times he's muttered it in sleep, or in the darkness. "Yeah?"

His throat bobs as he swallows, the words not coming as easily to him as others; something in the hesitation makes her uneasy, her own voice ringing out before his can. "You should sleep, Wally." She tells him, hesitating before she throws his words right back at him. "You'll feel better if you sleep."

The ginger lashes blink again, the corner of his mouth quirking before his eyes shut.

* * *

Her head rolls on her shoulders, the sudden movement jerking her out of the half sleep she's drifted into; her legs are aching from sitting on the tile, the muscles in her lower back tight from pressing against the wall.

As she forces herself into wakefulness she can hear Wally snoring; after several blinks she can pull him into focus, his head still lolled back against the chair, mouth open and letting out a ruddy sounded gurgle every second breath. She hadn't meant to fall asleep, her own exhaustion having outweighed her determination to sit up with him, making sure the eye of the storm didn't pull him back in—how long has she been here now? An hour? Maybe two?

She's just in the process of rubbing sleep from her eyes when she senses movement outside the door again, someone no doubt coming to check on them. Getting somewhat wobbly to her feet she makes towards the exit, hoping to head off the intruder before they enter—Wally needs sleep, needs quiet, questions can be asked later, when someone other than her can—

She clicks the door open and immediately feels her brows disappear into her hair, tired eyes blinking confusedly at the mess of red Kevlar. "Oh." She says dumbly, the word accidentally coming out too loud; behind her Wally snorts in his sleep.

The Flash blinks down at her through his mask, a strong chin jutting into a politely crooked smile as he places a hand on her shoulder. He's much taller than she expected. "Is he in here?" He asks her in an undertone, effectively steering her out of the way and not noticing her wince as he takes a step into the room.

She feels slightly useless, not bothering to answer as she's pushed off to the side, already forgotten. She's seen him before, always in passing, but up close he's not how she expected. Broad shoulder that are somehow rounded, as if he's used to hunching over a desk; twitching fingers that continue to move even after he pulls up short. A lopsided smile—so much like Wally's, somehow, despite the fact that she knows they're not really related— that grows jagged as he catches sight of his nephew, pinned and strapped to a chair like an animal.

She's never been good with parents, or mentors; watching his face harden she's more out of words than she's even been, the awkward space between the door and the wall that he's forced her into feeling suddenly airless. "I—" She starts, voice cracking in the back of her throat when he looks at her, almost accusing. "... Sorry."

Like a coward she slips out of the room, cold sweat clinging to her temples as she presses her hair back behind her ears; it seems to take a second for the words to register to his ears, his head swinging between her and Wally for a fraction of a second before he makes up his mind. "Hold on." He whispers after her, letting out a single annoyed sound when she doesn't stop moving, heels aching as she pounds them into the cement floor. "Wait—"

She should be expecting it—the burst of air that engulfs her, the sensation of her hair blowing out behind her ears; in the half second it takes for her to finish glancing back to the door that's just been shut too quickly he's in front of her, looking down almost sheepishly. "You, uh—" He starts badly, apparently not encouraged by the way she peeks out at him between the strands of her hair. "You'd be Artemis, wouldn't you?"

Her eyes narrow, fingers fumbling between bandages as she struggles to set her hair back in place; before she can say anything he's talking again. "You look like what I— I mean, I've seen pictures on his phone, or—" The babbling stops when she only looks at him suspiciously; as if settling himself he takes a breath. "You're her, right? Artemis? His old girlfriend?"

She blinks. "... Yeah."

The crooked grin suddenly reappears; feeling her nose wrinkle she glances down when he offers her his hand. "You'd know who I am, of course."

"The Flash." She nods, clasping her palm around his once and breaking off the handshake before he can finished bobbing her fingers up and down a few extra times.

He's not how she imagined him; the few times Wally's spoken about his mentor she conjured up the image of someone paternal yet undeniably cool. For some reason the man in front of her seems oddly nervous, as if intimidated by her messy hair and the cuts on her cheeks.

"No, uh—" He starts, cutting off with an uncomfortable sounding chuckle; there's a very odd second where he glances around the hallway. "You know. I'm—" Another strange pause, and then it happens so quickly she can hardly see it—scarlet coated fingers ripping back a mask, revealing a very thick expanse of blonde hair and rugged cheek bones. "Wally's Uncle. Barry."

Her stomach instantly works itself into a knot and for some reason she blushes bright pink, caught off guard by the naked face in front of her. He's more handsome that she thought he would be, with stubble coating his cheeks and tired lines around his eyes. He's younger than she imaged too; despite looking nearly nothing like Wally there's an incredible air of similarity between the two of them, an old memory from too long ago stirring inside her— sand sticking between her teeth and Bialyan sun burning an exposed freckled face...

Eyes, so green she thinks of too-fresh mint leaves in spring, blink at her; the corner of his mouth quirks up again as she winces, embarrassed as she glances at her feet. "Right." She mutters. "Sorry, I—I wasn't sure if I was supposed to know, or—"

"Of course." He says for her, cutting across her mumbling and saving her from further embarrassment. "That's on me. Wally wanted us to meet a while ago—you know, out of uniform. I figured after what happened with Mary and Rudy…"

"Sure." She hears herself say. "I mean _—_ yeah."

It's awkward, her brain slightly slow as she glances up to peek at him again; he's taller than Wally, but only by the smallest bit. Without her to fill the silence Barry finishes pulling his cowl back, leaving the Kevlar bunched at the back of his neck as if aware of the fact that she wants to keep looking at him. "… How's he doing?" He asks distractedly, stepping around her and making his way back towards the door.

"Better." She says honestly, hands twisting unconsciously at the front of her stomach as she turns to watch his progress.

Barry nods, shifting past the door and pausing to look through the window for a moment. "... And what about you?" He asks, glancing back at her. "I heard you had a rough night too."

Although it's said lightly she can sense the heaviness behind the words. "I'm fine." She says for what feels like the thousandth time. She's not sure what's supposed to happen now, if it's safe for her to leave now that Barry's here; against her better judgment her feet begin to move, hesitating only slightly before she makes to join him.

"Still." He says, voice kind but firm. "You'll feel better after sleeping in your own bed. Sure beats a night on a cold floor."

She can't tell if it's a dismissal or not, her eyes automatically looking through the window as she comes to a stop beside him; Wally's still sleeping. "I can wait." She says easily. "... Wally needed me. So..." She doesn't mean to add the last part, wincing when it comes out; again she blushes when Barry glances at her, eyes narrowing in a way that makes the first lines of age more pronounced. "Not that— I mean, I don't know. He says I make it better." She fumbles. "That it's always better if he's somewhere quiet—if w-we're somewhere quiet. Together."

Barry blinks away at the last few words, staring at his feet and no doubt catching something in the quietness of the tone that she wants to keep hidden. After a moment he goes back to looking through the glass, arms folding across his chest. "Yeah… Wally mentioned that." He mutters, a single thumb reaching up to scrub awkwardly at his chin.

She can sense there's something she's not being told; feeling as if she's pressing him on something she turns towards him, eyes narrowing. "Do you… I mean." She hesitates, losing her nerve. "Why does this—with him, and—" She nearly bites her tongue before the words simply rush out of her. "None of this makes any sense to me."

For some reason Barry smiles again, a single huff of breath fogging up against the glass. "Well, not a lot of this makes sense to me either." He chuckles, glancing away from his nephew for a moment to survey the hallway around them. "Like why you kids needs a whole block of governmental standard interrogation rooms underneath your little club house, for one."

He's so much like Wally; trying to make light of a situation with a half-attempt at a joke. Like his nephew he catches sight of the look on her face and immediately drops the charade, looking away when she narrows her eyes. "... He's my best friend." She says firmly, not daring to let her eyes leave his face. "I don't know what he told you about me, but— none of it matters. He's my best friend, and he's—"

She's about to say something else— some other way to describe how she feels, other emotions and sentiments that her mouth won't allow her to say. "... He's too good of a person to be stuck down here forever." She mumbles, looking away. "And if you know something, then... Tell me, Barry. Please."

Instead of answering right away he stares at her, watching as she tries to set her face, tries to stop the twinging of emotion pricking along her edges. She can sense it again— scientist eyes analyzing her, seeing through her, x-raying her pieces better than she can. "… Did Wally ever tell you how he got his powers?"

It's not the response she's expecting, and she supposes it must show; when her brows furrow in confusion Barry lets out another strangely huffy chuckle. "I guess that's a no." He grins, glancing at her. "Wally was right. Your face doesn't hide a thing, does it?"

She doesn't like this—that he knows so much about her and he's such a mystery to her. There's no time to dwell on this, though; before she can say anything affronted back he's continuing. "Okay, okay. I guess—I don't really know where to start." He sighs, the façade of easiness fading for a moment as he struggles to get his thoughts together. "… I guess it all begins with the Speed Force.

"It's this—thing." He says badly when she only looks confused, motioning to the air in front of him as if there's something she's supposed to be seeing. "… An energy field. Or a God, maybe, I don't know. It's where all speedsters get their powers from."

She blinks. "… Okay."

Barry sighs again, an oddly boyish piece of hair falling across his forehead before he pushes it back into place. "I don't really understand it— pieces of it, at best. But I have this theory that it—it chooses people. People who are strong enough to handle the power it can give them. I don't know why—why some people, and not others. But it chose me. It struck me with lightning, spilled a mess of chemicals on me. It chose me, turned me into The Flash.

"But Wally…" For some reason he strays off, lost for a moment. "Wally chose the Speed Force. I... You know him. He gets an idea in his head and it just takes hold of him, possesses him and... He's a stubborn kid, always has been.

"He had already been obsessed with The Flash for years, but when he found out that I was... You can see the appeal. Wally's home life, his relationship with his parents... It was never the best. Iris and I were already taking him in every other weekend whenever his father decided he couldn't stand to look at the kid anymore. We were already closer than we should have been, but after he found out that I was The Flash... Wally wanted more. Like becoming a superhero was the only way he could escape what was happened with his dad.

"He recreated what happened to me, he forced it to—" Barry's voice doesn't break but something in the back of his throat shifts, a shadow passing over his features. "He was ten years old. The impact of the lightning nearly killed him… I work the forensic department for Keystone Police. I've seen… Well, there's a reason people call us in to look at a crime scene. But… I've never seen that much blood splattered all over a garage floor before."

He pauses, exhaling and inhaling sharply; her stomach feels as if it's churning around a block of lead. "… I never should have told him the case file I had been working on." Barry mutters, shaking his head. "I underestimated how smart he was for a kid, how easy it would be for him to thumb through the books down at the station when I wasn't looking, figure out what chemicals…"

A wrinkle appears over the bridge of Barry's nose as he scowls, only there for a fraction of a moment before the look is smoothed back into nothingness. "… When I run I can feel it there. The Speed Force, I mean. It's like having someone's shoe skim the back of your heel while you're walking. Not enough to trip you up but… A reminder that it's there. Pulling at you. Giving you a piece of it to use.

"Lightning never strikes the same way twice, and I—I don't know if it's the same for Wally." He admits. "There aren't many of us out there, and comparisons can be... It's not an exact science, whatever Wally might think. But sometimes it feels like he's running on borrowed time. Like that thing he stole from is just… Waiting. Waiting to suck him in, the way he did with it."

The words send a low thrum of panic running through her, her voice cracking when she speaks for the first time. "What's that supposed to mean?" She asks, voice hushed.

Barry's eyes leave the glass, the mint green surveying her for a long moment before he changes the subject. "… Wally's told me you've been helping him. With the lightning storms."

"I—" Her voice breaks, gaze flickering over his face with confusion. "Yeah. Yeah I have."

Another sigh. "He started having problems with them when he was twelve or so." He mumbles. "When he started hitting puberty, growing up. At first his parents thought they were night terrors—he'd wake up screaming, shake so hard his mother could hardly get a hold on him. It used to be manageable—as long as he could find something to focus on, as long as you could keep him talking, he'd stay with you.

"When the lightning hit me I was already an adult. My body was at its physical peak. Whatever the Speed Force is, however it's manifesting itself in Wally… It's just a theory, of course. But I don't think it's coping well with the change in his physical form."

She bites the inside of her cheeks, staring though the glass to watch as Wally shifts in his sleep. "… It got worse after his growth spurt." She mutters, more to herself than to Barry. "I mean, the first time—months ago—he was still talking normally. We had tea and he seemed... And when I found him, before Quarac—" She doesn't finish, brows furrowing. "… So what? The storm gets close and it… Triggers something? Something unbalanced inside him?"

Her panic is beginning to show on her face; when Barry glances at her again she's too slow to hide it. "... Not exactly." He says carefully, and suddenly she gets the impression that he's debating how much to tell her. "... I think being close to any source of lightning intensifies his relationship to the Speed Force. Makes it more primal. Makes him want to run until it can drag him… Away."

This last part sounds sinister, enough so that she actually turns to him, alarmed. "So… What?" She asks accusingly, voice raising an octave; her heart beat seems to hammer against her temple, the sound and pressure making her nauseous. "This… Thing is pissed off that Wally stole from it and now it's—what? Back for revenge? Set on killing him? You can just look at all that and be fine?"

Barry's mouth quirks up, his smile less crooked and somehow fake when he looks at her. "Of course I'm not fine." He tells her, a strange puff of breath strangling the last few words. "The only reason I can even look at all this and not want to—god." He sighs, hand migrating to the back of his neck. "You need to understand something, Artemis. I need you to listen to what I'm about to say very carefully."

"I—"

"Can you do that?" He cuts across her, looking suddenly very adult. "... Because what I'm about to say is important. And you need to know it, so you— so you can understand."

This is it, she knows it is— the answer to all her unasked questions, the reason she's been searching for; pushing her emotions aside she sucks in a breath, nodding. Barry still hesitates, hand returning to his side. "This... This is still just a theory." He starts lamely, pausing too collect his thoughts.

"The Speed Force is… A double edged sword. The powers it gives you— the speed, the ability to heal, the metabolism, even the capacity to alter time, to jump through different dimensions—It's incredible. But... It comes with a price. The knowledge that at any moment it can sweep you back in. That it can devour all your energy in a second, and force you to be lost within it, running between dimensions and time and all the matter of existence…

"… But it gives you something. One last line of defense before that happens. It's… A Person."

He hesitates, long enough for her to suspect once again that he doesn't entirely understand what he's talking about, more sharing harebrained theories that she hardly can make sense of. "I don't know if it's the kind of thing where you can control it, or if it's somehow picked for you the moment you get your powers. But the Speed Force gives you… A Lightning Rod. It's like a—"

"Landmark." She says without thinking, voice breaking as she stares at him.

He not expecting her to know this, his brows furrowing when she slips into stunned silence again. "Yeah, sort of. It's this person who you can… Divert your energy to. An intense emotional attachment to cling to. A person who's existence in time and space you can focus on to prevent you from losing yourself.

"I'm not saying I understand why this is happening. Why some storms seems to bother him more than others, what other factors— emotional distress, physical state, stress... It's just a theory." He reiterates, brows furrowing when he looks at her. "But from what Wally described to me— how you're the only one who can calm him down, how it feels when he's in a panic and you touch him, how even you saying his name seems to get feeling back in his body... You were the first girl Wally loved." He says kindly. "... And I think you're the person he's chosen to be his Lightning Rod as well."

She feels as if she might vomit, bitter tasting saliva flooding across her tongue. "I— Okay." She mutters, looking wildly between Barry and the window, hardly seeing anything as her vision blurs. "I mean— I thought as much. But this— this is temporary, right? Like, when he— I mean, he's seeing someone else. This, this new girl, she'll become—"

She doesn't quite know what she's trying to ask, not encouraged when Barry flashes a pity-laced smile in her direction. "... I can't say for sure." He mumbles with the air of letting her down gently. "But as far as I know, each speedster gets one Lightning Rod. And one Lightning Rod only." The ringing screams shrilling in her ears, the sound is so painful that she actually winces, Barry mistaking the expression for something else. "It's a good thing, Artemis." He tells her gently. "My Iris, I mean, my wife—"

"So—" She cuts across him, hands clapping against her cheeks and sweaty fingers pushing her hair behind her ears; she feels as if she's just been thrown into an arena to face some sort of unknown monster, feels as if the thing haunting Wally's insides is staring directly at her, snarling. "So you're basically telling me that— that I don't get a say in this? That Wally doesn't either? That this—this— thing just decided this for us. That Wally and I are supposed to be together, even though we can't be in the same room without wanting to—"

"Artemis—"

"We're sixteen." She hisses. "We're kids, and— and we don't get any say? _I don't get any say?_ I don't get to have my own life, or my own—because I'm Wally's Lightning Rod, and, and, that's it? That's the rest of my life? Someone's baby sitter?"

She's rambling, shock coursing through her as he simply stares at her; she's getting the impression that Barry's unaccustomed to dealing with hysterical women, the gentle smile on his face faltering slightly. "… Not necessarily." He says carefully, watching with confusion as she tanks at the wispy hairs about her temples, trying to keep the noise there at bay. "But it does mean you two are intertwined together. You have a responsibility to him. Even if it's not—"

Vomit actually spews up the back of her throat, bitter on the back of her tongue as she forces it down; he's still speaking to her, saying words of little comfort as numbness floods over her.

 _(And suddenly her father's hand is on her shoulder, squeezing tight as she lowers her arrows. She is someone's pet again, someone's slave_ — _)_

 _(_ — _Cold hands are ripping her legs apart_ — _)_

 _(_ — _Wally's mouth is forcing her lips open_ — _)_

 _(And that was the whole point of joining the Team_ — _was supposed to be free, carve her own space out, exist as more than something for someone else to use_ —)

 _(And she loves him, she does, but how is it fair to let herself be cut open, again and again_ — _She can hardly keep herself together, how is she supposed to_ — _)_

 _((She belongs to someone again, and her life will never be her own.))_

She hardly registers the fact that Barry's still speaking, turning away from him blindly before he's finished. "Artemis." He says firmly, fumbling slightly when she shakes her head. "Don't leave. I'm not explaining this right—"

Gloved palms skim her wrist, reaching for her the same way his nephew has a thousand times over; unfeeling she rips her arm from his grasp, not hearing him call after her as she breaks into a run.

* * *

 **AN: Another big one. I know the breaks between chapters are long, so I figured something this length would make it up to you.**

 **On a side note, after lots of asking for quite a few months I've finally made an official blog for this fanfic- that way you can see my mind working even when I'm not actively posting on here. I would love to see any of your guys' fanart or writing for Young Justice or this fic if you feel like sharing! The link is on my profile.**

 **Please read and review!**


	36. Weeping Wounds

**AN: Enjoy the update!**

* * *

She runs, as always, her joints aching and muscles crying out in protest as she clambers up the stairs and away from the darkness of the Underground; her whole body seems to scream at her, barely-healed wounds ripping open and fighting relentlessly against her panic as she forces herself to keep moving, to keep running, to get away—

Her shoulder clips a door frame as she sprints into the main part of the Cave, oblivious to anyone or any shouts that clang after her as she peels through the common area, not sure if the voices are from outside her head or within it, distant echoes of Wally's snarling or Barry's words—

 _("_ _You two are intertwined together…")_

 _("You have a responsibility to him...")_

The zeta tubes seem to stutter to life as she bangs the three digit code for Gotham City into the keys, not waiting for it to finish glowing before she moves forward. The beams of light swallow her, rip her apart, her atoms crumbling the same way her heart is inside her ribs.

Gotham is as sinister as ever, but for the first time in her life she doesn't care what's waiting for her in the darkness, what's lurking in the shadows to reach out and scratch her. Any feeling, any pain, would be welcome—anything would be better than the overwhelming numbness threatening to boil over her edges. Only the sensation of aching ribs and straining lungs seeming to keep her inside herself rather than ripped from her body altogether.

She doesn't slow down, moving so quickly the movements are almost violent, her toes crying out when she stubs them an even four times climbing the familiar rickety stairs of her apartment. She can hear herself making some sort of noise—panting but worse, the tail end of each inhale catching on her heartbreak, on her own fear, on the fact that she's as trapped as she's ever been— the familiar dingy white of her front door comes into view, stained from dirty fingers and chipped beside the hinge, the whole complex disgusting in its familiarity as always.

 _… She's trapped all over again._

And it makes no difference whether it's within the walls of this apartment or Wally's arms. She's still being groomed, someone else's to control, something for someone else to exploit. It's all the same, it's all her being used and manipulated and spoiled by lingering affection or duty or guilt. It's no different than being dragged into a battle, no different than being thrown into a cage to fight—she is someone else's pet, someone else's play thing, and she will never, ever be more—

 _… She's just like Jade._

Jade, who ran and ran and ran some more but still couldn't outrun their father. Jade, who is imprisoned again and doing the bidding of a man who used to sharpen his knives on their backs and admire the bruises he left on their cheeks. Jade, who was hardened and edged out and beaten until there was nothing left inside her to shape into anything other than the Cheshire Cat—

 _If Jade—who is stronger and faster and smarter and better—couldn't outrun Lawrence… Well, what chance does she have?_

 _And even more, if she can't outrun her father… What chance does she have of outrunning the fastest boy alive?_

Her breath catches in her throat, a tiny noise squeaking out of her mouth before she can smother it. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Joining the Team was supposed to change things. Was supposed to give her a chance, an option, was supposed to make her more than someone else's weapon. And now what is she? A last line of defense against Wally's own demise? A object, _a landmark_ , to serve someone else's purposes? How is that any different than what she was before, another body for her father to throw in front of his own—

She winces at the thought, shaking her head as she forces herself forward. No, it's different. She knows it is. She would take a bullet for Wally—has taken a bullet for him. She would die for him, a thousand times over. This is no different.

 _… But it is. And maybe the thing that bugs her is the difference comes down to one thing: diving in front of the shot for him, and being thrown._

The door creeks open after she finishes fumbling with her keys, dark and silent as ever. Paula is no doubt sleeping, hidden in the dust-coated bedroom she once shared with her husband. Dimly she registers the feeling of her feet—bare, blistered, cold from running the whole distance home without shoes—ghosting along the smoke stained carpet.

 _… And maybe she's just bitter because it comes down to one thing: Wally's life is worth more than her own._

She's hardly aware of what she's doing, barely registering the sound of the bathroom door shutting behind her as fingers strip clothes from her body and adjust the shower as hot as it will go. She doesn't have a right to be bitter—she knows between the two of them which one she would rather emerge alive. A boy like Wally is too kind, too soft, to be taken away. Nobody would save a girl carved from ragged stone.

 _Nobody has ever come back for her._

 _... Except Wally._

She doesn't even realize she's scrubbing herself clean until her skin screams out at the temperature of the shower; the hot water only sends her wounds stinging beneath their bandages, but she doesn't care—the pain seems to ground her, seems to settle her mind. No, no one would save her. But how it is fair to ask her to be his keeper, to tell her that his life is in her hands—how is it fair to burden that on someone so young?

... She's sixteen. Still a child, by most standards. But maybe it's time she stopped pretending, stopped acting like this life hasn't gotten to her. She's bled out on pavement. Killed grown men a dozen times over. She's fired her arrows knowing that meeting her target meant death. She's broken bones, smelt blood in the air, had her skin sawed into—

Unconsciously her fingers migrate between her legs. She's had someone try to rape her.

The tears come hot and fast, pouring out from her eyes before she can stop them. The response is so mechanical, so void of true feeling, that she's sure it's more out of shock than anything else; her breasts heave beneath the shower stream as she clutches at her forearms, lungs aching as she tries to draw in steamy breaths. The panic feels old, unfeeling almost, as if her body is trying to prompt her into responding to the trauma rather than be consumed by the impenetrable nothingness that seems to have filled her veins on the run home.

She's already back in her bedroom before she even realizes she's turned the water off, wandering naked and dripping wet down the hall. Her ears are ringing, head pounding, skin flush and scrubbed raw as she stumbles forward, not thinking straight.

Her end table squeaks when she shoves it aside, the old window creaking as she slides it open; the evening air seems to prickle against her nakedness, the dribbles of water from her hair curling down the swells of her breasts and disappearing under the line of bandages around her ribs. Unthinkingly she swings a bare leg over her window ledge, one foot swinging down and pressing against the metal grate of the fire escape.

She doesn't know how long she sits there, naked and hovering along the edge of her window still. Her eyes fall to the place Wally once stood one cold spring evening, begging to be let in, before they glance down the four stories to the cement below.

 _She wonders, for the first time, if four floors high would be enough to kill herself._

Her foot trembles against the grate, debating silently as she listens to the Gotham night.

 _(It takes too long before she retreats back through the window, sobbing.)_

* * *

The moment of weakness comes later, long after the crying has stopped and the marrow of her bones has been replaced with an unyielding numbness.

She feels as if she's trapped in a dream as her shaking fingers scroll through her phone's contacts, searching.

 _(She shouldn't do this; not when she hates him this much, not when she's feeling so confused, not when he's still so broken. But she knows, deep down, he's all she has_ — _they're intertwined, in this hell together_ — _)_

Wally's phone rings nearly half a dozen times before it clicks to voicemail, his usual chipper tone clicking at her through the line. She doesn't know why she thought he would answer.

"... It's me." She whispers, trying not to let her voice shake. "I just— Call me back when you get this."

 _(It's not very brave, not saying what she really wants to— that she needs him, that he needs to take care of her, that she spent the night holding him together and now it's his turn to do the same for her—)_

 _(Because they take care of each other. That's what they do.)_

 _(And she's been in this alone for so long_ — _been fighting her demons and waging war against her own mind. But without her realizing the battle's reached a climax; all at once she feels as if she's cornered in a way she's never been before, as if she's out of arrows and all her effort is spent. And she's been depending just on herself, on her own strength, for so long that somehow in between boxing up feelings and putting up walls she's ended up caged inside herself, corroding in the center of her wounds. And she's checkmated and beaten, bloody and bruised, and more than anything exhausted_ — _she can't do this alone, can't do this alone_ — _)_

 _(And even if he's part of the reason she feels this way he needs to help her, she needs him_ — _)_

She clicks the phone shut, forgetting to breathe.

* * *

She forces herself into an anxious sort of half sleep, her body exhausted but her mind wary of rest; hours pass and she repeatedly twitches awake, out of nightmares whose endings she can already guess— _Cameron pinning her in the snow, Wally tied up and screaming, the medical bay and it's many miles of mysterious beds…_

True to Wally's word she counts a hazy three hours as they pass. Eventually she slips unconscious, not really sleeping but not really doing anything else.

She wakes suddenly, stiff and sore in the usual predictable places; as wakefulness settles into her body she cracks her eyes open, trying to ignore her aching ribs as she squints at the dull paint chipping from her walls.

... The last day comes back in pieces, chunks of time unaccounted for at first. Fighting with Wally, leaving in a hurry to Siberia, hearing her sister's voice for the first time in months; abandoning little Garfield and then fighting to save him, running after Cameron and— and Jade, saving her.

Her eyes narrow at her wall, replaying the memory again and again. For some reason it feels almost choppy, half-forgotten as she clings to fragments of moments— being dragged from the cracks in the ice, being rolled in the snow... Hands pinning her down, her throat growing ragged with screaming... Was Jade saving her? Or had she simply hoped it so badly that she imagined it, her memories only the result of oxygen deprivation and one to many hits to the head?

And Kaldur... Kaldur had said he had found her screaming, struggling to escape. He wouldn't lie to her, would he?

 _(He's lied before.)_

Her head gives an almighty twinge at the sound of a siren outside, a slow groan unfurling from the back of her throat. Still, if it's between Kaldur's word and her own disjointed memories even her own instinct is betting against itself. She had been... Confused. Vulnerable. And that— that memory, of Jade attacking Cameron, it had... Warbled her judgment. Made her susceptible to old feelings, attachments that have been long gone...

 _There's another motive, something she's missing. Jade wouldn't save her for the sake of saving her._

 _(Not after Athens.)_

More sirens sound out, the possibility of sleep fading quickly as she sighs, shifting more surely against her mattress. Somehow the sound of the August morning outside her window feels odd, unnatural; as she blinks at the sunshine seeping through her blinds she has to forcible remind herself that the world is still turning, things are still happening, that just because her life feels disjointed and muddled and disconnected from reality that doesn't mean it's that way for everyone else—

"… You awake yet, Sweetheart?"

The words are hushed, unexpectedly gentle—still, the sound of the hoarse whisper makes her jump, her muscles spasming and jolting with pain as she starts, rolling abruptly onto her other side. "Oh." Roy says easily, the chapped corners of his mouth quirking when she only stares at him, affronted, between pieces of her hair. "Morning."

"What," She snarls, yanking her blankets up to her chest and spitting hair out of her mouth, "the _hell,_ Red. What are you—"

"Shh." He cuts her off, leaning back from where he's sitting on Jade's old bed, filthy clothes no doubt wrecking the luxurious blankets Zatanna had placed there. "Your Mom's still sleeping."

She feels her nose wrinkle, the mention of her mother making her uneasy; feeling naked beneath her sheets in only an overlarge tee shirt she does her best to set her face into a snarl. "Is that some sort of threat?"

"No." He says plainly, looking around her bedroom carefully, eyeing the books on her shelves and squinting at the heaping pile of clothes Zatanna left in the corner. "Just remembering last time I was here. You didn't want her to find a boy in your room."

"You have some nerve to— _after last night_ —" She starts, shifting against her sheets and making to get to her feet; at once the movement sends a strike of pain through her, ribs aching and muscles pulled as she's forced back against her bedding.

Roy seems to read her pained silence correctly, sitting back against Zatanna's pillows and at last looking her in the eye. "You can take a punch at me for it later." He tells her uncaringly. "…Doesn't change the fact that you should have told Wally about Garth."

The way he says it—tone accusing, eyes judgmental, nearly sets her off; again she feels her face twist into a glare, cheeks coloring. "Yeah, well, you didn't exactly give me the chance—"

"You had months, Artemis—"

"I get it." She cuts across him, temples throbbing; overnight the bandages feel as if they've tightened, her head wound oddly swollen. "If you actually broke into my apartment to give me a lecture about this, let me save you some time—"

For some reason Roy makes a strange scoffing noise, forcing her to stop the rambling she throws at him whenever he goes on these strange protective bouts of his; at once he's sitting up, elbows bracing on his knees. "I'm not here to talk about that, Sweetheart. You already know you're a shitty person, I don't need to say that twice." He pauses, almost politely, to give her time to react to the dig. "I'm here to talk about your sister."

The change in subject makes her sit up straighter, her fists clenching around her sheets; she wishes she had her quiver close by. "I already told you, Red, I'm not involved with whatever the hell is happening—"

"Then let's fix that." He says sternly, fingers twitching as he presses them together. "If you really don't know anything then let's… I have a proposition for you." He sighs uneasily, shifting along Zatanna's bedding. "Let's find her— you and me. Track her down. Save her."

The idea is so far from what she's been expecting him to say that her eyes narrow, looking for a lie or some sort of joke. Roy only looks at her almost expectantly, fingers scratching nervously along his forearms and red rimmed eyes unblinking. He looks almost ill, his nostrils red as if he's had a cold for the last few days, his hair overlong and lank.

"… You're kidding." She hears herself say, the tail end of the words almost sneering.

Her lack of enthusiasm only seems to spur Roy further, his elbows knocking against his knees as he leans closer; his breath reeks of stale alcohol and the sourness of unbrushed teeth. "Why not?" He says insistently. "We both want the same thing—we both want Cheshire back, we both want her home and safe and—and out of the game—"

She snorts. "Jade doesn't want out of the game—"

"She wants out of the one your father's playing." He argues back, almost loudly; at once both of them fall into silence, glaring at each other and ears straining to hear noise in the back of the apartment, sounds of her mother getting out of bed. "… If the two of us get on this together—Ollie would get involved. The League would get involved. The Team, they'd have no choice but to help us. She's still your sister, Artemis—"

"No she's not, Red." She hisses, shaking her head until it aches. "She hasn't been my sister for 6 years."

"Well, you're still hers." He counters. "I read the mission debriefing last night, I know what happened to you out there, whatever lie Kaldur is trying to tell you—Cheshire saved your life. She sacrificed the entire integrity of her mission to save you, and you're sitting here hiding her bed underneath expensive sheets and pretending she doesn't exist—"

"Shut up!" She snarls, her voice echoing loudly around the room; distantly she hears the beginning noises of wakefulness, her mother's voice calling her name almost sleepily from the other bedroom. Ignoring this she keeps talking, voice so low she's nearly hissing. "You seem to be conveniently forgetting about Athens, Red. And about Thanksgiving last year—did she happen to mention that I spent that happy holiday having her shove my head through the television screen?"

"Artemis—"

"You're unbelievable." She continues, nearly throwing her pillow at him. "Coming here and asking for my help, after last night, after everything you—"

There's the sound of her mother's wheelchair against the floorboards and at once Roy is on his feet, not even waiting for her to finish swearing at him before he's hobbling towards her window, slipping past her night table that's still shoved aside from last night. "You'll come around." He snarls at her, slipping through the window pane and onto her fire escape. "You want her back, just as much as—"

She launches her pillow after him, missing and snagging the lamp; Roy's already gone by the time the thing falls to the floor, the sound of shattering glass filling her bedroom. "Artemis?" Paula calls, fiddling with her door knob. "Are you alright, darling—"

Her mother opens the door in time to catch her settling back into her bed with reddened cheeks and a startling glare; it takes too long for her to smooth her features, realizing only after several seconds that her mother is sitting there, wide eyed. "I'm fine, Mom." She grits out, sinking into her sheets. "I—Sorry. I knocked the lamp over."

Paula's eyes flicker once to her pillow that's flopped on the floor, tracing the lines of shattered glass before they find her again. "Hm."

There's a beat, a long one, where she can tell her mother doesn't believe her; in a second the lie spews out of her mouth, unstoppable. "Bad dream." She amends. "Last night was… You know. Rough mission."

It takes a moment before Paula nods along to this, tracing the bruises that have blossomed along her throat overnight and the crusted over cuts along her cheeks. She can tell the older woman knows she's hiding something, can tell by the way her Huntress eyes wrinkle as she squints at her, the hand still on her door knob tightening.

She's expecting her mother to tell her to get more rest, expecting to be told that she's allowed to sink back into unconsciousness the way her body is craving; instead Paula braces both hands along her wheelchair, scrutinizing. "I'm making breakfast." She says at last, turning to leave.

It doesn't sound like an order, but a final glare tells her she'd be foolish to do anything other than get out of bed.

* * *

She dresses quickly, hardly paying attention to what she's wearing; her whole body feels tender, fragile, as if the only thing holding it together are the tensor bandages and medical tape.

 _(She pauses once to check her phone. Still no call from Wally.)_

She lurks in the hallway until she can hear the kettle boiling, the screaming of steam seeming to echo around the Gotham apartment the same way the never-ending shrieking of trauma has been echoing in the back of her mind all night. She doesn't know what's waiting for her in the kitchen: what Paula's going to say or accuse her of, if she even has questions or suspicions.

And it's not just that— she doesn't know what she's going to say herself. If she's going to be brave enough to offer an explanation, if she'll be bold enough to demand answers of her own: about Jade, about Cameron, about the strange blocked out memory that came back to her the moment her head broke through the ice. She wants to demand help and explanations and be given the information she needs— yet her mind seems to be fogged, clouded as she stumbles down the hall, her blistered fingers dragging along the grey stained walls as she's drowned by the weight of her own thoughts.

 _She can't do this._

Paula's in her usual place around the kitchen table, a steady stream of blackened tea being dribbled from the pot into two identical, delicate cups. "Sit." She tells her, gesturing to the plate already made beside her.

She follows the order, mostly because she doesn't know what else to do with herself; she feels disjointed from her own body, from her muscles and joints and tangled vertebrae, as if she could cease to exist if a strong wind were to come and blow her over. Her knees wobble as she takes her seat beside her mother, hardly noticing the stale piece of toast hastily covered with jam in front of her.

She must look worse for wear—she can sense the swollen bags beneath her eyes, the blotchiness of her complexion, the reddened rims around her irises. More to avoid looking at Paula than anything she forces herself to eat, teeth gritting around whole wheat and sickly sweet blueberry preserve.

Paula for her part watches her carefully, running her thumbs around the rim of her cup twice before speaking. "Don't keep an old woman waiting, Darling." She says almost demurely, smiling with a strange sort of gentleness.

"… What?" She chokes out, mouth still full of food that she can't quite manage to get down.

"Marks like that mean there has to be a good story." Paula tells her, an unfamiliar roughness sounding in the back of her throat as she gestures to her cheeks. "Where did you get to go this time? Louisiana again? New Orleans?"

It takes her nearly a minute to swallow her mouthful of toast, digesting her mother's words and hoping the food will somehow settle her stomach and block out the strange implications behind Paula's tone— there's an edge to the question, an uncomfortable sense of longing, as if the older woman is envious of her battered skin and pock-marked cheeks. All at once she hates that they're even sitting here, that her mother is pretending to be excited and supportive of the hell her daughter puts herself through, hates that despite herself she can hear Huntress' voice below the words, hates that she can almost taste something close to jealousy hidden there...

 _She hates this. All of it._

She attempts a sip of tea, the warm liquid mixing with bile when she forces it down; Paula only continues to look expectant until she clears her throat and speaks. "… Who's Cameron, Mom?"

The question catches the older woman off guard; there's the rarest flash of surprise on her mother's face before she can hide it. "… Cameron?" She repeats, nose wrinkling. "I don't know. Is he one of your little friends from—"

She lets a low hiss out from under her breath, shaking her head. One of the few things they have in common is that neither of them are much for lying— vaguely she registers that this is one of her mother's attempts to hide the past from her, erase memories of the less than perfect life they used to live. "Don't, okay? I know what you're trying to do. Don't— _protect me_ —or whatever." Her fingers clench around her cup as she finally looks at Paula, doing her best not to blink. "Icicle Junior. _Cameron_. I fought him. Last night, in Siberia—and he knew me. And I… I know I knew him. I know I remembered that place—"

(— _And now she knows she will always remember the way his hands felt too, will never be able to erase the feeling of ice coated fingers mashing between her thighs_ —)

Her temples throb and she's forced to stop speaking, fingers shaking as she fills the silence with a sip of tea. "… Just tell me." She mutters to her cup.

Paula hesitates, watching carefully as she sits in silence and chances another bite of toast; when her mother finally speaks her voice is hushed, oddly hardened in the quiet of the kitchen. "He was the son of one of your father's business partners. Icicle Senior, as you know." She murmurs, shaking her head. "You must have met him a dozen times, maybe more— not that stopped you two from becoming thick as thieves. I remember Jade was jealous."

There's a pause where she can tell right away her mother is holding something back. "He… He was a strange little boy." She says suddenly. "He was never quite right—I don't know the details, of course.

"He adored you, though." Paula sighs, shaking her head. Something about talking about the old days is changing her, making her voice lighter. "He wouldn't want to leave your side if you were ever together. I've never seen a child obsess over someone like that. But the two of you seemed to like each other, even if you only saw each other for a few moments..." For some reason Paula hesitates, sipping her tea. "I've never met an odder child. Became even stranger after his powers began forming. Colder. More cruel, with a mouth that was almost as filthy as Jade's. And then things began happening…"

She looks up when her mother trails off, eyes narrowing. "What sort of things?"

The older woman squirms for a moment in her wheelchair, fumbling to pour another cup of tea. "Just funny moments here and there. I remember once, the two of you had been playing in an alley and… You rushed home crying because a stray cat had hissed at you. I don't know what happened, really—when I went back to find Cameron there wasn't a cat in sight but… There was a lot of blood."

Paula pauses, shaking her head. "And then, of course, you two had a falling out of some sort, and Jade took it into her own hands—you should have seen the state she left him in. Your sister ruined any chance your father and I had of ever doing business in Siberia again. To this day I wouldn't be able to get my hands on a good brew of Russian Vprikusku if I had the nerve to try."

She narrows her eyes as her mother says these last words, forgetting that the older woman doesn't yet know about Jade, or her father, or the fact that the two of them are once again tangled up with the Icicles and The Light. For a moment she nearly opens her mouth to tell her, the words bubbling up inside her mouth only to be cut off as she clears her throat.

Something, some larger instinct, seems to be holding her back— and as she sits there, she supposes it's right. What would be the good in telling her mother about Jade? In telling her that she's teamed up with Lawrence, in telling her— _judging by her own hazy memories and Kaldur's much better ones_ — that the two of them nearly fought to the death a matter of hours ago? What good would that bring? Does she really want her mother to be reduced to the sniveling mess she was last Thanksgiving, when she had poured over photo albums and sobbed over old picture frames, too busy mourning the loss of one daughter to care for the other?

 _No. It's better if she doesn't know._

 _... It's better for everyone if they just forget Jade altogether._

She blinks as her mother takes another sip of tea, looking serious. "So he's calling himself Icicle Junior now... Not unsurprising that he would try to follow his father." She mutters, thumbing the rim of her cup again. "And he recognized you, did he?"

She winces before she can stop herself, staring hard at the table top to avoid her mother's eyes. "Yeah." She mutters, hunching her shoulders. "He knew who I was."

Paula makes a strange sort of sniffing noise. "I imagine that was awkward." She sneers. "Like running into someone at a party who knows your name without you having the slightest clue who they are."

Her mother lets out a bitter chuckle, as if the whole thing is amusing to her; the sound seems to cut through her, as cold as Cameron's hands. "Yeah." She says mechanically. "... It was kind of like that."

 _And at once she makes up her mind: Paula will never know what happened in Siberia. Somehow finding the words, admitting to what happened, would make her feel weaker and more pathetic than she already is_ — _and she can't be weak, she can't, can't let Paula know she isn't strong enough to take care of herself, let alone the two of them_ —

Her mother's still talking; she seems to snap out of the shrouded numbness that's been consuming her just as the older woman turns her attention to her injuries again. "Back to your story." The older woman says demurely, not noticing the tensing of her muscles as she sits there, frozen from the inside out. "That Icicle boy was there— I imagine he couldn't bring himself to—"

She's not expecting her mother to touch her, aching muscles jumping when Paula attempts to lay a teasing hand on her still frost-bitten forearm; at once she jerks from her chair, on her feet and breathing heavily before it occurs to her to be more guarded. "I—" She starts, heart thundering and blood screaming inside her ears.

 _(Her bare feet are damp— she's accidentally spilt tea everywhere—)_

"... Darling?" Paula calls out the pet name, looking confused when she backs away from the table. "Artemis, what—"

Her mother extends a hand towards her, trying to touch her, trying to read the suddenly terrified expression on her face. "I feel sick." She hears herself say almost dazedly, wincing away from the comfort of the older woman's palm and already sprinting towards the bathroom before Paula can finish stuttering out a response.

 _She can't do this._

* * *

She listens to the repeated knocks of her mother's tapping at the bathroom door, not bothering to get off of the floor even when she hears the sound of the lock being tested. She stares, unmoving, at the ceiling, only blinking when the flickering of the light begins to bother her eyes. She's not sure how many hours pass until she hears Paula leave the apartment.

So she knows the truth now—or at least, what her mother knows of it. Knows at last about Cameron, a childhood friend who she'd long since forgotten; about the boy who would slaughter stray cats for frightening her and stay attached to her hip the few times their paths crossed.

 _Now she knows about the strange little boy who grew up to be so cruel._

Despite not moving she can feel her body aching, can feel the bruises swelling beneath her skin and making her bones feel tender. Even through the August heat her skin feels chilled, frost bitten around the scratches of her cheeks and numb between the seams of her thighs.

 _… He had adored her._

It feels so strange to imagine anyone loving her—finding something worthwhile in the lopsided ends of her pig tails and the grass stains on the knees of her overalls… But that must have been why he got so angry, right? He had loved her and she had… forgotten him. Blocked him out, like so many other horrific things.

… It makes sense, forgetting him. Jade going after Cameron had been the beginning of the breakdown of their family—the beginning of her sister fighting against their parents, against their twisted home, against the fact that something as precious as a first kiss was little more than another thing to be stolen, ripped apart. Inadvertently she had been responsible for turning Jade against their family, for forcing her to leave…

 _It's always her fault._

And Jade had left, and Cameron… she never saw him again, she's sure of it. Not with the way things ended between their families… And then what? He grew lonely? And bitter? And deranged?

 _But Paula had said he had always been strange._

An unpleasant shiver rips through her body. Perhaps that kind of insanity drew inward, made him even… Stranger. That's the word Paula used, wasn't it? She made it sound like he was an unbalanced child, as if the morphing of his genetics that granted his powers also unsettled something inside him. And what? Did her absence make it worse? Did he go crazy? Did his powers turn inside him and unhinge something—

 _… Is the same thing happening to Wally right now?_

 _(... Is that why he still hasn't called?)_

The thought makes her sick, her ribs aching as she forces herself to sit up, spitting hair out from between her lips. Her fingers migrate to her pocket, extracting her phone long enough to see that he still hasn't called her back.

... Maybe it was unfair of her to call in the first place; maybe it's expecting too much to think he'd call her back so quickly. Maybe he doesn't want to talk to her the way she is so desperate to speak to him, but... But he would call her back. She knows him, knows what kind of message she left, how she sounded. And that had been the deal, hadn't it? That they take care of each other? If he had called her sounding like that she would have—

 _She would have gone to him. The same way she went to the Underground last night._

But going to someone, taking care of them... It's different than being bound to them, having a responsibility to them. And what's she supposed to do, anyway? It's… It's not fair. Barry, insisting that her and Wally are supposed to be intertwined, trying to manipulate her into serving someone else. Expecting her to drop her life to care for someone else, expecting her to be willing to play a part in someone else's game—expecting her, even more, to do it willingly.

… She's not that kind of girl. She's not good at following orders, or fulfilling expectations or—or following one step behind someone. She's not programmed for it, for caring for someone, for living happily ever after… She's not meant to sacrifice her own story to prop up his.

And it's not fair, for a grown man like Barry to come around and expect her to want to do this. To expect her to go along with it just because he said so. Not fair for him to look her in the eyes—eyes that have, granted, seen much more than sixteen years should see—and tell her that she has a responsibility to someone else.

 _What about responsibilities to herself?_

… Jade would understand. And maybe that's what makes her suddenly so bitter: Jade would know how she's feeling. She would know what to say to her, know how to get her out of this, know the perfect way to run away. She would know how to avoid being thrown to the slaughter. She would know how to fix this.

… But Jade isn't here. Jade's gone, she's been gone for nearly six years now— and she's alone and muddling over her thoughts on the dingy bathroom floor the same way she's been doing since she was ten years old. And whatever else Roy might be convinced of... The Cheshire Cat isn't coming back.

 _Not this time._

* * *

She had told herself she wouldn't hide.

For the third time her knees twitch up to her chest before she remembers to force them down, all her fidgeting making her sink into the oversized leather chair. As if she's tracking the movement Dinah marks it with a tick on her clip board, red lips perking. "I expected you'd put up more of a fight coming here today." She says smoothly, shifting easily behind her desk. "I thought I'd have to send Oliver over to round you up."

Her legs twitch again and she forces herself to cross her ankles. "… Not sure I have a lot of fight left in me anymore." She says without thinking, voice nearly emotionless.

The words are perhaps a little bit too honest; as she says them a sticky sort of silence falls, Canary's half-smile sobering quickly. "That's understandable. You've been through a lot."

She can feel herself staring, almost buggy eyed, as the older woman drops her jaw; she knows she's being invited to talk about what happened, invited to open the door to her trauma. Her stomach won't stop squirming. "… Yeah." She mumbles, stretching out the one syllable until her voice breaks.

She's not sure what she's supposed to say, how she's supposed to feel— from everything Canary's ever told them about trauma and coping she knows there isn't exactly a right or a wrong way to go about it, although sitting here not talking about much of anything at all doesn't exactly feel productive. But still, she had been the one to get herself here, had gotten up (albeit, after several hours) from her bathroom floor and slouched over here. That has to mean something good, right?

The one word and the silence that follows isn't much to go on, but Dinah does her best; smiling gently the older woman leans forward behind her desk, hands folding neatly atop her clip board. "… How are you feeling?" She asks carefully.

It takes her several beats to figure out how she wants to answer. "Cold."

"Numb?"

"No." She half lies, glancing down to where her arms are goose pimpled. "… Like I have a chill, or something. I can't seem to get warm."

She can tell it isn't what the older woman wants to hear, but it's the most she can force out of herself; glancing at the clock she ignores her legs as they fumble over each other, changing the subject to the first thing that pops into her mind. "… Why are there so many beds in the medical bay?"

Taupe brows raise across from her, the pen that's been documenting something on the clipboard freezing mid-scrawl. "Excuse me?"

"The medical bay." She presses, clenching her fists against her knees; it feels good, grounding almost, sitting here and demanding answers of someone else. "I've never spent enough time in there to notice—it's really overstocked. There's at least fifty beds in there. There's less than two dozen of us."

"I—"

"And the Underground." She continues, watching the older woman's face very carefully as she speaks. "The Flash called it a governmental standard interrogation facility. And Zatanna told me she thought it looked like people had lived—or were held—down there at once point."

Canary's careful to keep her expression muted, only a slight furrowing of her brows revealing any sort of guardedness. "You know the Cave used to serve as headquarters for the League. At one point there were many more heroes here who needed medical services than just you kids."

She considers this for a moment. "...My number is B-07." Her legs cross and uncross. "I was in the seventh bed from the door. And the clothing in my drawer seemed like it was outfitted for me." For some reason the older woman doesn't say anything, instead dropping her jaw to survey her carefully; the silence unnerves her slightly, her mouth spewing out more words before she can stop them. "... Why would the League need interrogation rooms? Especially ones that were built into the basement of their headquarters? I thought we usually turned our captives over to the police?"

She doesn't understand why Dinah's lips quirk upward. "Asking all these questions isn't going to help you process what's happened to you." She says patiently, leaning forward onto her elbows.

They're playing an old game, one of cat and mouse; before their usual banter truly starts she feels herself give in, exhaustion outweighing her usual desire for answers. "... Whatever." She glares, forgetting herself and hunching down behind her knees.

It strikes her very suddenly how normal she feels for a moment—moody and slouched in her usual too comfortable chair opposite Canary's desk. Almost the moment she notices it the feeling disappears. "… Being the victim of a violent attack is always difficult." The older woman says slowly, cautiously, as if she didn't truly expect her to give in so easily. "It can be harder to process if you have a personal relationship with the attacker—"

"I don't have a _personal relationship_ with him." She snaps. "He's just—somebody that I knew as a kid."

More quiet, only broken by the sound of Dinah's pen against her clip board. "Do you know his name?"

"… Cameron." She grits out, biting the inside of her cheek. "... Mom says we played together a few times. I don't remember much of it."

She bangs her knees together, risking a glance at the other woman and feel distinctly unsettled when she catches the sad sort of smile she's wearing. "Sometimes, as small children, we suppress memories of events or people than we associate with a particularly traumatic or upsetting—"

"I already know, okay?" She says impatiently, dropping her feet back to the floor. "I know this already, I—I remembered when he was slamming my head through the ice. He—he tried to kiss me, once, when we were little. And Jade got upset because I was upset and she… I don't know what she did."

This last part is only half a lie—she knows her sister. Knows how brutal her instincts are, how sharpened they were even as a child. She can imagine what Cameron must have looked like when Jade was finished with him. Clenching her fingers around her knees she forces herself to exhale, slouching forward. "I know why I blocked it out. Jade attacking Cameron and the break down of Icicle and my parents' working together— that was the beginning of the end for us. Jade turned against our parents, and then after Mom was taken away… There wasn't a reason for her to stay anymore."

"Hm." Canary exhales, looking at her very carefully. "... Your family is very important to you, isn't it?"

Answering feels like a trap, and more to buy herself time than anything she shrugs, glancing at the clock. "When I was a kid, maybe." She mutters, voice almost gruff as she looks away.

"Do you think your sister felt the same?"

She feels her eyes narrowing, shoulders growing hunched. "I don't know how Jade felt about anything." She mutters, wishing she sounded less bitter. "... Look, I don't want to talk about her, okay? I just... I want to deal with— the whole Cameron thing— and move on. I just want to get back to normal."

For some reason Dinah scratches away at her clipboard again, hesitating. "I don't mean to pry." She says in a measured voice, letting her know that she's not quite finished yet. "I just find it interesting, the way Cheshire plays into this whole situation—"

"Interesting?" She hears herself scoff, cheeks going off.

"I'm not trying to upset you, Artemis." Canary says patiently, one hand extending towards her in an effort to calm her. "But I think a lot of the emotional distress you're feeling is surrounding the role your sister played in both these traumatic events. You mentioned earlier that it was Cheshire who came to your defense when that boy— Cameron— tried to kiss you—"

"—He did kiss me—"

"—And that she was the one, in Siberia, who protected you from him again."

She can feel her cheeks darkening, her throat tight for a moment. It takes a lot of effort to force her face to sour. "I don't think she was trying to protect me." She forces herself to say, shaking her head. "Kaldur— Kaldur says he heard me screaming, I was... I was upset. Jade was hurting me. I don't remember how, but—"

"But," Dinah interrupts, surveying her through understanding eyes, "it doesn't change the fact that she was still the one who pulled that boy off of you."

Her cheeks have now passed maroon; for a long moment she simply sits there, blushing furiously, before she straightens, shaking her head. "That doesn't mean anything." She chokes out.

"I think it does." Canary counters. "Each of these events were marked by Cheshire's interference. I think you are so determined to think the worst of your sister that you're forgetting that she still might care about—"

"Jade doesn't care about me." She snarls, nose wrinkling before she can stop herself. "She's tried to kill me a dozen times over, she's— she's crazy. She used to have this saying when we were little— _Every girl for herself_ —"

"It's also interesting," Canary cuts her off, lips quirking. "That since the assault you've started calling her by her real name again. _Jade._ "

She scowls, suddenly so furious she can't even speak. She doesn't bother to stop herself before she slouches behind her knees once more.

* * *

By the time she's finished with Black Canary she feels pried open all over again, exposed and rubbed raw in places. She's not good at talking, at letting her feelings burst out of her. She's so used to letting them churn inside her that attempting to release them now feels less like a gentle trickle of emotion and more like a volcanic eruption.

As the door closes behind her she feels herself exhale, releasing the handle and pressing her shoulders back against the wood. She knows, one day, she'll feel better. And maybe she does right now, at least a little bit— despite the fact that parts of her still ache and feel as if they don't belong to her, and others still feel numb and too cold, she knows this is good for her. Talking. Sharing. Unpacking.

But it's still the hardest thing she's ever done: trying to figure out all the feelings inside her, trying to give them names and take them out of the compartments she's hidden them in. It's harder even to admit to the worst parts of her that are dragged out with them— that pieces of her are encrusted with the monstrous claws of abandonment, of trauma. That she's afraid to let that go, afraid that without it she'll be untethered to reality as she knows it, that the last pieces of her sanity are tangled up in abuse, that she's terrified just thinking that letting that go will leave her with nothing to cling to. That she's scared of owning up to the fact that she's spent her whole life losing track of who the enemy is, that she no longer knows the difference between killing herself and fighting back, and she is tired, tired, tired—

She hates this.

 _But maybe… She can do this._

Whatever _this_ is, exactly—this great bubble of foreboding that seems to have inflated inside her stomach, expanding there and making it almost painful to breathe. The great sense that a line is about to be drawn in the sand, that she's about to stand up for herself in a way she never has before, even if it takes her a second or two to figure out just how that's going to happen.

 _… She can do this._

And maybe _this_ isn't facing her sister. Maybe that's one battle she'll never be ready to fight.

But she can find Wally. She can finish was started between them. She can find him and tell him what needs to be said.

 _(Maybe she should call him again.)_

... What is she going to say, anyway? Is it even possible to sit a boy down and tell him everything she's feeling without sounding like a complete idiot? Is there any way to admit to her own weaknesses, her own imperfections, without gritting her teeth? Without ruining the wobbly balance they've managed to strike up these last few weeks?

... There probably isn't. And maybe, if Wally were any other boy, she wouldn't bother. But he's... He's never going to be just a boy to her. Not anymore.

… And she's not just any girl to him, she knows that. There's… Feelings, there. And history. Is there any way to say what needs to be said without… Actually saying it? How is she supposed to get through this exactly? What does she even want to tell him?

 _That she's angry that he still hasn't called her?_

 _That it's not fair that she killed herself saving him and he can't even be bothered to check if she's still breathing?_

 _That whatever the universe might be telling him she's not sure if she can do this_ — _not sure if she can save them both, not sure if she's strong enough to be what he needs her to be_ —

 _That this isn't fair to either of them._

 _... That she hates him, just the smallest bit._

It doesn't sound good, even in her head; letting out a single frustrated exhale she forces herself off the door, hoping somehow the words will figure themselves out.

"Artemis?"

She's off her game; when Connor speaks she practically jumps out of her skin, wincing when her elbow knocks against the door frame. He's sitting on the floor a few feet down from her, hunched over his limbs almost stiffly, his presence there suddenly so obvious that she can feel her cheeks heating in embarrassment. "God." She hisses.

She always forgets how big he is; as he gets to his feet he seems to fill up the hallway, imposing and brutish as always as he takes several cautious steps towards her. "Did I scare you?"

It's not meant to be teasing but she still glares, wishing she would stop blushing. "No." She lies. "Just—thinking about other stuff."

Connor's face doesn't even flinch but she can still sense a sudden softness as he looks at her, blinking exactly once before looking away. "… How was Black Canary?"

She suspects this is kind of a roundabout way of asking her how she is. "Fine." He nods, thick jaw bobbing only once before stopping. "Were you… Waiting for me?"

To her surprise Connor goes a strangely delicate shade of pink, the color high in his cheek bones for a moment before it disappears. "No." He says gruffly.

"… Okay." She says awkwardly, not sure what to make of any of this as her brows furrow. The hallway goes silent again, the two of them staring at opposite walls. "Well—"

She's not expecting him to reach for her, her whole body tensing and knees nearly buckling as he claps a hand to her shoulder. "You're alright." He tells her, seeming not to notice as she winces at the pressure, unable to escape his iron clad grip. "I—you're safe now."

"Con—" She starts, cutting off when she's pulled roughly forward.

It feels like she's been slammed up against a brick wall, her muscles aching as her face is forced into the dip between his chest; the breath is literally forced out of her lungs as he claps her in the center of the back again. There isn't time to react—no time to stiffen, to wince, to even feel disgust at the closeness. She doesn't even realize he's hugged her until he's already pulling back.

The pink is back in the high point of his cheeks. "M'gann wanted me to give you that." He says gruffly. "She's out with Gar—we're having trouble finding a place for him to go to school—but she… I was told to—Yeah."

It takes a few seconds for her lungs to work again, still not quite functioning between being winded and the shock of seeing him fumble so badly. "… Right." She says uncomfortably, wishing he hadn't touched her at all.

It hits her suddenly, as she watches him stare awkwardly at the ceiling, that this is what she has to look forward to— people feeling bad, pitying her. She doesn't know why but for some reason seeing unfeeling Connor attempting to show her some sympathy makes her feel ten times worse. "… Have you slept yet?" He asks her finally, glancing once at her before going back to the roof. "Wally wanted me to make sure you were sleeping."

At the mention of the other boy's name she comes back to herself. "I'm fine." She says distractedly. "Is he around still? At the Cave?"

 _(Is she ever going to get an explanation as to why he didn't call?)_

Powder blue eyes finally find hers. "… I guess you wouldn't know yet." He mutters. "Wally's off the Team."

The words seem to scream inside her head a half dozen times, her brain refusing to process them as her stomach drops to somewhere about her ankles. "What?" She blanches, stuttering out a snarl before she can stop it. "They can't—he's fine, Con. We both know he's fine. They can't kick him off, he needs us. He—"

"Artemis." He cuts her off, expression hardening. "They didn't do anything. Wally took himself out."

"What? Why?"

Connor makes a disgusted sort of noise in the back of his throat. "Why do you think?"

She feels as if someone's knocked the air out of her lungs all over, one hand clutching against the doorframe. "He can't—so that's it? He's just gone? Forever?"

"I don't know how long." Connor huffs, shoving his hands in his pockets. "He just said he needed some time to… I don't know. Be normal again."

 _(Normal.)_

 _(There's a moment where she nearly loses it altogether, nearly screams in his face that Wally's never been normal, at least not as she's known him. But then it hits her_ — _that's why he hasn't called. That's what he's doing: he's being normal. Going back to life before they met, before he was Kid Flash. He's forgetting her. Pretending she doesn't exists; pretending the Team, this life, means nothing. Pretending she means nothing.)_

 _((What if he isn't pretending?))_

She feels tears stinging the backs of her eyes; for some reason she lets out a choked sort of laugh. "Normal. Right. The kid can break the sound barrier in his sneakers and he wants to be—"

She cuts herself off, swallowing the strange burst of anger she's feeling back inside her stomach. Despite herself she can picture it clearly in her mind: Wally, being normal. Finally being home for dinner with his parents. Not staying up half the night to finish the homework he'd forgotten about before a mission. Wally, running track and earning scholarships. Wally, in their booth at a diner, grinning and stealing French fries from Linda—

 _(She doesn't know why she feels sick.)_

 _((So that's why he didn't call. He doesn't care, can't care about her anymore.))_

 _(Worthless.)_

At once she feels the sick burning of the betrayal at the back of her throat, a single furious exhale firing out of her nose as she stands there, shock reeling through her. She feels suddenly as if Wally's double-crossed her, or been dishonest with her somehow— because they had a deal, didn't they? They take care of each other. They take care of each other, regardless of how their worlds may be crashing down, no matter how angry or upset they might be with each other. And where is he now? Running away on her? Quitting the Team? Not even bothering to return the call he must have known killed her to make? Disappearing when she needs him most, when she needs to talk about what's going on between them, when she needs someone to confide in, needs someone to hear about Cameron and her sister and all the other wounds she's reopened in the last day or so—

Her face must show something because at once Connor lets out a puff of annoyed breath. "Look, all I know is he told me to… To look out for you, or whatever. Did you sleep last night?"

 _(She feels as if she's a burden, shoved aside from someone else to deal with.)_

"… Yeah." She mutters, glaring at the floor. "I slept."

"Then come on." Connor grunts, turning to leave and gesturing for her to follow. "… Let's go for a drive."

* * *

Without her wanting it to time slips by, the evening air beginning to pick up the coolness of Autumn. Summer, once endless, seems to blister her skin less often.

Paula doesn't ask about the Siberian mission again, but over the next few weeks she suspects that someone has told her the details— more than once she catches her mother's gaze lingering on the places where old bruises used to be, or squinting at the soon-healed cuts on her cheeks. Whatever she might know her mother doesn't offers words of comfort, the silences between their sips of tea growing colder and more distant. Neither of them can think of much of anything to talk about.

She returns to the Cave every few days, only dwelling there for what is quickly becoming a standing appointment with Black Canary. Neither of them mention Wally, or her sister, or what is quickly becoming known in her mind as _That Night_ ; the few times Dinah attempts to breech the subject again she falls into a blank sort of silence, unable to find the words she wants to get out. On her better days, she's able to talk about less meaningful things.

"I don't know why she insists on keeping it on the top shelf." She mutters bitterly, sitting sideways in the too soft chair in Dinah's office, legs draped over the leather arm with what she hopes looks like easiness. "It's the tea pot—we use it about 50 times a day. But each night she'll wash it and the next morning I'll have to watch as she clambers out of her chair to try to get it, or I'll have to—"

She makes an annoyed noise, going quiet and glancing towards Dinah as she raises a brow. "You feel a lot of responsibility towards your mother, don't you?" She asks smoothly, writing something non-descript on her file. "Would you say that since she returned from prison you almost feel like the roles have reversed? That you are her parent, in some sense?"

She's not sure what to say back, and spends what's left of their hour together in a glaringly loud silence.

The days drift past and she spends the tail end of her summer bumming around Gotham, reading the same old books and running through the maze of streets until she can no longer distinguish between the lingering ache of old injuries and the rawness of tender muscle. Predictably Zatanna makes an appearance every few days, insisting on painting her nails a gaudy shade of pink and sleeping off hangovers in Jade's old bed.

Neither of them mention Wally, although she does gather from their snippets of conversation that he's still as absent from the Cave as ever. More than once her fingers scroll to the familiar _Baywatch_ still branded in her contacts list, staring at his phone number until her eyes lose focus. Somehow calling him again would mean admitting that him leaving the Team— _and her_ — is somehow forgivable, which it isn't.

* * *

On the morning of the 20th of August she finds herself staring at the unnervingly familiar marble and brick of Gotham Academy, her shoulders buffeted by the usual suspects of senators' sons and socialites' daughters as she climbs the overbearing front steps. Even after the wreck of a summer she's had she's not looking forward to school starting again.

The photographer's flash is still ringing at the front of her eyes long after she's taken an ugly student ID photo, her arms laden with the year's text books and a new uniform (the usual ugly pleats and blazer now accompanied by a new crest, fixed with different colors to indicate she's a junior) as she squints at the row of lockers in front of her. Something about the normalcy of it all is almost shocking, the tediousness settling in her bones as she checks the slip of paper again— _locker 791 now, wherever that is_ —wanting to dump her books and get home as quickly as possible.

She rounds the familiar halls, currently filled with soon-to-be freshmen attempting to find the classrooms they'll be sitting in a mere ten days from now; turning right past an old English room she pauses, double checking the paper and finding her locker: several from the end and almost on top of the gymnasium entrance she once ran through to save Wally's life.

 _It's almost disgusting how little has changed._

"Hey, Crock!" The use of her last name sends her stomach twisting; feeling her features sink into a glare as she spots the usual crowd of freshman boys—well, she supposes they're sophomores now— leering at her. It takes less than a second to spot Dick, hair too-groomed for his civvies, lurking at the back of the crowd. "Nice haircut!"

She scowls as hard as she can, shifting her books in her arms and fixing her eyes on her locker. It makes her nauseous, pretending not to notice the feeling of their eyes digging into the skin of her legs, so much more exposed in shorts than they normally are in the pleats of her skirt. "Go to hell." She says, voice hoarse and without the usual venom.

The comment only says a ripple of sniggers through the group, one of the braver ones speaking up again. "I mean it." He tells her, watching her fingers tremble around the lock as she fumbles with it, trying to get it open. "Looks good on you. Really brings out those lips of yours—"

Her hands are sweating; losing a bit of her nerve she actually drops a book, her cheeks flaring red as it clatters loudly against the tile and she's forced to scramble to pick it up, only dropping more. "Alright." She hears someone say over the ensuing cackles, the laughter quickly quailing. "That's enough—"

"Dick—"

"I said that's enough."

She can hear the sound of the boys dispersing, another girl further down the hallway getting their attention; doing her best to breathe properly again she ignores him when he kneels down beside her, collecting the books she's shaking too much to manage. "Your friends are such assholes." She hisses at him.

When she finally looks up he's smiling almost sympathetically, gathering the last of her notebooks into his arms. "I know." He says easily, the words still under his breath as if afraid they're going to be overheard. "But… You know. Gotta keep up with appearances."

"In that case," she mutters, ignoring the hand he stretches out and instead getting to her feet on her own. "You'd better get back. You don't want to be seen talking to me."

Dick makes a bit of a face when she grabs her books back, her fingers finally steady enough to open her locker with a slight jerk. "… How're you doing?"

For a long moment she ignores the question, instead shoving her books almost violently into her locker and slamming it shut. "Fine."

She's not entirely sure where she stands with Dick; lately he's been so distant from her life she's almost forgotten what it's like to be alone with him, how scrutinizing the gentle blue of his eyes can be when staring at her, not hidden behind glasses or a mask. They last time she spoke to him properly the two of them were bickering, and there hadn't been time to smooth things over between them before—

… Before what happened with everything happened.

She tries her best to glare at him, but somehow without either of them saying it she knows the fight is nearly forgotten. Maybe it has been for a while, now that she's thinking of it—maybe there are some things, some kinds of friendships, that aren't hurt by bickering or swearing or arguments.

... Or maybe she's just such a mess he feels too bad to fight with her.

Dick blinks when she clears her throat, finishing with her locker. "... Listen." She starts, not entirely sure what she's about to say next. She doesn't know why she feels like she should apologize.

When she wavers into silence Dick seems to understand, smiling. "You want a ride home?"

* * *

People stare when Dick leads her down the steps towards the school parking lot, no doubt wondering why they're together; as they weave through the usual mass of students still flooding into Gotham Academy for the predictable start of the year rituals she catches the hushed ends of whispers, sharpened eyes lingering on their backs.

"You're kidding." She hears herself say, shifting her backpack on her shoulders as he pulls up short beside his motorcycle—she's only been on it once, in the dead of night, while incredibly intoxicated. "You drove here? You don't even have a valid drivers' license."

Dick sends her a boyish flash of teeth. "As if I need it." He says easily. "Besides, what are you worried about? You've been on it with me before and survived."

She's about to point out that she wouldn't exactly call repeated vomiting and the worst hangover of her life 'surviving' when she's interrupted by a loud whistle behind her. "Hey Crock!" Someone shouts out; glancing over her shoulder she spots another one of his skivvy underclassman friends in the process of snorting at them. "If you were after a _ride_ you should have just said so—"

The words are drowned out by Dick's curse, so unexpectedly venomous that it immediately shuts the other boy up. "I'm sorry." He mutters after a moment, rifling through a bag before extracting a helmet for her. "I've tried telling them to back off—"

"Whatever." She cuts him off, not wanting to hear his pity. "… I'm not stupid, Dick. I understand— Nobody likes the scholarship girl."

"I don't think it's a question of whether or not they like you." He says darkly. "It's more the fact that they like you a little too—"

"Dick." She says warningly, taking the helmet from him. "It's fine."

It's awkward for a few seconds, a strange sort of silence covering the way he tries to hide the discomfort from his features as she looks away, hair flopping out from behind her ears. After a moment he seems to pull himself together, yanking another helmet out from his bag. "… How are you, though?" He asks again, amending himself before she can lie again. "I mean, really. Are you doing okay?"

She shrugs, which she supposes must be some sort of an improvement. She doesn't know why she blinks a few times before answering. "… Been better." She mumbles, palms flexing around the helmet before she decides what to say next. "I know I haven't been around much—"

"I get it." Dick cuts her half attempt at apologizing short. "We all get it. Sometimes a little distance... It helps everyone."

"Apparently." She mutters dryly.

She doesn't really mean anything by this, but Dick seems to see through her; at once he lets out a hoarse sounding chuckle, shaking his head. "… I haven't heard from him, if that's what you're wondering." He says plainly. "Flash took him a few hours after and—"

"I don't want to talk about Wally." She says abruptly, with so much severity that he immediately quails, voice dying in his throat. "I don't want to hear about— he's trying to be normal." She says flatly, wishing the words didn't taste so bitter. "He left the Team and... I know I'm supposed to ask questions and you're supposed to have answers and then the two of us are supposed to— I don't know. Haul him back to reality." She sighs weakly, trying to smile at him. "... But I'm not dealing with that. I'm not... He left. And I'm not chasing him."

 _(And he's not chasing her anymore either.)_

 _((He doesn't care. She's just another thing for him to deal with, another problem. And let's face it, they both have too many of those_ — _))_

She knows she's not making much sense, even inside her own head; whether he understands her or not Dick nods. "Okay."

The helmet is too round, an odd weight in her hands; she drops her eyes to stare at it again rather than watch the wariness behind his eyes, the too-calculated look that's trying to read parts of her she's not ready for anyone to know just yet. "You want a distraction?" She blurts out, jerking her head up to meet his confused eyes. "From… Everything? Want to be distracted with me?"

It's worded badly, but it makes Dick smile. "… What's the mission?" He asks, voice dropping low so only the two of them can hear.

She nearly grins, her mouth stretching but not quite turning into anything before she continues. "The Underground."

She can tell that he's been expecting this, that perhaps he's been thinking about it too. "Yeah?" He prompts, arms crossing.

"Yeah." She nods, finally unclasping the chin strap on her helmet. "Why it's there. Why it's not on any of our maps. I've tried asking Black Canary—"

For some reason Dick snorts. "She doesn't know." He says, so surely that she immediately quails. "Or at least, she doesn't know enough. The second after we left you in that room with Wally I went straight to Bats. Usually he gives me a good reason for keeping secrets but this... Whatever it is, it's over Canary's head."

She allows herself a moment to process them, teeth seeking out the inside of her cheek until she remembers she's already bitten it raw. "... And the medical bay." She muses, watching as he loops a leg over his motorcycle. "Have you been in there recently? I don't remember anyone ever mentioning that it was outfitted to treat a whole army."

There's the thrumming of a motor as Dick eases the engine to life, glancing at her. "... Sounds like you're going to be keeping us distracted for a while."

"Is that such a bad thing?"

Dick doesn't answer right away, instead looking at her for a long moment; behind the shadow of his helmet she can hardly read his face. "Artemis—"

There's a loud vibrate from her phone, her hand automatically slipping towards her back pocket. "It's home." She mutters vaguely, shifting her helmet in her arms and flipping the screen open before she can catch the slightly annoyed expression on his face. "Mom?"

Static, and then Paula's unusually stern voice comes blaring through the line. "Artemis Lian Crock." She snarls through the speaker.

She has gone toe to toe with super criminals, encountered the Injustice League, faced her own death a thousand times over. But in that moment Artemis realizes that real fear is hearing her mother call her by her full name.

* * *

Dick's hardly even come to a full stop before she leaping off the back of his motorcycle, fingers unclipping her helmet and flinging it back at him. "Hey!" He calls after her indignantly, ignoring her swearing as she peels up the front steps. "Just because your mom's about to kill you doesn't mean you can get off without thanking me for the—"

His teasing is cut off by the sound of the door slamming behind her, muscles aching as she starts pounding up the stairs two at a time; never in her life has she heard her mother say her name with so much venom, never before have the words _"You are coming home. Now"_ terrified her so much—

 _(It was an order, and order straight from Huntress_ — and _she knows the consequences for disobeying are paid in blood and sweat and pain_ —)

Her toes catch on the usual step but she doesn't even stop to feel the pain of stumbling, her knee skinned and bleeding as she forces herself to keep moving. She can't even begin to think of what she's about to walk in on, what possible thing she's done or what lie her mother has caught her in; all she knows is that the terror she's feeling rivals few moments in her life, all long forgotten memories of arguments with Jade and childish wrong-doings—

She bursts through her apartment door in a flurry of frizzy hair, ignoring the way her feet catch on that morning's disregarded sandals. "Mom?" She calls out, becoming suddenly afraid as she scrambles into her living room, chest aching as she pulls in labored breaths. "Mom, what's—"

She pulls up short, feeling a sudden rush of relief when she spots Paula seated around the kitchen table; at once her eyes are drawn to reddened hair sitting beside her.

 _(What. The. Fuck.)_

"Hey, Sweetheart."

" _Roy?"_ She blurts out, so stunned for a moment that she forgets she's still furious at him; at once she feels a flare of rage snarl up inside her, forcing her feet to pound forward. "What the hell are you—"

She breaks off into a few choice swears when all he does is smile at her; as if realizing she's seconds away from starting an all-out brawl in the kitchen her mother raises a hand to stop her. "Language, Darling." She says warningly, steely eyes narrowed at her from across the room.

She feels her heart pounding as she stares at her mother, neither of them breaking eye-contact; at once she feels stupid for racing here, for racking her brains over what possible infraction _(leaving dishes in the sink, forgetting to turn off the television, leaving mascara stains on the towels)_ could have prompted such a vicious reaction. Because if Roy is involved, she needs only one guess to know what this is about.

Paula blinks once, the silent permission she needs to look away; her eyes dart automatically to the smirk still on Roy's face, her jaw lowered and grey eyes flashing. "… What's going on?" She says carefully, fists clenching.

She's expecting Roy to talk over Paula; almost uncharacteristically his eyes switch to her mother, waiting for her to decide the direction of the conversation. "Sit." Paula orders, Huntress licking on the heels of her words.

It's the second time in a matter of weeks that she's heard her mother sound like this: the sneering coldness, the cruelly commanding tone reserved for taunting quarry and catching her daughters in wrong-doing. Like always it has the same effect on her; at once her stomach is squirming inside her, a infantile sort of fear bubbling inside her as her feet drag across the floor. The chair squeaks when she sits down.

She recognizes the familiarity in her mother's interrogation style; as soon as she sits Paula refuses to look at her, instead keeping her gaze firmly fixed on the pot of tea she's reaching for. Without saying anything the older woman pour three cups of identical bitter liquid and ignores her thanks when she passes it to her.

Roy glances at her, smirk fading a bit about the edges. Maybe he's finally realizing that he's in trouble too.

The silence is unbearable, her tea boiling hot against her lips as she takes a sip for something to do. Paula waits until the scalding liquid is burning her tongue before she speaks. "Artemis Lian Crock." She hisses again, practically venomous.

Although she's sure there's more to this her mother stops speaking, apparently too angry to continue. Forcing down a somewhat painful swallow she tries not to wince, afraid of what showing weakness will cost her. "Mom—"

"Do you know who this is?" Paula cuts across her, gesturing once towards Roy.

Apparently Roy's not amused anymore, instead looking properly afraid of the splotchy maroon now coloring her mother's cheeks. "I should have introduced myself properly. My name is—"

"I don't care who you are." Paula hisses, glaring at him so hard her nose immediately wrinkles. "You tell me, Artemis, what a mother is supposed to think when she comes home to a strange man in her apartment, claiming to be her daughter's boyfriend—"

She makes the mistake of sipping her tea again and nearly chokes. "Mom, he's not my—"

"Quiet! You think I don't know that now? You think I'd have a man in my home for nearly a half hour and not take the necessary steps to know something like that?"

For some reason Roy snorts, one thumb reaching up to run against the slightly swollen line of his jaw. "Is that what you're calling it? _Necessary steps—"_

"You are to be quiet." Paula snarls at him. "Unless you would like to see what else I find _necessary."_

Roy winces but obeys the order, and for one wild moment she nearly laughs; the impulse is immediately gone when she catches the look on her mother's face. "Mom—"

"How long have you been keeping secrets from me?"

The question is asked in such an entirely different tone; at once the sharpness has faded into a dull sort of sadness that seems to dig underneath her skin and wound her. "I wasn't keeping secrets." She hears herself say, fingers curling around her cup. "I swear, Mom—"

Paula scoffs. "You didn't tell me you saw your sister." She hisses, sharpness back. "You didn't tell me she's building a life with someone. That she's working with your father, that she might be in trouble—Why is it that I have to hear these things from a stranger—"

"Roy." The man in question blurts out, scowling above his cup of tea. "I—my name is Roy."

There's a moment where she's sure her mother might hit him; after a very long scowl Paula juts her jaw back in her direction, glaring. "You are to tell your mother the truth." She hisses, seizing her wrists and forcing her to release her cup, her overlong nails curling against her palms as she clutches her. "That is an order."

Her fingers twitch in her mother's hands, desperate to get away, but Paula doesn't yield; at once she feels like a child again, pinned and caught and deciding whether or not to fess up to accidentally breaking a lamp. Just like when she was a kid the command works on her, and at once the words start flooding from her mouth, unencumbered.

"The last time I saw Jade alive was in Athens." She starts, pulling the beginning out of nowhere; at once Paula's hands tighten around hers, nails cutting into her skin in a silent warning not to stop. "And before that… I don't even know. When she brought Roy back, I guess."

"Back?"

She nods across the table at him, silently thankful when he seems to understand he won't be knocked out for speaking anymore. "… Your daughter took me, for some time." Roy says tactfully. "Was helping me out with a mission of my own."

Paula's eyes narrow, and she can practically see her trying to picture Roy with a mask on, wondering what sort of hero he must be after hours. More to save him from any scrutiny she continues. "Jade dropped him in the apartment while you weren't home, knowing I would be able to get him back to the safety of the League. Roy was… sick. Very sick. I thought it wouldn't be a nice way for you two to meet."

Her mother's eyes narrow, although the pressure on her struggling wrists tells her that she's believed. "… I see."

"From then on… I only tried to communicate with Jade the once. I passed a message along through Roy, warning her about Dad. I knew he'd get it to her because of their… Arrangement."

"And that is what?"

She doesn't blame Roy for looking slightly sheepish under the severity of Paula's gaze. "I'm her... Boyfriend, I guess. We live together. Sometimes." He says awkwardly. "She comes to me when she feels like getting out of trouble every once in a while."

There's a very tense silence where she can tell this doesn't sit well with her mother; more to stop Paula from looking at him as if he's some sort of slug she forces herself to keep talking. "After than... Jade and I had a falling out in Athens." She continues. "I mean, more than usual."

Paula's nails cut into her skin so hard blood begins to well around the wounds. "I remember."

 _(Despite the pain in her wrists what makes her wince is the memory coming to her mind; even thoughtshe has almost no relationship with her sister she feels ashamed of recalling how she had screaming at her, of admitting she had wished the other girl was dead, of hating her_ — _)_

The silence must go on for too long because Roy suddenly speaks, filling in the spaces she doesn't want to remember. "... I was on that mission." Roy mutters, voice low as he takes a sip of tea, wincing at the taste. "It took a long time for her to… We weren't sure if we could trust each other. But when she finally showed up she seemed… Off."

She's out of story to tell, and Roy seems to understand this, picking up where she left off. "Jade got more reckless after that. More missions, higher stakes… More intense around the house too. I started thinking… Well, I knew something would have to break. But there were some days I could almost convince myself we were… Normal. Moving forward. Working towards something.

"She asked about you two a lot." He says suddenly, glancing between them. "She became obsessed with tracking you two. Not in a sinister way." He adds quickly, seeing the looks on their faces. "Just… Updates. Making sure you were okay. When Wally was still hanging around here I could usually get him to slip out a few details—how Artemis did on missions, how things were around the apartment. Little things that made her feel like… I don't know. You two were safe.

"She started getting worried when your father came back. The night he nearly killed you on that rooftop." He says lowly, fingers skimming the rim of his cup. "She was sure it meant something, that something had changed. She started leaving for longer and riskier trips. She started disappearing for weeks at a time, and before I knew it'd been a month since I heard from her."

She swallows, her tongue bitter in a mix of tea and bile. "The other night was the first time I've seen her in months, Mom." She says honestly, squeezing her mother's fingers. "She was working for Dad again, with Cameron and…"

Paula understands what it means when she trails off. "… And we both know she would never go back to your father without a reason." The older woman sighs, looking troubled. "… Which is why you—" She sends Roy a mistrusting look. "—believe she's in trouble."

Her and Roy exchange a glance; before she can decide how much to tell her mother he cuts across her. "I read the mission report, Mrs. Crock. And I know Cheshire—she's a Shadow, she doesn't mess with things that are… And she nearly blew the whole mission protecting Artemis from Icicle Junior. Whatever her faults may be I still think she's being coerced into working missions with your husband, and I think she's doing it to protect you and Artemis."

She blinks, eyes narrowing. "From what, then? Dad? … Other things?"

As she finishes the sentence Roy sends her a very pointed look that she's not entirely sure what to make of. "… Not sure." He says evasively, hesitating before sighing, turning to her mother. "I apologize for… Well, breaking into your apartment, for one." He tries to smile, brushing his fingers over his jaw again before continuing. "I just need someone else out there to know what's happening. I—" A very long pause, where he seems to be gathering his nerve. "... Whatever else she might be, I'm in love with your daughter."

She feels her nose wrinkle as Roy stares the two of them down, waiting for an answer. "… What do you want from us?" Paula asks suddenly, sounding tired.

At once he drops his jaw, surveying her mother almost carefully. "The same thing you want." He says plainly, not blinking. "I want our girl home. And I need Artemis to help me."

He must know she's about to wrinkle her nose because at once he's speaking again. "I've been trying to rally support for weeks now— I don't exactly have the best track record with the League. If you sit down and— and vouch for me, throw your support behind it, the League will have to... They'll have to save her."

"... What if she doesn't want to be saved?" She hears herself say, glaring at him.

It's not the right thing to say, but she can tell Roy's been expecting it; perhaps he knows that now more than ever she doesn't trust her own instinct, doesn't trust the false memories of that night in Siberia. Still, as they sit there silently fighting with each other she can't help but be reminded of Canary's words: _It doesn't change the fact that she still saved her from Cameron._

"She's your sister." He says firmly, leaning back in his chair. "And if the tables were turned... She'd save you every time."

She feels her face set, not sure how to feel or what to say; at once Paula's hands tighten around hers, forcing her gaze towards her mother. "… What are you thinking?" She mumbles childishly, for the first time unable to see an answer written on the older woman's face.

 _(Maybe there are some things she'll never be brave enough to do without Huntress snarling out the order first.)_

The fingers clutching her tense and then release, sliding from the table top and disappearing into her lap. The steel coated eyes she inherited find hers, striking and fierce in a way she can never find within her own. "… The same thing you are, Darling."

The answer strikes her suddenly, hot and painful. At once she sees the memory of her sister in the door frame, offering a single backwards glance before disappearing into the night. She wonders what the ten year old girl who was first abandoned all those years ago would be thinking now.

"Okay." She croaks, sealing her resolve. "… On one condition."

He makes the mistake she's been hoping for. "Anything."

* * *

The apartment is nine blocks away from hers.

It's an old building, like the one they've just come from, with rickety stairs and a jutting elevator with a grate that doesn't quite stay closed. When they reach the fifth floor they're greeted with an ancient sort of chime.

She counts the few doors that pass before Roy comes to a stop outside a dingy looking one with the brassy number '58' tacked in its center. "I still don't know why you have to see it."

Her nose wrinkles. "Just open the door."

He makes a strange sort of muttering sound underneath his breath, fumbling with his keys for a moment before obliging; she's left to catch the door after he rams through it, bracing the faded wood against her arm before shoving it open after him.

She doesn't know why she wanted to see it—why it was so important, so suddenly, to see proof of Jade's life. Why she wanted to see the place where her sister lived her most normal hours, without masks and sais and the impassable borders between League and Light. But she knows at once that this is it, can tell by the lingering scent of sweet grass and cigarettes that her sister once passed through these halls, breathed in this air the same way she once did in their first home a mere nine blocks south of here.

It's simple, small; when she finally gets the courage to stop lingering by the stooped-in entrance she steps immediately into the kitchen which is strikingly similar to her own. Across a rather chipped looking counter is an over-stuffed couch placed across from a fireplace.

It's cozy in a way she didn't expect it to be. Unwillingly she can feel the comfort in this place: in the overfilled ashtray on the coffee table, in the mismatched plates in the sink, in the thickness of the pillows piled in the couch corners. She had wanted, needed even, to feel some sort of emptiness in this place, some of the void-like coldness her own home can't shake. She hates that this place feels warm.

She hates that she's disappointed.

 _(She hates even more that her fingers clench around her phone in her pocket, craving the sound of Wally's voice more than anything; he always had a way of helping her make up her mind, helping her figure things out. More than ever she wishes she could talk to him, wishes she could ask his advice, wishes she could have five minutes alone with him to sort out her thoughts. He always made her feel sure of things, made her mind less violent and confused_ — _he would simply have to touch her and everything would pull into focus and for once in her life she would be something other than furious or terrified or ashamed or frozen_ — _)_

Roy doesn't even glance back as she takes it in, instead bee-lining directly to the fridge. She feels her eyes narrow as he opens it, glaring at the magnets and the shopping lists and—she can recognize Jade's handwriting even from the few feet of distance—a briefly scrawled note signed off with a rather pointed heart.

He must notice her glaring as he straightens, extracting a mahogany bottle and cracking the top almost self-consciously. "You hungry?" He asks her gruffly. "I haven't been shopping in a bit but—I don't know."

She ignores the question, taking another hesitant step forward. To her left is a hallway of some sort, no doubt leading to a single bedroom and a bathroom. "… Sorry." She hears herself say suddenly. "I—" Her voice cuts out and she doesn't do anything to retrieve it. As if he understands what she's thinking Roy sighs, crossing the kitchen tile towards her. Almost jokingly he offers her the beer bottle.

She doesn't think twice about accepting, the glass feeling cold in her hand as she swigs the sour liquid back; beside her Roy only raises his brows, amused. "It just… Looks like a home." She says badly, the liquor bitter and fizzy in her stomach. "I didn't think Jade would ever have a home."

She's not entirely sure if this makes sense, but Roy seems to get the point; taking the bottle back he pauses, swigging his own sip back before speaking. "… So that's it, then?" He sighs, glancing at her. "You'll help me?"

She doesn't know why it makes a difference; why she's so much more sure now, standing here in Jade's apartment. But she does know it seals something, makes it more real—if Jade has a home she has somewhere to return to. And even if it isn't the old fourth floor Gotham walkup that's nine blocks away it's close, closer than she's been in six years. And maybe that's better than nothing.

She takes the beer back, not waiting for him to pretend to offer it again. "Fine." She says, tipping it back.

* * *

Roy and her set to work.

It feels good, having a purpose again. The two of them set to about tracking Jade, scouring through Justice League databases and weeks' worth of security footage, piecing together her sister's whereabouts and patterns before her sudden disappearance. It's dull work, but it gives her mind something to focus on other than the monotony of lingering trauma.

Unexpectedly she finds she likes spending time with Roy; unlike the rest of the Team he doesn't bother with pity, or asking how she's feeling. The two of them never get into depth about what happened in Siberia, and the few times they breach close to the subject he has a way of brushing all mentions of Cameron off without making her feel bad for it. She wonders, vaguely, if he's trying to make up for his cruelty the first time around—but she doesn't ask, and following her lead he doesn't apologize.

Paula's still cautious around him, lingering about hallways and listening behind corners the few times he swings by the apartment. She never gets the full story of what happened the half hour before she got there, but she can tell by the way the two skirt around each other that whatever else the older woman might be she's not as helpless as she appears.

They decide to keep what they're doing a secret from the rest of the Team, at least at first— from what Roy tells her he has a bit of a "cried-wolf" reputation with the rest of the League, and steam-rolling ahead without a solid mapping of their quarry would only result in too-many eyes watching them too-soon. Instead they set about stalking their prey methodically, silently, pretending not to make much of their meetings in the Cave's library or afternoons spent hovering around the holographic computer in the briefing room.

"Am I missing something?" Zatanna snorts on the first of September, glancing down when the phone on her bedside table vibrates with another missed text from Roy. "Are you two dating or something?"

"No." She says flatly, slamming her hand against the metal and switching it to silent before the other girl can pry. Luckily for her it's easy to shift suspicion by bringing up the one thing no one wants to talk about. "He's just... I like talking to him. He's removed from the Team and... Siberia stuff."

The lie is enough to make Zatanna's cheeks fire off a spectacular pink before she flops back into Jade's old bed, hiding behind a magazine. "Whatever you say." She mumbles. "Doesn't change the fact that you obviously have a thing for red-heads."

Although she's started haunting the Cave more frequently there's still no sign of Wally, his absence screaming out almost painfully— without him there there's far too much food in the fridge and far too few bouts of laughter.

As September breaks so does she: finally she calls him again, just the once—before the dial tone can even finish she gets a hold of herself and snaps her phone shut, already hoping that she was quick enough to stop her name from popping up on his missed calls list. Somehow the idea of him seeing her number, and knowing she was thinking of him, is more intolerable than his absence.

 _(She reminds herself she's still mad at him.)_

Even though the days tick on and she knows it's useless she doesn't stop scouring the halls, making repeated trips to the kitchen and taking extra-long routes around the Cave in the hopes of catching him while at the same time praying she never does. It's all so confusing, her own feelings bubbling in the pit of her stomach and contradicting each other, her thoughts whirling in circles every time she goes over what Barry said—about Wally needing her, about the two of them being bound together, about the fact that it's completely and totally unfair—

 _(About the fact that as much as she hates it, as much as it goes against every instinct she has… She would do it. Be the Lightning Rod. Because he's already saved her a thousand times over, how is one lifetime enough to make up for that—)_

 _((But he's not here now, the one time she's needed him to comfort her more than anyone. And he owes her, he owes her, why hasn't he called her back_ — _)_

 _(And yes, maybe some things will never change: she'll always want Wally. But like this? Forced together? Against what either of them want?)_

 _(How is this fair? To either of them?)_

 _((Why isn't she worth one stupid phone call?))_

* * *

She exhales, unconsciously drifting through the kitchen for the third time this hour and hardly glancing at the empty seats around the islands; her head feels bogged down with the weight of her thoughts as she drags onward, heels catching on the tile as she changes direction. She should be in bed, getting used to going to bed at a decent hour—trying to sleep, even though none will come.

It's quiet, as it always is this time of night; all the Cave's usual occupants have settled from their post-dinner buzzing and retired to their bedrooms, not quite sleeping but not quite doing anything exciting. Now that the days are beginning to shorten and the evenings are beginning to cool she's been forced to stop spending this time reading on the beach the way she used to, just a few short weeks ago—

The memory pauses, her ears catching voices on the other side of the door she's just passed. "—and I have already told you. He is not a welcome visitor to the Cave."

Despite herself her feet immediately still, caught off guard at hearing Kaldur's voice so rough and unpleasant. She's hardly made it down the hallway towards the sleeping quarters, the first door on her right no doubt the entrance to his bedroom. "And I have already told you, Kaldur'ahm," Tula sneers out, tone sharp and snarling. "That Garth is of no threat to your precious—"

"You are acting childish."

" _I_ am—"

"Enough, Tula." Kaldur cuts across her, words powerful even through the door. "As I told you months ago, I will not have anyone on my Team feel afraid of someone you still deem to call a guest. Garth is not staying, nor is he a welcome visitor."

There's a disgusted sort of clicking. "You speak as if you did not once call him your best friend. You know better than anyone that he was simply upholding our customs. You know he would not have wanted touch a filthy surface girl—"

"I said enough!" Kaldur snarls, yelling over the insult so she can't hear it; she can feel her pulse thrumming loudly in her ears as she stands there, listening hard. For a long moment there's nothing but the sound of silence, as if the two of them are both so angry at each other that they can hardly speak. "… You are pretending not to know the real reason he is here. Pretending not to remember that it was you he rushed here to see—"

"Now you are the one being childish."

"It is childish to pretend not to know the truth, Tula! To pretend not to notice that he is still in love with you, and even worse to pretend that you do not still feel the same way— to pretend that you did not spend the last night in his bed—"

There's a loud slapping noise, as if Tula's just raised her hand and struck him across the face; before she can even brace herself the door is being flung open, revealing the other girl in tears. "Oh, of course!" She snarls, fists clenching for a moment as if she's about to strike her too.

Kaldur appears in the doorway almost instantly, looking distinctly furious as Tula elbows past them both. "I—" She hears herself blurt out, glancing between him and the other girl's back. She doesn't even know how to begin to explain. "I wasn't listening, Kal. The door, I was walking by—it was hard not to overhear. Sorry."

Rather than look at her Kaldur stares after Tula, mouth opening as if to call after her; after a moment he seems to think better of it, sighing. "It is alright." He mumbles, shutting his bedroom door behind him and joining her in the hall. "... Did you wish to speak to me?" He asks stiffly.

She can't imagine anything she'd rather do less. "No. I—I'm so sorry, Kal." She's not sure what she's apologizing for.

Whatever the words are worth Kaldur seems to take comfort in it, nodding his head solemnly and not quite looking at her. "… You are well?" She's growing tired of the repeated question but doesn't want to lie, instead making a funny jerking motion with her head. Whatever it's supposed to mean it makes him frown. "As expected. I have been… Worried about you. Would you care for a walk together?"

This seems like a bad idea. "Kal—"

"As a favor to me. I have been wanting to ask you something."

She's about to tell him that his place is with Tula, that he should run after her; before she can open her mouth to say something she's caught by his tone, that their conversation is about to be all business, not personal. "… Okay."

He makes the motion for her to follow, going back the way she came; suddenly the few seconds of silence between them are too loud, and before she can stop herself she's speaking. "… You and Tula are going through a rough patch?"

"Yes." He says shortly, glancing at her once before sighing again. "It is the same rough patch we have been going through for months."

She's expecting him to leave it at that, already nodding solemnly when he continues. "Tula and I are very similar. We are very… In sync. Usually in couples that is preferable, to possess so many of the same traits… But we are both easily jealous. You know as well as I do that there is only friendship between us, but Tula—she has always been most suspicious of you."

"The same way you are with Garth." She says automatically, backtracking almost immediately. "Except, you know. You have good reason."

Kaldur's lips quirk appreciatively, leading her through the common room and down the hallway opposite. "Garth's sudden reappearance has made things complicated. I cannot allow him to reside in the Cave but he is still… Around. Meeting her in Happy Harbor, or— and the two of them are…" He hesitates. "Tula did not come to me last night."

"And you think she… Went to him?"

Another sigh. "Is it foolish to assume so?" He asks guiltily, coming to a stop in front of a door she's never been through before. "After all… I was once where Garth is now. I knew where she was on the nights she was not with him."

She can't think of anything polite to say back and instead sends him a sad sort of smile, glancing around awkwardly. "… You wanted to ask me something?"

The weak question is enough to distract him; with another nod Kaldur opens the door for her. "Yes, forgive me. Go in."

It's a lab of some sort—the room feels sterile but warm as she walks into it, taking in the white of the cabinets and the files along the shelves. In the center of the room there's a plain looking desk, the same kind that decorates the chemistry labs at Gotham Academy. And in its center—

"The artifact?" She says automatically, quickening her pace forward. "I thought the League had—"

"It is in temporary transit." Kaldur explains. "I will be moved from Justice League facilities to S.T.A.R Labs tomorrow."

It's how she remembers it—and aged looking disc, almost plate-like, adorned with symbols and lettering that she can't read and cracked down the middle from where Jade forced it out of the ice. It's damaged in several places, crumbling in the grooves where Garfield had clenched it in his mouth, the majority of the center symbol cut off from the damage. "What does that mean?" She says, glancing at him. "They're transferring it? Like, that has to mean something, right?"

"Initial League analysis has revealed it to have select intense traces of EMF radiation. Much like our squid."

Her eyes narrow. "And I'm betting that's much like the artifacts stolen back in Athens."

"As is the rest of the League." Kaldur nods. "Whatever the Light is planning on doing with the collection of such artifacts it is clear that it is becoming a race between us and them. It is going to become a high priority to track global traces of EMF radiation and attempt to retrieve more of these artifacts before they do. I have been meeting with Dr. Sandsmark and it appears as if she will finally be receptive to aiding the League in finding them."

She can sense there's something he's not telling her; looking carefully between both his eyes she tries to read him. "… What changed her mind?" She asks, careful to keep her voice measured.

For some reason Kaldur smiles. "I believe that was her daughter's doing. You remember young Cassie? It took some time to arrange— several meetings, physical testing— but the League has a vested interest in taking her on under a semi-permanent role. A side-kick— to Wonder Woman."

She hears herself let out an exhale. "Hm. Wow."

"Indeed. You can see the appeal— what with her daughter so involved in Justice League happenings, it only makes sense that Dr. Sandsmark turns to us as well. Even simply for the sake of keeping watch over her daughter."

Again, she feels as if he's holding back. "So, the artifact is being moved, Cassie's working under Wonder Woman... What did you want to ask me? Whether or not I think Garfield's ready to be a tag-along too?"

Kaldur swallows, throat bobbling thickly against his neck before he glances away. "I was hoping to ask you to head several of these missions." He says carefully, looking at her again. "… Roy has been telling me that you seem most adept at tracking."

The second he says it her eyes narrow, mouth twisting into a slight frown. "... Did he?" She asks vaguely, voice gritty.

It only takes a second or two of her glaring at him for his resolve to crumble. "He also mentioned—"

"He wasn't supposed to mention anything." She cuts across him, an annoyed sigh ripping out of her throat. "That's what this is about? You want to what—keep me busy? Because you don't like what Red and I are—"

"Artemis." Kaldur talks over her; although he hardly raises his voice she senses the warning there, her mouth closing before she can finish. "I am asking you because you have long since proven yourself as part of this Team."

She keeps her eyes narrowed but still feels her cheeks heat. "Oh."

"I am also asking you because I know you. And I understand that keeping busy helps you—I know that you will feel better much faster if you are not allowed to dwell on what is upsetting you."

They're getting near the one thing she can't stand to talk about; shoving her hands in her pockets she glares at her feet. "… Kal." She says warningly.

Whatever the rest of this speech may be he seems to cut himself short, instead reaching out to clap her on the shoulder and ignoring her when she tries to shrug him off. "Red Arrow is my best friend on the surface world." He says suddenly. "And I have learned long ago not to try to stop him when he sets his mind to something. I am sure the two of you working together would be… Formidable, to whatever you chose to encounter."

"What's your point?"

"That you should be wary." His fingers tighten for a moment, almost painful. "I might not know the specifics of whatever the two of you are planning, but I do know what Roy feels for your sister. I know the lengths to which he would go to protect her. You must make sure that, should his heart interfere with his head, you are not caught in the cross fire."

Her brows furrow, and before she can think of what to say back the hand on her shoulder falls.

* * *

 _(She pulls her bow string tight, muscles setting into place. Her cheeks feel frost bitten as she squints through the snow, her pulse pounding against the warbled bump of skin against the base of her neck. She can hear people shouting, can hear the explosion of thought screaming inside her mind—can feel, for the first time, the raw fear of her Teammates licking at her insides—_

 _She's braver than she thought she would be, in the less than a second she has left. She doesn't feel afraid, or maybe it's simply that she doesn't have time to feel anything at all; she sets her arrow against her finger, hears her own name being screamed inside her head, and before she can find a target the beam consumes her._

 _At first it isn't bad; she feels weightless, atoms separating and mind suddenly silent as it's torn from her body. The voices cut off suddenly, her own thoughts frozen inside her skull._

 _Then the pain comes._

 _She screams, or at least tries to; she can feel her skin melting from her bones, her hair falling out from her scalp, can feel her eyes popping from their sockets and tongue unfurling from her mouth. Organs and intestines and the pieces of sinew and muscle that hold her together collapse in on themselves. Artemis Crock combusts from the inside out, as violent and consuming as a dying star._

 _She's expecting the feeling to fade into nothingness—expecting, as it was before, to feel herself die and be reborn a thousand times over, expecting to be torn apart and stitched back again in the small infinity she was lost in until the Exercise was over. She grits her teeth together, feeling them fall apart and bleed into gums and bone and back together again, waiting for her mind to break free from the hell M'gann once locked her in._

 _((It's only a dream.))_

 _Instead she breathes in salted air, her limbs sticking to blood-soaked snow. When her eyes appear again she sees the shape of the Hells Gate Bridge, blooming in the Metropolis darkness._

 _((She hasn't been here in a while.))_

 _But she's here now, lying beside Wally the way lovers would. And the snow is swirling down and people are shouting in her mind again, screaming at her to turn back—but she is still, lying here, she can't move—_

 _"... Artemis?" He tries to say, a bubble of blood bursting at the corner of his mouth._

 _The beam hits her as Wally screams, the movement bursting his lungs; blood gushes out of his mouth and chokes him as the skin melts off her bones, her eyes dribbling out of their sockets as he tries to look at her. He tries to say her name, tries to touch her_ — _but neither of them can move, they are dying, they are dead, they are better off that way_ —

 _((And this isn't right—she knows this dream, has lived it more than two dozen times since it happened. She is supposed to comfort him, soothe him through death—he is not supposed to see her dying, not supposed to—))_

 _She's reborn and blasted away again, and Wally is forced to watch her go. Each time he screams, the noises he gets out of his throat less human the longer he lies there—at first he tries to say her name, then tries shouting for help; then he is wailing, crying, fading, making the same feral sounding pants that first drew her to him, the one that once saved his life—_

 _She hears footsteps, people coming; without knowing how her hands wrap around his body, keeping him tight to her dissolving flesh. They are both dead but they are together, and she has to protect him, that's what they do..._

 _Someone screams, guttural and tortured as they seize her mangled body, whole pieces of skin and muscle ripping off her bones as they try to pry her and Wally apart. She feels like a slab of raw meat, chunks of her thrown away as the unknown person tears her open, rotten blood and flesh spewing over the Metropolis streets._

 _((And she can't tell if this is a real memory anymore_ — _she sees Oliver's moustache and hears him scream her name, but the sound is far away, blurred and muted over the pain of her body being ripped apart_ — _))_

 _She's not strong enough; Wally is taken from what's left of her arms and dragged through the upturned street, the tender wounds created by bullets ripping open as he's pulled along the pavement like an animal to the slaughter, crying and screaming for her to save him._ _And she can't stop it, can't help him. She tries to raise her hand only to watch the skin on her arm burst open, dripping from her bones like tenderized meat. Wally's shrieking and she dies all over, is reborn again, tortured by the smell of his blood and the—)_

The dream is ripped from her mind as she wakes suddenly, drawing in a breath that sends her ribs aching. "Hey!" Someone snarls at her when she kicks out, a too-warm hand suddenly pressing into her shoulder when she tries to sit up. "Artemis, calm down—"

Wally swears when she throws his hands off her, her palm swinging of it's own accord to slap violently against his cheek, another kick colliding with the center of his chest. There's a clattering as he topples into the coffee table, her mind screaming out as she clenches her fingers into the fabric of the couch, breath coming out so hard and fast she's sure her lungs will burst—

She hears him curse again as he slides to the floor, clutching where the edge of the table has jabbed into his side. Her vision is still splotched with blackened edges, nausea running through her as she looks at him through pieces of her hair; she's—she's not in Metropolis. She's somewhere else now, the Cave, the Cave—

 _(... Another nightmare...?)_

"Goddammit." Wally mutters, one hand still clutching his ribs; his cheek is a bright red where she hit him, a matching hue popping up on his ears as he raises his head to look at her. She doesn't know what he sees written on her face— horror, terror, weakness— but at once he frowns, looking impatient. "It was just a dream, Artemis. It's over. You're awake."

She doesn't trust him, trying to remember to breathe as her eyes adjust to the darkness of the living room; her forehead feels almost slick with sweat when she makes to push her hair out of her face, eyes darting around the room and waiting for another wave of the nightmare to wash over her. She's not in Metropolis. She's at the Cave. She'd… She'd been reading.

 _(She's shaking.)_

Her book is on the floor now; Wally notices her glancing at it and quickly moves to pick it up, placing it carefully on the jostled coffee table before turning back to her. He's kneeling beside her, as if he's been there for a while, trying to wake her. "You were having a nightmare." He tells her.

She opens her mouth to snarl something back, feeling her cheeks color when the only sound that comes out is an rather shaky exhale. It's been too long since she felt like this: wide eyed and vulnerable and not sure of her own reality; she can feel sweat dribbling down her lower back, her heart pounding and breaths still coming out too-loud and phlegm catching in the back of her throat. It occurs to her, suddenly, that this is the first time she's been properly warm in a while.

 _(_ — _And as she thinks it another violent tremble rocks through her, chilling her. She feels as if she's waiting for something, for her flesh to melt or for Wally to scream, waiting for him to be gone again; almost desperately she stares at him, unblinking, not sure if he's real or if she's only moments away from a fresh wave of hell_ — _)_

"... Am I still having one?" She asks weakly.

A twisted sort of frown, followed by a dry chuckle. "No."

"But you're here." She blurts out, back-tracking when she catches the hurt look on his face. "No— I mean— you were in the dream too. And you haven't been here, in real life, so—" Her voice breaks as she winces, running a hand through her hair as she stops speaking.

Wally doesn't take her silence for a good sign; he shifts almost uncomfortably as she keeps her eyes fixed on him, as if her staring is making him nervous. "You're not dreaming." He says firmly. "I know I've been... Gone. But I—I left my physics textbook here. Kinda getting hard to do the homework without it." One almost forced chuckle. "I didn't think anyone would be around but… I saw you on the couch. At first I thought you were just shivering."

He gestures a little sheepishly at the blanket she's now noticing, the scrubby throw everyone on the Team has curled up with at one point that's currently draped almost clumsily over her legs, as if he'd thrown it over her a little carelessly. "I figured… Well, you were still twitching a lot when I came back. I've… I mean, I've seen you have nightmares." He mutters awkwardly. "I can tell when you can't wake up on your own."

She doesn't know what to say, feeling her cheeks redden as her lower lip trembles; she can't decide if she wants to thank him or throttle him for being the one to find her, alone and helpless in the dark. Deciding its better not to say anything at all she sucks in a breath, finally dropping her gaze to her lap.

"… Artemis?"

And she doesn't trust it— the way his voice is gentle, tender, too-soft as he looks at her through furrowed brows; at once she feels her face twist into a scowl, her knees automatically flying up towards her chest. "... Don't." She mutters, arms wrapping around her legs as she hides behind them. "Don't be nice to me, okay? I'm mad at you."

There's a beat, a loud one, where she can feel the sirens of bewilderment firing inside Wally's head. "What?" He snorts out, brows furrowing. "How are you mad at me? We haven't seen each other in weeks— we've been talking for five seconds—"

"Exactly." She snarls, head turning towards him so quickly her hair flops into her eyes again. "You've been gone. Completely MIA. After everything that's— I needed you. I needed you, and you couldn't—" She swells angrily for a moment, not sure why she's hesitating— there are no secrets between them anymore. "You couldn't even return a lousy phone call."

She's not really yelling, but Wally's face is wrinkling as if she's spewing the worst of him in his face. "... I didn't think you'd want me around." He mutters after a moment, ears glowing crimson.

"Then you're an idiot." She hisses back, sinking down behind her knees and pretending not to notice her own blushing.

Because that's what had hurt the most about Wally's stony silence: the fact that he hadn't been there. And maybe it's childish of her, to shove him away and then drag him back in, to switch so rapidly between hating and needing him. But they've both said it before: _they take care of each other_. And she had been there for him— had pulled him back from the eye of the storm, had killed the small part inside herself to save him. And now she's dead, bleeding on the ground, and Wally can't be bothered to escape him façade of normalcy to save her in the same way, even to return a phone call—

There's silence again, a moment of it that lasts for far too long.

She's waiting for him to apologize, waiting for him to put on his usual moping expression and talk her out of her own feelings. She's waiting for the moment she can snarl over him, continue spewing out all the angry words she's spent too long building up, waiting for the moment she can take all the hurt and pain she's been feeling and blame it on him—

She nearly jumps when the silence is broken by his fingers pushing her hair back behind her ear.

And suddenly she hates that she can't help it, that at once she jerks back from whatever comfort he might be trying to give her. She hates that being touched by him has become intolerable the same way everything else has since that night within the sterile white walls in the Underground when the kiss he forced on her had stolen the last piece of her she had to give. She hates the low hiss that hardly sounds in the back of her throat as she flattens herself against the the couch, preferring the cold leather to the feeling of his warmth.

 _((She hates everything, including herself.))_

Wally doesn't smile, instead looking almost impatient with her again. "Relax." He tells her stiffly. "I'm just getting your hair off your face."

It's not the apology she wants; her first instinct is to glare at him, as untrusting and hard as the first day she met him. Feeling her nose wrinkle she stiffens, her eyes unwillingly falling to watch the movement of his fingers towards his wrist, peeling her old elastic from its usual place.

It's clumsy, the way he reaches for her; she feels her whole body tense as he tucks her hair behind her ears, pulse quickening despite the way she's frozen in a mixture of anger and stubbornness. Again she feels like a cornered hare, caught between holding its ground and sprinting to safety, wary of both starting a chase and of staying still. Wally doesn't meet her narrowed eyes, focused on pressing her hair back into place; she drops her eyes to stare at his empty wrist, not sure what to feel as his warm fingers accidentally brush the soft skin behind her ears.

It's imperfect. Lopsided and bumpy along her scalp, missing pieces around the bottom.

But it is a ponytail.

"… Better?" He asks her gruffly.

Despite the coldness to his tone he sounds too normal, as if what he's just done is no different than handing her a pencil or grabbing an out of reach book. "… Sort of." She mutters, watching as he gets to his feet, already rounding the back of the couch before she can finish answering.

For one wild moment she thinks that's it— that he's going to leave her all over, go back to being normal while she's left dealing with her emotions and the wreck of a pony tail he's arranged her hair into. Over the back of the couch she stares him down, watching as he walks rather stiffly into the kitchen. "You want tea?"

"I—" Her voice cracks as she turns to look towards him, watching as he comes to a halt in front of her usual cabinet, already assuming the answer and finding the tea leaves before she can figure out if she wants to say yes. "… What's going—why are you—"

As if he can tell what she's trying to ask Wally pauses, glancing at her before reaching into the cabinet for a cup. "… Just say yes, Artemis." He grunts, ears going off.

She doesn't oblige, instead glaring at him owlishly over across the room; he only tolerates a second of this before he sighs, glaring as he places a mug on the counter. "Look— I'm not going to... Apologize, or whatever the hell you want from me." He says coldly. "I don't exist just to make you feel better—"

"Neither do I." She hisses back before she can stop herself.

It's a sticky sort of silence, the kind where both of them pretend not to notice the other blushing. "... Well, okay then." He grits out, busying himself with the kettle. "Then it's settled."

But it isn't; feeling her face twist into a glare she gets to her knees, spitting at him over the back of the couch. "You should have called me back." She blurts out. "I would have called you—"

" _I know_." He cuts her over, voice suddenly raised nearly to a bellow; for a moment the words seem to echo around the room, still stinging her ears even when he sighs again, hand running through his hair and speaking quietly. "... I know you would have. I know."

It's still not the apology she wants, but somehow her desire to hear the words is gone— somehow she knows, without being sure of how she knows it, that demanding anything else from him would only make things worse.

... He looks tired, she realizes, watching as he fiddles unnecessarily with the heat of the stove. She's used to seeing him running on little sleep; months ago when he was juggling missions and school his eyes would seem almost glassy sometimes, the pale skin beneath his apple irises faded into a dull sort of purple. Even from across the room she can see the familiar lines of exhaustion on his face, his skin oddly pale beneath his freckles.

 _(She wonders if he's sleeping.)_

She relaxes slightly into the couch, not sure if they're still fighting. "… How have you been?" She asks suddenly, not sure where the question is coming from. Perhaps people have simply asked her this so many times over the last few weeks that she's not sure how else to start a conversation.

Wally shrugs, not really answering. "... You?"

She shrugs back.

The kettle's boiling before he seems to figure out what he wants to say, the words blurting out just as he starts pouring the steaming water into her cup. "… I saw Linda." He says suddenly, glancing at her. She can't decide if he's telling her this to hurt her, or if he just wants her to know. "Went on that date."

She nods, teeth clenching. "How was it?" She asks carefully, hoping she's not prying.

"Good." A pause. "Really good. Easy."

 _(She's not sure if this is an insult.)_

He doesn't see the look on her face, his head dipping to let out a strangled sounding chuckle. "It's just weird." He says honestly, setting the kettle back against the burner. "Pretending to be normal. Taking a break, or whatever. I don't know how you did it last Thanksgiving."

"I wasn't really doing it." She scoffs, finally leaving the couch. As an afterthought she seizes the end of the blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders as she walks towards him. "I was bored out of my mind. I think I kept M'gann on the phone for an hour, trying to get news out of her."

"Well…" Wally trails off, sliding her tea towards her when she approaches the counter, catching her eye for a moment before looking away. "… I'm sorry." He says at last. "You're right. I should have—called you back, or something. After everything that happened. I wasn't… Uncle Barry didn't think it was a good idea."

The tea sits on the counter between them, steaming invitingly. She doesn't touch it. "… He said something to me." She hears herself mumble, cheeks reddening as her fingers clutch the blanket tighter around herself. "Before I left. That night."

He lets out a lingering sort of exhale, the kind that can't help but send the walnut scent wafting through the air, one of his hands clutching at the counter. "I know." He mutters, shaking his head. "And I'm sorry. That—it wasn't his place to tell you all that—"

"I'm glad he did." She cuts him off. "If this involves me too then I need to know, Wally. How am I supposed to help if—"

"Not that." He says impatiently. For a moment he seems to hesitate, gathering his courage. "I mean… About the other stuff. About… Us. He shouldn't have made you feel like—" He cuts himself off, not finishing; before she can stop him he reaches out towards her tea, forcing a scalding sip of the bitter liquid into his mouth, wincing. "—Like how I made you feel. The morning after we... Like all this was somehow your problem too."

He curses under his breath, whether from the taste of the tea or the temperature she can't tell; feeling her brows contract she swallows hard, shaking her head. "Wally—"

"I mean it, Artemis." He says before she can start arguing. "This is my problem. I'm dealing with it. You don't have to care."

He takes another swig of her tea, as if the foul tasting liquid is somehow making his resolution more firm; for a long moment she simply watches him swallow, fingers jutting nervously around the cup handle before he sets it back on the counter. "… I do care, though." She whispers.

Without thinking one of her hands slips out from where she's clutching beneath the blanket, seeking his wrist; like an old habit she finds the familiar dip in his bones, thumb twitching once before she marks his pulse.

She's not sure whether or not to feel hurt when he makes to pull away. "Artemis—"

"Wally." She says almost bracingly, fingers stilling him and holding him against the steaming cup. "Just… Listen. For a second. Because this—I'm not good at this. Just listen, please."

He hesitates but still obliges, the tension in his wrist easing as he allows himself back under her touch. She can feel his heart beginning to pick up, the words that had seconds ago been bursting out sounding almost strangled as she forces herself to speak. "… I know you're not asking me to care. And that… makes it easier, I guess. It makes me hate you less."

This is a bad start, Wally's face twisting into a frown before she starts back tracking. "Not that I—I don't hate you. Just this whole thing… You hate it too, don't you?"

He doesn't say anything, whether out of honesty or trying to preserve her feelings she doesn't know; his silence only makes her more nervous. "I just wanted to say—that I care, okay? Not because I have to. But—" She swallows awkwardly. "… You know that if you needed me I would be there. Same as always. This… It doesn't change anything."

This last part is a lie, and she suspects he knows it; at once his face is breaking into a smile that's not quite crooked enough to be real, his skin twitching underneath hers. It's stupid, even saying it—of course things have changed. How can they not have? How is she supposed to ever be there for him again without second guessing the instinct, second guessing her feelings, second guessing her own emotions against the will of the Speed Force—

And suddenly it's very hard not to question everything between them: the good times, the heat between them that brought on the summer, the paralyzing happiness he flooded through her. She had always thought it was some sort of miracle, how she could push him away only to be pulled back in, the way they always found their way back to each other despite their nasty words and snarled curses. The way Wally West was the only person to hook into her, unmovable.

 _(But this time she's pushed too far. And no matter how she might try to fix it... She knows now that she's alone again.)_

… She wonders what would have happened if she had fallen in love with him. The proper way—not with half-dead realizations and whisperings that never left her own mind. What if she had been unafraid of falling, unafraid to scream the words in his face? Would she still care now, still be clinging to the memories between them?

Wally's hand finally slips out from underneath hers, the fake smile falling from his face. "I know." He tells her.

 _(He doesn't promise the same back.)_

 _(And she thinks she understands it. Now that they both know the full truth about Lightning Rods, about the Speed Force... She gets it. He doesn't want it_ — _their friendship, their feelings, her_ — _like this. Doesn't want it to be something forced on them, something half-fake, predetermined by something much bigger than the two of them. And as much as she wants to fight him on it, wants to tell him that what is between them is so much more than that... She can't. She's out of words, maybe never had them in the beginning; either way, she doesn't have the strength to try to change his mind.)_

There's nothing else really to say, and she thinks they both realize it—they run out of small talk long before the tea goes cold, Wally glancing awkwardly at the half empty cup before sighing. "… I'd better get back. Still have all that homework to finish."

"Right." She nods, watching with interest as he collects his textbook before she remembers something. "I almost forgot—"

Wally chuckles when she yanks the elastic from her hair, offering it to him between pinched fingers. "… You keep it. About time I gave it back to you."

She blinks twice before she slips the now too large elastic back onto her own wrist. She's not sure why this hurts.

* * *

 **AN: Finally updated this! Sorry that it took so long- pretty much everything got put on hold the last couple weeks, but I have news: I am officially finished with exams and am now a university graduate! That and a birthday this weekend and I am a very happy camper.**

 **On another note: be sure to check out .com! I'm sure a lot of you followed along with my humming and hawing over this chapter but if you want to see some awesome YJ posts/fanart (and even submit your own) as well as frequent writing updates please follow me on there!**

 **Please Read and Review!**


	37. Cold Comfort

**AN: Okay, a very very long explanation is overdue. But first... Enjoy the chapter.**

* * *

 _(They both watch as her wrist falls back to her side, deadened by the weight of the elastic. As if it's been waiting for her to notice the kitchen seems suddenly cold, her skin prickling despite the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders._

 _If Wally notices any sort of emotion pass over her face he doesn't mention it; instead his eyes flicker once to her wrist and then the floor, ears setting off as usual. "... You should get some sleep." He mutters, lips pulling up in what might have once passed as a half-smile. "You know, somewhere other than the couch."_

 _And as he says it he makes to leave, turning his back on her the same way he's done the last few weeks, abandoning her and what's still between them all over again. And she doesn't know where it comes from, why the words bubble up out of her mouth before she can stop them—_

 _"Why would you quit the Team?"_

 _She sounds weak, stupid; as if he's been expecting this Wally sighs. He still hasn't looked up from the floor. "Artemis—"_

 _"We should be dealing with this together." She says over him, the blanket nearly slipping from her shoulders as she takes a step forward. "You need us. We can help you. That's what we do, we—"_

 _(("We take care of each other."))_

 _She cuts herself off, lower lip trembling for a moment before her teeth claim it; as if he can sense the movement his apple eyes meet hers, eyelashes flickering to the blush on her cheeks and the glistening of the gold chain around her neck. "What do you want me to do, Artemis?" He asks, sounding tired._

 _She doesn't know how to respond to the question, doesn't know what to say back to the defeated expression on his face; feeling herself blink stupidly she watches as he runs a hand through his hair, musing the ginger ends before his fingers find the back of his neck. "... Wally_ — _"_

 _"Because I can't figure out what the right move is here." He grits out, voice caught between exhaustion and exasperation. "Either I stay and let this_ — _this thing wreak havoc on the Team, or I disappear and let it_ — _"_

 _His voice breaks and so does her heart; suddenly she's the cowardly one, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze as he stares her down, beginning to look desperate. "Tell me what you want me to do." He breathes._

 _ _ _(And for a moment she senses something; _ _ _for not the first time she feels as if they're on the edge of something, skirting around old feelings and habits and whatever else is now forbidden between them. And suddenly nothing else in the world feels entirely real, as if it's just the two of them awake at this witching hour, as if air itself is frozen. For a moment everything ceases to exist except for Wally's hand as it falls from his neck, except for the shift of his weight as he drops his jaw, except for the tiny movement he makes in her direction: pleading, hoping, needing.)______

 _ _ _ _ _ _((And maybe she knows what she's supposed to say: "Come home, Wally. Stay."))______

 _(And in that moment she wants him. She wants him to rush towards her, wants him to throw his arms around her and never let go. She wants him to stay the way he always has, wants him to belong to her the way he used to, the way he belonged to her ever since she woke up to sand between her teeth and him between her legs_ — _she wants him, wants him, wants him. She wants him to come home.)_

 _... But the seconds tick on and the feeling fades and suddenly she feels cold again, numb to his pleading and his hoping and his needing her. Suddenly all she can feel is the weight of his abandonment, the agony of his leaving her, the pain of his rejection, the noose-like tightness of his chain around her neck. And she feels worthless all over, as needless as her father has ever made her feel._

 _She wasn't even worth one lousy phone call._

 _(Because he was the one who locked her out, first the one who threw her into the eye of the storm. He's the one who brought her into this mess and the one who left her to deal with it alone. And doesn't that prove something? That they're no good for each other, that they're all wrong, that they bring nothing but hurt for each other. It's one more reason to stay away, one more reason to stop feeling, one more reason to run from whatever the Speed Force has lured them into_ —)

 _((And why does he need her to say it, anyway? Why won't he listen until she's broken and begging_ — _))_

 _(She's tired of being the girl thrown out in the cold. And she's tired of clawing and biting her way to a place at the table. And she's tired of never being good enough.)_

 _((She's tired of hurting her pride for him.))_

 _She can't figure out what to say and after nearly half a minute of silence Wally chuckles. "See?" He grits out, blinking quickly as he turns away. He's back to looking at the tile. "... You don't know what to do either.")_

* * *

Septembers seeps open like a wound, stuttering and jutting with a distinct flurry of activity; even in Gotham where the air is clotted with city life everything feels fresh and too clean, and for the first time in months she's busy. For her, summer ends the way it began: in the loneliest way possible.

Kaldur is right, she supposes: she's best kept busy. Autumn creeps inside her bones and settles in the places her last goodbye with Wally have left hollow. Soon she is so caught up juggling school work and the Team and Roy— Roy, who insists on almost nightly patrols; _Roy_ , who sends her phone buzzing at all hours of the night, as if aware that she is wide awake too— that she forgets how alone she feels, only reminded of it at all when she makes the mistake of glancing at the overlarge elastic now wound twice around her wrist.

(She doesn't know why she wears it.)

Time forces her onward, counting the days through with seconds and moments where she tries to trick herself into normalcy, into feeling anything other than lost and lonely. She smiles. She eats. She tries to sleep. She drinks her cups of tea in the morning alone and at night with her mother. She laughs when Zatanna prompts her to, returns the pressure of M'gann's hugs, and shows up to her meetings with Black Canary three times a week.

She's fine.

(Or at least that's what she tells herself, when she realizes the water in the shower has turned from screaming hot to ice cold while she was too busy staring blankly at the tile to notice.)

(Or at least that's what she tells herself, when she catches sight of the necklace still clamped around her throat and her stomach turns over at the thought of taking it off.)

(Or at least that's what she tells everyone when they ask her if she's sleeping, if she wants something to eat, if she's heard from Wally since that last night in the kitchen—)

((Because she isn't sure what is wrong or what's right, or how it felt to not be swallowed whole by this incredible nothingness. All she knows is that it feels as if a piece of her has vanished, been stolen, been stomped on; and she can't tell if it was always gone and she just noticed, or if it disappeared beneath the ice when Junior smashed her skull through it, or if perhaps it slipped past Wally's lips the moment he pressed them into hers, or if it slipped below the welcome mat of Jade's apartment and was trod on too many times to be recognized.))

((All she knows is that she can sense its absence, can feel it waiting to be noticed, can make it out in the darkened edges of her vision when she squints; something is wrong, wrong, wrong, but she is too broken and too fragile to try to make it right.))

She can tell the others notice it too. She can see it in the way their eyes trace her smile, wondering if it's real; can hear it the moment she walks into a room and the conversation stops as they all watch her count them off, Wally's absence screaming out before they say hello. Their pity and their worry drills into her, into all of them, and in a strange desperation to get something right they do the only thing they're good at: being a Team.

Except they aren't good at it, at least not anymore— uncharacteristically the Team feels disjointed, unaligned, miles behind where they began only a year ago. It starts with Kaldur's low-stake tracking missions, then watches, then stale leads following anything no matter how remotely connected to artifacts. No matter the mission they come up empty handed, bruised from skirmishes they're too antsy for that aren't worth the lack of information. The Team feels lopsided, confused, without a purpose as long as the question of what the Light is planning remains unanswered. The whole uncertainly of the situation puts everyone into a foul mood, and in a flurry of frustrated disappointment Kaldur erupts into a long string of curses she never thought him capable of saying.

Although everyone has noticed a sudden dip in the Atlantean's mood she's sure she's the only one who knows the real reason why; more than once she catches him prowling the Cave's halls late at night, searching for Tula and wondering of her absence. Time goes on and she still can't think of any words of comfort, instead bringing her water to a boil and offering him a cup of tea in silence.

... She wishes Wally were back.

He would know what to say to Kaldur, how to make things more tolerable for the Team. He would know how to ease the tension and stop their fighting, would know how to fix the disconnection between them all; he would know how to make them laugh and start over, would know how to fix things.

(She hates him for making her miss him.)

No matter how hard she wishes for his return Wally remains gone; lost to normalcy and pretending and insisting on keeping his distance from them all, as if worried about infecting them with a lightning born disease. The thought of him forcing himself into isolation physically hurts her, digging under her skin and wriggling up to curl inside her belly like acidic guilt. She should have told him to come back. She should have ordered him to stay.

... But she hadn't. Instead she stood there in a silence so screaming it forced him away, back out of her life. She should have run after him, should have followed him home, should have— what? Ignored the way he hurt her? Ignored her own pride? Ignored the fact that the one person she thought would never really leave finally gave up on her?

… Something changed, the night he gave her the elastic back.

Knowing everything they do now, about the Speed Force and Lightning Rods and what it is between them... It would have been like a betrayal, telling him to stay. It would have felt like admitting they were supposed to be together, admitting that she needs him as much as she does, admitting that they're slaves to whatever power is bigger than the two of them, whatever power has insisted on throwing her in the crossfires. And it isn't right, being forced to be with someone, being forced to take care of them—

 _But it still hurt, seeing how easily he had surrendered her elastic._

 _(But it hurt even more, watching him leave.)_

It had been like sealing some sort of pact, repaying a debt she had forgotten about; the talisman that had once _been a reminder of what it cost to be a hero_ had been disregarded so easily, as if what happened— as if everything between them— didn't matter.

As if she didn't matter.

She thinks herself in circles over it, rotating constantly with how she feels: furious with Wally, for leaving her to deal with the repercussions of _That Night_ on her own; upset with him, for shutting her out; hurt, over his leaving without a proper explanation; confused about how badly his abandonment hurt her, about what she's supposed to feel for him now that their whole relationship seems like something beyond their control; annoyed over how much the whole thing bothers her—and tired, she's so tired of feeling so much at once—

More than anything she feels lonely: lonely for Wally, longing for him the way she longs for a warm cup of tea after a particularly hard day. She misses his comfort, his reassurance, his friendship, his warmth— despite everything that's happened between them, despite all the confusion and hurt that's still clawing at her she knows she would feel better if he would at least... Be there. If he would just find his way back to her, like he always does. If he would just be her friend again, like before.

... But it's too late now, she supposes. This time she's pushed too far, distanced too much space between them. He's not coming back.

(She's fine.)

* * *

The first time it happens is on a Tuesday.

It's not late, at least by her standards— midnight seems to feel like dusk to her now, her nights so sleepless and her body so weary that the witching hours seem to pass by without her noticing.

She likes being up late, no longer missing sleep; the loneliness of the night seems almost comforting, the city lights through her window glimmering through the Gotham smog as if silently promising that the world is empty and she's alone, safe, hidden. Autumn creaks through the apartment and she lies still beneath her sheets, staring so hard at the night she forgets to blink.

(She's fine.)

(She's fine.)

(She's fine.)

She's not sure how long the feeling of being lost lasts, how long she stares out into the darkness beyond her bedroom window; all she knows is that she stares and stares until it happens.

She blinks, and her phone lights up.

Almost at once she winces in confusion at the brightness, not sure if she's dreaming or lost inside reality; as she lifts her head off her pillow her phone vibrates the once on her bedside table before slipping back into silence, nearly ghostly in the dead of the night. For one long second the sound seems to echo inside her, piercing the quiet almost painfully before she reaches towards it, thumb flipping it open.

 _Missed Call: Baywatch (12:11 AM)_

She blinks again, now staring so hard at the screen the backs of her eyes ache. It takes nearly half a minute before she realizes she's forgotten to breathe.

 _(Wally called her.)_

 _(—And she knows what that means, can hear the words as clearly inside her head as if she's just exhaling them for the first time—)_

 _(("This... This doesn't change anything." She had forced out, fingers resting with a sickening familiarity on the creases of his wrist. "If you need me—"))_

 _(Wally needs her.)_

She doesn't realize she's sat up until the chill of the night is swooping over her, the skin beneath her sleeping shirt prickling as her sheets crumple into her lap; and it's stupid, how quickly her stomach twists and her heart aches— too habitual, too predictable to even feel real beneath her layers of exhaustion and loneliness and pain.

 _(She should be upset. She should ignore the call. She should call him back and scream at him, throttle him, murder him for leaving her and ignoring her and trying to forget what they meant to each other—)_

 _((But—))_

Wally needs her. And for the first time ever she can't decide if she wants to help.

Her fingers tremble, her pupils blowing out as the light behind her screen dims, leaving her alone and trembling in the dark.

(She's fine.)

(Except she isn't fine. Except Wally needs her and she's not strong enough, not brave enough to confront the pieces of what they had; except the boy she could have loved is now the man imprisoning her. Except she has been beaten and bruised and bludgeoned by what the world has put them through and she is still stupid enough to crawl back to him, back to his green eyes and his freckles and the heartbeat that once ticked alone with hers, marking home—)

(Except she isn't fine. Because Wally will always be her only exception, because he is the only one who has ever made an exception for her— he has always come back, always saved her, always been the arms she found wound around her shoulders. And maybe this time he's not the one strong enough to come back, maybe this time it's her turn to save them both. Maybe this time she's the one who has to find the way back.)

((Except she isn't fine, because he's not even that same person to her anymore. He's no longer her protector, her keeper; no longer the boy with the bony elbows and the narrow hips and the warm, always warm hands. He's the man who left her, the man who used her, the man who chose to run away from her and what she meant to him. He has been cowardly and broken and gone— as vacant from her life as he could possibly be. And he's left her shattered, left her to deal with this— with them, with what's left— alone, as forgotten as the elastic he so easily gave back to her. And she can only admit in the darkness now that he's doing exactly what she's done to him a dozen times over— and she's selfish, but so is he, and why is he calling her, how many more ways can he be cruel—))

She shivers, alone in the night. The screen lights up again.

 _Incoming Call: Baywatch (12:17 AM)_

And she's stupid, and desperate, and lonely for him in the worst way. And without thinking she answers on the first ring.

She can't think of anything to say as the line crackles, static clicking between them in the silence. Almost painfully she presses the phone to her ear, fingers clenched so tightly around the metal she's sure she's denting it, ears straining to hear some sort of noise.

More silence, and then an inhale— something sharp and un-Wallyish that immediately sends a twist through her stomach. "Artemis?" He whispers. She hates that she can hear the catch in his voice, the mark that something is wrong.

(She's fine.)

"You called me." She grits out, voice breaking halfway through the words. She doesn't notice the way her fingers knot themselves in her sheets, clamping down on the fabric coating her lap. She can't think of anything else to say.

For several seconds he just breathes, the kind of inhale and exhale that tells her something's not right; she can hear something catching in his throat again, something phlegm filled and bitter and wrong, all wrong. "Hi." Is all he says, the single word warbling.

The nothingness of it all sends a low thrum of panic through her. "... Hi." She ventures slowly, brushing her hair back behind her ears as her brows furrow. Without meaning to she catches her fingers migrating towards the chain around her neck before she forces them back to her lap. "You called me, Wally."

He ignores this. "You okay?" He asks almost gruffly. "... You sound tired."

She hears the breath she lets out echo through the line, the exhale half-impatient and mostly worried. "I'm fine." She lies, knuckles white around her sheets— because no, she's not fine. She hasn't been fine since he left her, and if he had any decency he'd apologize and come back, he'd admit he's a coward, he'd let her rip him limb from limb—

She clears her throat. "... Are you alright?"

"Yeah." He chokes out; again she can hear something break at the end of the sentence, something rugged and jagged and not like Wally. "Sorry. I didn't mean to— it's raining here."

An old instinct seems to flare inside her, a surge of protectiveness and feelings she can't quite get rid of; all at once she's caught between hating him and wanting to protect him, her muscles tensing and spasming as she curls in on herself, try to decide what to do. "... Where are you?" The words sound like a flat-line; deadened, low, dangerous. She wonders if he can hear the mixture of pain and hurt in her voice, wonders if he can sense the way her hands begin to sweat, wondering if he can tell she's afraid to die for him all over.

"... Home." He manages to tell her, throat sounding tight.

And she can tell he's waiting for something; waiting for her to offer to come over, waiting for her to throw herself into the lightning storm for him once more, waiting for her to be what he needs her to be. And that feeling, that instinct to protect him seems to flare inside her throat like vomit, burning her insides with its insistence, but... But she can't.

 _She hates him._

Nearly a minute passes where all they do is listen to each other breathe; his exhales sounding ragged and hers too-restrained as she forces herself to pretend not to feel. "I—" He starts, pausing to swallow loudly into the speaker. "... Can we just talk? Please?"

 _("Sometimes... Just the sound of your voice... It helps.")_

The edge to his voice nearly undoes her, sending a twist of pain through her stomach so powerful she nearly throws herself out of bed; fighting back the instinct she forces herself into stillness, one lone traitorous hand slipping to grip the edge of her mattress. "... It's storming there?" She whispers, gazing past the emptiness where her bedside lamp used to be, staring out to the gloom of the Gotham night.

"Not here. A couple miles away." He grits out. She doesn't ask how he knows this.

The hand on her mattress eases, squeezing once more on the fabric before her fingers seek the bend of her knee. As if he can sense the twisting in her stomach or the teeth about to seek her lip Wally clears his throat. "I just... Thought we could talk. It's okay to still talk, right?"

"Wally—"

"It's okay." He says over her, cutting off whatever words of comfort she couldn't think of quickly enough to say. "I get it. Just... Talk to me. Please."

She swallows. "... Why would you ever think you couldn't talk to me?" She whispers, the words more quiet and cowardly than she means them to be. "I told you that you could always come to me if you needed me. I thought we agreed nothing had changed."

"... Come on, Artemis." He sighs after a moment, beginning to sound more in control.

"What?" She snarls, voice cracking as she increases in pitch; she can hear him exhale through the speaker, sounding frustrated as she spews out same old words they're both pretending are still true."I'm supposed to be your best friend—"

 _("So what? I'm supposed to... To put him before me? To stop my life so I can take care of him?")_

She can hear something through the line, some kind of static or whistling; in her mind she can imagine him standing beside his bedroom window, staring into the night the same way she is. "... We agreed a long time ago that we were going to take care of each other, Wally."

The phrase is supposed to be comforting but it only sounds brash coming out of her mouth, almost cruel; she can practically hear him wincing at it, his own voice sounding suddenly jagged and hard. Distantly she hears the echo of a sai hitting tile, can hear the sound of her bare skin sticking against their window, can taste his blood in her mouth; suddenly the words sound like the lie she's just realizing they are. They're supposed to take care of each other— but she's too busy playing the hero, she's too busy tracking down her father, she's too busy killing herself for him—

 _(How many more ways does she have to hurt herself for him? How many more times will he draw her blood before she gets it through her head_ — _she's no good for him.)_

As if he knows what she's thinking Wally snorts. "I didn't call to have you take care of me—"

"Then what do you want?" The words are too rash, too sudden, almost impatient in the way she throws them at him; at once she hears whatever Wally was about to say die in the back of his throat. "What am I supposed to do? How do you want me to fix this?"

The silence goes on for nearly a minute. Her question hangs between them for what feels like forever, too snarling and painful; she listens to the rain beating down on his window for nearly a minute before she tries again. "... Wally—"

The line clicks over, dead, and she knows she's lost him all over again.

* * *

More to channel her heartache and confusion than anything she spends more time with Roy, the two of them bickering often and thinking themselves in circles as they try to bring Jade home; slowly any leads they have on her sister begin to dry up and fizzle into nothingness, the two of them working out their frustrations during frequent nighttime patrols of Gotham that leave their knuckles bruised and spirits slightly raised.

It's the morning after one of these patrols now, a yawn slipping out of her mouth the second the zeta beams reconstruct her into existence; she's still clad in her academy uniform, bag slagging on her shoulders as she wanders towards the kitchen, searching for a snack before she begins studying. She only has a few hours before her mother will be calling her home, and she knows better than anyone that it's impossible to get any work done with the blaring of Gotham sirens in the background.

She yawns again as she enters the kitchen, watering eyes blinking for a moment as she takes in the scene with a low thrum of bemusement: there's dozens of plates and glasses floating in the air, some still dripping hot water and suds onto the floor; for one wild moment she's sure she's dreaming, glancing around in a half-asleep sort of way before—

"M'gann?' She says cautiously, spotting the other girl at the sink.

Despite the gentleness of her tone the Martian jumps; at once every piece of glassware is sent plummeting towards the tile floor, her reflexes only fast enough to catch the single plate in front of her. M'gann whirls around in time to gasp her name, the word hardly audible over the sound glass shattering.

"Oh, god." The other girl moans, tossing the soapy rag she's holding into the sink; she's immediately buffeted by the dust pan and broom whipping out of the closet beside her, flying towards outstretched green hands. "Sorry. I was doing the dishes—I meant to put them all away, but I just—"

She places the only saved plate on the counter beside her, feeling more than confused as M'gann starts sweeping in a maniacal manner. She's wearing a strange sort of expression, too-full of emotion to be read properly from across the room. "Meg, are you—alright?"

"I'm fine." She mutters hastily, waving her hand and sending the trash can flying towards her as she kneels amongst the pile of shattered glass now loudly clanking into the dustpan. "I'm just… Distracted. Sorry."

The last word is said with so much defeat that she can't help by feel worried by it. "… What's wrong?" She asks carefully, crossing the room and kneeling beside the other girl, ignoring the glass gritting beneath her shoes. "Can I help at all?"

Green hands tremble slightly, fumbling as she pours glass into the garbage. "No." M'gann sighs, hesitating for a moment before something in her face breaks; at once there's another clatter as the dust pan hits the floor, the other girl's fingers flying up to rub at her eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm just—this whole thing with Garfield—I've been trying to figure out how to get him into a school—"

"Meg." She says quietly, knees aching as she shifts to place a hand on the other girl's shoulder. "It's going to be alright—"

"I'm sorry." M'gann says again, hands still busy as she struggles to stop the tears now flowing too-quickly down her cheeks. "I know, I know it's going to be fine, that's what everyone keeps telling me. But it's September already—and he's been wanting to go to school so badly, he wants friends his age—but—" M'gann sucks in a breath, a single sob escaping her lips before she goes quiet for a moment, still trembling. "I'm not good at being someone's mom." She chokes out, finally sending her a broken sort of look. "I'm never going to be Marie."

She's never been very good at comforting people, her stomach twisting slightly as the other girl's bleary eyes meet hers; feeling a little out of her depth she shifts her arm round M'gann's back, pulling her towards her. "You don't have to pretend to be Marie." She says as firmly as she can, one hand reaching up to press against the other girl's hair. "Gar knows you're doing your best—"

M'gann lets out a very wet sounding sniffle. "I just want him to be safe." She chokes out. "And happy. But the League has all these restrictions, not wanting to expose the Team—and schools won't take him, all they see is green skin—and the Garfield's getting upset with me. He's hiding somewhere now, I don't know where he is—"

"Shh, M'gann." She says gently, trying to think of a solution; the other girl is leaning on her so heavily she's being pressing into the cabinets, glass still scattered on the floor around her. "Quiet, okay?"

"… Okay."

It takes nearly half a minute before she can get the other girl to pull back, her green cheeks tear stained and swollen. "I'll find Garfield, alright? Remind him how hard you're trying—"

M'gann makes a face. "You don't have to do that. I know things between you two have been tense ever since—"

"I don't care." She says as firmly as she can, pretending not to wince as she dodges around any mention of Siberia. "I'll take care of it. You stay here and clean this up and—and go back to bed. Try to sleep." She says gently, extracting herself from the Martian and helping her to her feel. "Everyone feels better when they sleep."

She says the last part unthinkingly, another pang running through her; still she supposes there must be some merit to Wally and Barry's words, especially in M'gann's case—the other girl looks as if she hasn't slept properly in weeks, too stressed out to enjoy her first school-free September.

"Okay." M'gann agrees, wiping her eyes one last time. "I have no clue where he is though—"

"Doesn't matter." She cuts the other girl off, shrugging. "I'll find him."

* * *

It doesn't take much time to find Garfield; perhaps it's all the tracking she's been doing as of late, or perhaps it's simply the fact that she knows him better than most—either way, it doesn't take her long to figure out that his first move would be to find some fresh air.

She takes a longer route around the Cave; if M'gann and the little boy got into a fight in the kitchen she's betting he'd storm off towards his bedroom, skip the confines of four walls and beeline towards the hanger, the closest place towards an exit without having to meet his sister again. Following this instinct she paces through the halls, feeling slightly out of place in her academy uniform.

She's disappointed when she reaches the hanger—the overlarge room feels dank and damp, as if it's been a while since someone opened the garage-like door hidden along the groves of the mountain wall. Letting out a huffy breath she allows her eyes to flicker once over the numerous motorcycles and quads, taking in the shining silver sheen of her own car before turning to leave.

She catches the movement out of the corner of her eye, mere seconds before she finishes turning on her heel; feeling her pony tail flicker about the back of her neck she turns back towards her car, squinting. Despite the tint on the windshield there's no question as to what she's seeing.

"Hey Greenie." She barks, throwing out the nickname at random as she changes course, heels pounding back towards her vehicle. "Feet. Off the dashboard."

It's almost funny, watching as Garfield jumps at the sound of her voice echoing off the walls, the drink he's been slurping back nearly spilling as she comes to a stop outside the drivers' side window. "Great." He mutters moodily, sending her a dry sort of expression that doesn't suit him from the passenger seat. "Did M'gann send you to find me?"

It's more snark than she's expecting; feeling her brows raise she gestures for him to roll down the window. "Someone's in a bad mood. Mind telling me how you got into my car?"

"You left the keys on your desk." Garfield sighs, fiddling with the button and allowing the driver's side window to come down only an inch before he stops it. "… Wasn't exactly hard."

This strikes a nerve of her own. "You went into my room?" She sniffs, bending at the waist the glare at him.

"So?"

Feeling her face sour she tries the handle, not surprised to find that it's locked; ignoring the dour expression on Garfield's face as he takes another sip of soda she forces herself not to glare. "Cut the attitude, Gar. Let me in."

"No."

She's never been very good with children—despite the time they've spent together she's not used to dealing with Garfield's moodiness, nor the newfound contempt and mistrust he seems to have for her. Ignoring the rapid reddening of her cheeks she exhales, forcing her temper to simmer beneath her surface. "Fine." She says evenly, backing up.

Garfield makes to take another sip of his drink, the movement quailing when he sees her set her muscles. "What are you doing?" He asks, sitting up in the front passenger seat to get a better look at her.

"Breaking into my own car, genius." She says plainly. "I figure a few good kicks should damage the window enough to shatter it. And when Green Arrow comes after me about paying for damages, I'll have to tell him who was responsible for locking me out in the first place. Sound like fun?"

He calls her bluff long enough for her to take a bit of a run at it, her Gotham Academy uniform straining as she swings one of her legs up. "Fine!" He hisses before it's too late, the locks clicking open before she even has time to place both feet back on the ground.

She tries not to feel too smug as she opens her door, smirking slightly as she settles into the driver's seat; beside her Garfield only continues to look sulky, slurping back the last of his drink. "You could have just asked me for the keys, you know." She tells him, still half annoyed about his going into her bedroom. "I get it. Everyone needs a hiding place."

"I'm not hiding." He mutters, sinking into the leather of the seat and slamming the empty drink into a cup holder. "I just needed a break from… _Her_." She can sense there's more to this; forcing herself to stay quiet she pretends not to notice the way he glances at her, taking in her Gotham Academy uniform. "… You had school today?"

"Sure did."

"How was it?"

It's a bit of an odd question to ask; chancing a glance at him she feels a little off put by the earnest expression on his face, as if he's genuinely curious about her answer. Almost self-consciously she places her hands on the steering wheel, knuckles flexing into the leather. "Fine." She shrugs. "It's mostly the same, year after year."

She's said the wrong thing; almost instantly Garfield's face falls again. "I wouldn't know." He mumbles. "… Mom used to homeschool me. I thought… I mean, that was the only thing that I was really excited about when M'gann told me I'd be moving here… But now they won't let me."

She doesn't know who "they" is supposed to be, although a few guesses immediately pop into her mind: M'gann, the League, the school system. Feeling herself suck in a breath she does her best to smile. "It's not really that great, Gar." She says honestly. "Most people can't wait to graduate and be done with it."

"Yeah, but—" He starts, seeming to hesitate for a moment before continuing. "... At least you get to hang out with people your own age. Everyone on the Team treats me like I'm a kid."

She nearly reminds him that he is a kid, but the words die the second she catches the look on his face; suddenly something as simple as the truth seems too cruel to say out loud. "It'll happen, Gar. You know it will. M'gann and the League and trying to figure something out for you. If they can't find a way then—"

"It's impossible?"

"I wasn't going to say that." She says quickly, finally turning to stare him down. "… We'll figure something out. We always do."

It isn't much of a pep talk; rather than look comforted Garfield snorts, head swinging round to stare moodily out over the windshield "... Whatever."

* * *

... A few days pass before it happens again.

This time she hates that she feels as if she's expecting it, hates that she's been waiting for it without meaning to; in the hours that have passed since she last spoke to Wally her phone has remained unconsciously gripped in her hand, a lone threat of connection between her and the person she's killing herself going without. Almost absently she flips it open, checks her voicemail, keeps one finger on it at all times— because she knows Wally. She knows he can sense the unfinished business between them as well as she can.

 _(And maybe, just maybe, he knows her a little too well too.)_

The phone rings just as she's beginning to doze off, her head lolling uncomfortably as she sits at her desk; at once the sound jerks her awake, her fingers fumbling over her homework and discarding a pen before they find the source of all the noise. Squinting at the light she gives herself enough time to see the familiar contact photo light up the screen before she answers. "Wally?" She gets out, voice hoarse from sleep.

Maybe she's a little less guarded than she should be; his name sounds almost desperate when she says it, comical even. As if he can sense the hidden question there as well as she can— _Are you okay? What's wrong?_ — he clears his throat. "I'm fine, Artemis." He says flatly, voice deadened.

For some reason she doesn't say anything back and in the silence she's sure he can hear her mind whirring, sure he can hear her walls flying up and her guard resetting, her anger with him prompting a thousand more unsaid questions between them. _Why are you calling? Why haven't you come home yet? What am I supposed to do?_

"... You're okay?" He asks gruffly. "Did I wake you up again?

Feeling herself blush she gets up from her desk chair, pulling her phone back for a moment to glance at the time— a few minutes before midnight. "No." She lies, her free hand shoving into her jeans pockets before she hesitates. "I just... Didn't expect to hear from you again. So soon, I mean."

There's a pause, an awkward one, where she can practically hear his ears going off through the phone. After what feels like a too-long he clears his throat, voice sounding clipped and gritty. "That's why I'm calling, actually. I... I didn't mean to call you. The other night."

"... Oh."

"No." He says quickly, voice breaking. "I just mean— I didn't mean to call you and like... Make you feel like you had to do something about it. I just... Wanted to hear your voice." The tail end of the sentence is rushed, as if he doesn't want her to think too much of it.

Despite how quickly he forces the words out she still feels her stomach twist; biting her lip she crosses her bedroom, twisting the handle of her door until it's properly shut. "... Okay." She mumbles, not sure what to say.

She knows almost immediately that it's not what he wants to hear; the silence through the phone is almost painful as she leans back against her door, listening to him breathe. She can hear it in the silence, can taste it on her own tongue: he's waiting for her again. Wanting her to call him back, wanting her to go to him. Wanting her to save him in the one way her pride won't allow her.

... In the one way she knows she shouldn't.

"... Sorry." He says after a second, sounding almost choked in the way he forces the words out. "It's just weird, not seeing everyone. Being normal is more work than—"

"Then stop being normal." She huffs without thinking.

It's a mistake, letting the words slip out; at once he goes quiet, listening intently as she winces and gnaws on the inside of her cheek. And she knows that if she's ever going to say it, ever going to get them through this she has to say something now; if she's ever going to get Wally back now is the moment—

Without thinking she catches her reflection in her mirror, one hand unconsciously migrating to the chain around her neck. Brazen as ever, the elastic still blackens her wrist.

 _(Her heart seems to swell inside her chest and anger with Wally leaks like bile into the back of her mouth.)_

 _(And again she remembers all the reasons she's keeping herself from this boy: she's too screwed up. She's too busy hunting Jade and being hunted by her father. She'll just hurt him. Or he'll hurt her. Or the world will hurt them both. And it's not safe, it's dangerous, it's killing her that they're both bound sickeningly together by the Speed Force and that bond is exactly the reason why they shouldn't be together_ — _)_

 _(She's supposed to stay away from him. She's supposed to be keeping him safe.)_

The moment breaks and she listens to him exhale, long and drawn out in a way that silently hurts her. "... Look, I didn't call here to— to get a lecture. I just want to talk."

It takes a lot of effort not to swear at him. "So talk, Baywatch."

"Fine." He spits back. "... How's your mom?"

* * *

It happens again and again, nearly every night until she loses tracks of how many times they speak: Wally calls, and like the fool she is she always answers.

She doesn't know what he means by it, why he keeps calling no matter how often it ends in a fight, why he won't simply come back and face her— all she knows is that she can't keep herself from picking up, can't stop herself from wanting to hear the sound of his voice. And even though she's sure no good can come from it... She can't keep herself from Wally. She never could.

 _(Selfish.)_

There's still sore feelings between them, more things that remain unsaid rather than spoken aloud. More than once they run out of words to say, out of nastiness to snarl at each other, simply listening to each others gentle breathing in silence before it occurs to one of them to hang up. She doesn't know what's happening between them anymore, where they stand or what she's supposed to feel. Her cellphone feels more and more like a lifeline, Wally's voice like an anchor she's clinging to in the middle of the tempest that is her life.

No matter how often it occurs to her to ask him to come back to the Cave, the Team, to her, she still can't bring herself to say anything to him about it; somehow admitting that she misses him, admitting that she needs him, would hurt too much. In so many ways it feels as if asking him to come back would be like telling him it was alright to leave her stranded, that it was alright to abandon her like that when she needed his comfort most.

Soon they fall into a rhythm, a nightly ritual so predictable she begins to sleep around it. He always calls at the same time, always dials her number down to the second. Midnight hits, and before her phone can sound the second ring she answers.

 _("Hi." She will breathe into the receiver, her exhale rustling the speaker._

 _Always a beat, as if she's really just sighed against his cheek. Then, "Hi." A pause. "You okay?"_

 _"Yeah. You?"_

 _"Yeah.")_

She supposes, a lifetime ago, the monotonous opening might have seemed sweet, caring; now that she knows what the forces beyond their control have in store for them it only sounds like bitter obligations between two people unwillingly bound together, like prisoners shackled to the same set of chains. They never tell each other that they're doing anything other fine. She wonders what they would do if things were different.

… She wonders what would happen if they didn't know about the Speed Force.

After that things get better, the conversation more comfortable: the two of them swap bits of news, recap the latest mission, ask about home, go quiet when they hear movement outside their bedroom doors. The sound of Wally's voice through the speaker is a poor substitute for hearing the real thing.

He seems okay, she supposes. Some nights when they forget to be angry with each other he talks more easily, words coming out of him in droves and occasional soft chuckles warming her ear through the speakers; others times he seems almost frozen over, his responses clipped and steely. On the bad nights it feels as if the distance between them is greater than ever, as if she's on the other side of a stone wall barricading him in, all his suffering cemented inside himself.

... She feels bittersweet. Hearing Wally's voice, talking to him— it's a piece, a tiny part of him to hold while he's gone. And as much as she needs it, craves it... It's not enough.

(But she's fine.)

The whole things feels shallow, fake, a shadow of the friendship and closeness they used to share. Instead of being each other's secret keepers and confidants they're now stuck tiptoeing the line of their new normal, steering clear of the words they really need to say. Neither of them mention Linda, or lightning, or _That Night_ , except once—

"You back to rocking the ponytail again?" Wally asks one night. She doesn't ask why he wants to know.

"Oh. Yeah." She mutters, hand automatically going to her neck before realizing her hair is down. She wonders if he can sense the way she rolls through her sheets, staring at the elastic on her bedside table that's still stretched from his wrist. "I hated wearing it down."

A pause. "... It wasn't so bad."

"It looked terrible."

"It looked fine."

"It was in my face constantly—"

For some reason he chuckles, the unexpected sound sending a jolt through her stomach. "That was your own fault. You should have pinned it back. Linda always wears hers—" He catches the slip too late, and before she even has time to notice the strange pang that seems to echo inside her his voice is stuttering to a halt, breath crackling in the phone speaker. "Never mind."

The silence is painful and at once she has the sensation of falling, as if they've both blundered and tumbled off that edge of normal they've been balancing so precariously on. She doesn't know what to say next, caught between curiosity and loneliness; her stomach clenches as she curls her legs up to her chest. "… Tell me about her." She whispers, not wanting to hear.

"Nah." Wally mutters, voice suddenly cold. "... You don't really want to know."

She doesn't deny it, prompting him again to be polite. "... Tell me."

She regrets the invitation almost immediately; after that Wally mentions the other girl almost every time he calls, little snippets of his new life that effectively paint a bitter sort of picture in her head where there once was nothing. Linda _Jasmine_ Park. Senior and writer for the school newspaper. Aspiring Yale student. Lover of Korean food (but not the proper kind at home,) and oldest of three siblings, daughter of two doting parents, possessor of the softest hands Wally's ever touched and overlong bangs she keeps pinned back behind her ears. She files all this away and pretends it doesn't bother her, trying her best not to be resentful.

She also tries not to wonder— too often— what Wally's told Linda about her.

(She's not sure if it hurts more or less to think of him never mentioning the few months they spent together.)

* * *

Although she tries not to think of him more than strictly necessary her thoughts continually drift to Wally, questions she's not sure of the answer to haunting her as she mulls their conversations over during her morning cups of tea—is she doing the right thing, not pushing him back into joining the Team? Is being normal something he really wants, regardless of how often he calls her? Is he waiting for her to—to rescue him? To shock him back to his senses? Is she failing him again, without knowing it?

More than ever she can't help but think of her and Wally's deal—to take care of each other. To protect each other. That's what they agreed, right?

… But that had been before everything. Before they both knew about the Speed Force, before they knew about the way the universe had bound them together… Before that night he had given her back her elastic.

((She shouldn't be thinking about this. It's over. It's done.))

((He's trying to be normal.))

((And normal means not caring about her. Not anymore.))

But he does care about her, she's sure of it. Why else would he choose her to reach out to? Why else would he pick her, call her, talk to her— why not Dick or Kaldur or Connor or—

"… Roy?" She ventures carefully.

They're both out of breath, sweat clinging to the seams of their uniforms, the smoke hazed night sky of Gotham City stretched out almost endlessly before them. In the almost hour they've been patrolling together they've done little other than retrace old leads, double back over recently trodden paths, moving almost mechanically though the siren spangled streets of the city they both half-heartedly call home.

When he doesn't respond she glances at him, studying the almost easy way he leans against the metal of his fire escape, masked expression reflected back at him from the window beside his and Jade's bedroom. She still feels strange about being here, about taking up space in Jade's apartment—despite the fact that she's been here nearly a dozen times she still can't make herself comfortable inside it.

It had been her idea to sit on the fire escape, but it had been Roy's idea to crack open a bottle; she watches as he takes another sip of the bitterly acidic spirit inside, now almost half empty in the few minutes they've been sitting here. "Roy?" She tries again.

Something tightens about his eyes, straining his mask as he lowers the bottle. "Don't call me that."

"Fine. Red?"

"Better." He says vaguely.

She's not sure whether it's an invitation to say any more; for several moments she stares at him, waiting for him to speak, to break the silence. "I just—" She starts before she can figure out what to say, the words dying when she realizes she's not sure what she's about to ask. Deciding better of it she swallows, thumbs slipping underneath the seams of her mask to peel it off her forehead.

The bottle clinks as he sets it down. "What?"

It's very hard not to blush at his impatient tone, as if he can sense she's about to be stupid; with a sigh Roy's eyes flicker towards her, eyeing her with disdainful interest. More to keep herself busy than anything makes a show of pulling a knee up to her chest, fingers fumbling with her boot laces. "Never mind."

She's been spending too much time with him; as she glances up at him she's caught off guard by the look he's already sending her— a mixture of brotherly exasperation and something else, something so foreign she can't quite see through it. She's never seen him wear anything like it before. "Out with it, Sweetheart." He sighs, removing his own mask and rubbing his eyes wearily. "Might as well do it now and save yourself the twenty minutes of lip biting."

She feels herself scowl, teeth retracting from where they were about to pursue her lips; feeling a certain amount of disdain towards him she slouches behind her knees, sighing. She supposes there's no point in beating around the bush. "… Have you heard from Wally?"

There's a beat, hardly a second long, where his eyes flicker open to meet hers. "No." He snorts. "Not since his little meltdown at the Cave. Look, if you want boy advice I'm not the guy to—"

"I don't need boy advice." She cuts him off, glaring. "I'm only asking because… He's called me. Talked to me… Only me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She nods, annoyed at the almost uncaring tone he's adopted. "It's always the same—always at night, always when he knows I'll be awake. Last I heard he was trying to be normal, trying to pretend like I—I mean, the Team—doesn't exist. And now it's like he's sneaking around, calling me, checking everything is okay, like—"

Roy snorts again. "Sounds like you're asking for boy advice."

She feels herself blush again, nose wrinkling. "Whatever then!" She huffs, throwing down her leg in frustration. "I just... It's not like I'm telling him to come back—"

"But you want to."

Again her cheeks flush crimson; letting out a low hiss of annoyance she flattens her back against the railing, scowling. "I don't care what he does." She lies. "All I know is that—I don't know, I feel weird having to be the one to knock some sense into him. Or haul him back before he's ready. I just thought— you know him." She says badly, losing her nerve and shrugging. "You'd know what to do."

Roy drops his eyes to his hands, fingers flexing along the lines of his mask and frowning in a rough sort of way that makes her sure he's thinking hard. At last he sighs, leaning back against the metal of the fire escape and surveying her through somewhat weary eyes. "Come on, Artemis." He puffs out, shaking his head at her. "You don't need me to weigh in on this."

"Red—"

He doesn't let her finish. "It sounds to me like you already know what you have to do to get him back, even if you're still pretending otherwise." He sighs, sending her one last dry look before replacing the mask over his eyes. "I just thought by now you knew better than to chase after Speedsters."

The words make her feel stupider than before; looking away from him she scowls at the smoke stained Gotham skyline. "I'm not chasing after him." She mutters, feeling defensive.

There's another snort; when she glances at him he's not even looking at her, reaching for the bottle once more. "Whatever, Sweetheart." He says uncaringly, swigging the last of the beer back. "... Let's just see how quickly he comes running when you stop picking up his calls."

* * *

Despite Black Canary's orders she starts training again, harder and more intense than ever. It's another thing to focus on, another way to forget the real world— soon she's ignoring the lingering pain in her ribs and her occasional dizzy spells in favor of sweat and sore muscles; she's never been one to simply wait to get better, and the older woman should have guessed as much.

She hears herself let out a grunt as she sends a kick flying, hips twisting and bare heels blistering along the floor—before she can even place both feet on the ground again Dick lunges at her, wrapped knuckles slamming forward and skimming her jaw before she jerks backwards, stance resetting. The air in the training room is muggy, humid, reeking of sweat and snark.

She likes sparring with Dick; although there is a certain novelty in facing the rest of their superpowered Teammates there's no more of an even match than the two of them. Both without powers, both highly trained. Both highly competitive.

She juts forward again, one punch slamming forward and then another, her fists being thrown off steadily by his forearms; he's trying to unbalance her, each time practically wrenching her arms out of their sockets as he throws them back—and it's easy, too easy—

Before he can correct his mistake she uses it to her advantage, allowing the whole of her weight to swing round as he throws her off balance; once again her heels blister against the floor as she swings her leg up, using the momentum in her hip to catch him about the shoulder. It's imperfect—she'd been aiming for his neck—but it's enough; at once he's sent staggering sideways, nearly thrown to the floor.

"Come on, Bird Brain." She huffs, still breathing heavily as he rights his stance, fists raising. "It's like you're not even trying."

She's expecting him to start moving, to bombard her with another attack; when all that happens is Dick's smile fading behind his knuckles she feels her brows furrow. "… What? Not up for another round?"

"No." He says quickly, half-heartedly shifting his weight for a moment before he stops moving altogether, fists dropping. "I mean—I was just wondering if you… Had heard from Wally?"

Although the question itself is unexpected it's the way he asks her that seems to quail her the most— the hesitancy, the embarrassment, the tone implying that any answer she could possibly give wouldn't be the right one; at once her own wrapped hands drop back to her side as she surveys him, trying not to look too calculating. For one wild moment she considers lying, a dozen excuses and evasive words swelling inside her throat before she remembers who she's talking to—if Dick's asking her something, odds are he already knows the answer.

"… A bit." She mutters vaguely, blinking.

His eyes narrow when her already flushed cheeks color a delicate pink; for some reason she feels guilty, standing there and remembering that Wally last called her the only night before. "Just a bit?"

Despite herself she winces. "... Okay. More than a bit."

She doesn't know why he's asking her this, why they're even talking about it—the last time he brought up Wally she had been very firm on avoiding the subject, on refusing to discuss plans to drag Wally back to the Team. "Sorry." He says, not sounding it. As if he can sense her eagerness to avoid the subject he takes a step forward. "But I don't care if you don't want to talk about it. He's my best pal, Artemis. I get to keep tabs on him. I don't need to know what's going on between you two—"

She feels herself blush again, fists clenching. "Wally's with Linda, Dick." She says severely. "There's nothing… There's nothing going on."

There's a pause, an awkward one, where all she can think to do is raise her fists; for a second nothing happens save for Dick's eyes narrowing by another fraction. "… If you really think there's nothing going on then you don't know him like I thought you did."

"Dick—"

"He calls you almost every night, Artemis." He says over here, and although he doesn't raise his voice in the slightest she still winces.

She doesn't ask how he knows this and is caught off guard by the fact that she doesn't want to. "Wally and I have a deal." She says cuttingly. "We take care of each other. He calls to make sure I'm—"

"He calls because something is wrong. If you're supposed to be taking care of each other—"

Her temper flares and before he can finish his sentence her nose is wrinkling, annoyance creasing across her features. "You can't go running after him just because you miss him." She snarls back, her nails digging into her palms and slicing through the thickness of her hand wrappings. "I'm sorry he—I don't know, chose me this time. I'm sorry he doesn't want to talk to you about what happened all those weeks ago. But he's trying to be normal and—"

For some reason Dick laughs in her face. "Normal? You think normal is staying up at all hours of the night? Calling you obsessively? Avoiding the rest of us because he's—I don't know—ashamed of what happened?"

"I told you." She huffs, raising her fists again. "We're not hauling him back here before he's ready. That's not our job."

To her surprise Dick only shakes his head at her. "Maybe it's not your job, but it's still mine."

"Dick." She sighs impatiently, feels her face sour when he starts undoing his hand wrappings, ripping them from his fingers ferociously. "Dick, come on—"

The wrappings fall to the floor as he jerks his head up to glare at her, blue eyes startling against the angry red now coursing over the bridge of his nose. "We're supposed to be his friends, Artemis." He snarls at her, voice so loud it seems to echo around the training room. "I don't know if you're just being stupid or selfish—"

"Selfish?"

"Yeah, selfish!" Dick hurls at her again, ignoring the flash of hurt it sends across her face; although she's already called herself that a thousand times over it hurts hearing someone else throw it in her face so easily. "You said it yourself, Artemis, he chose _you_ this time. He chose you because you're always the one who kicks his ass into doing something. Instead you're too busy waiting up for his calls and pretending you don't feel anything when you're really enjoying having his attention back, pretending he's still in love with you—"

The words are too real, too painful to hear; against her better judgment she lunges at him, throwing him backwards by the shoulders as hard as she can. "Shut up!" She snarls.

It's hardly enough to deter him; before his weight can even settle into the floor he's shoving her back, the force nearly toppling her as her heels spike against the floor. "You're not doing him any favors by keeping him from us, Artemis." He barks at her, breathing heavily between the yelling. "Have you even asked him to come back? Have you even tried?"

She wants so badly to spit something back in his face, something better than the truth; at once she feels cowardly, weak beneath the intensity of his gaze. "It's not that simple." She says after a moment, wincing when her voice breaks.

It's not a real answer, not even close to what he wants to hear; with one last disdainful look Dick shakes his head at her, not bothering to look back as he leaves the training room.

* * *

As September passes her by she grows weary, more exhausted by the day. The days tick on in a blur of rhythm and predictability and she begins to feel as if she's losing herself in time.

Talking to Wally nightly takes its toll on her, and not just in that she's losing sleep over it; the whole situation is confusing, her emotions battling between habit and memories and the reality they're both trapped inside. Missing Wally, hating him seems to consume her every thought, swallow her from the inside out; his lack of presence in her life seems to disjoint her, distract her from living.

And she remains distracted on the walk home from school, hardly hearing the sound of the usual police sirens as she prowls her way down the Gotham streets—she's being stupid, letting someone devour her like this. She's killing herself trying to fight this— fight him— off.

... Maybe Dick had been right. Maybe she's being selfish, not telling Wally to come home.

 _(But it's disgusting, telling someone that they're responsible for someone, that they have to take care of them; sick, telling her that she's supposed to in some way belong to him—)_

... But she's always belonged to Wally, hasn't she?

At least the old Wally—the boy with the freckles and the apple flecked eyes, whose crooked smile was always so quick with snarky remarks. Thinking back, remembering him now makes her heart ache. This old Wally... He was the first one to make her feel like she was enough. The first one to come back for her. The first one to make her feel safe. But this new Wally… The one who she met after weeks away at Quarac, the one who turns feral the second static begins to buzz in the air… He feels like walking into a childhood home only to discover the walls painted. Familiar but entirely foreign.

She should stop thinking of him as two different people, she tells herself as she pauses, waiting for a crossing light to change; she should stop thinking of the tall and handsome stranger who had stretched into the boyish body she once knew as just that—a stranger. He's still Wally. Wally West, Baywatch, Kid Idiot, the Wallman... But why does he feel so different? Is this all just an impact from their break up? From the Speedforce? From everything that's ever happened between them?

 _Why can't she trust herself with him? Why, no matter how many times they swear to be friends_ — _why, after all the times they come back to each other, why can't she stop trying to see through him? What is she so suspicious of?_

 _(Why can't she ever accept that they need each other?)_

 _((Why did Barry have to tell her about the Speed Force?))_

The cross light flashes and she steps off the pavement, shoes skimming the sidewalk. She wishes she could figure out how to fix things between them, wishes she would get the courage to say what needs to be said. But why are these things always left up to her, anyway? Why can't Wally just understand that she needs him back? He's already put her through enough, why does he need this one last piece of her dignity?

 _... Why is this her problem?_

 _(Why, no matter how hard she tries to keep him at an arm's length, can't she stop him getting too-close?)_

The evening is beginning to chill; as she steps through the door of the Gotham walk up she's almost thankful for the heat—in less than a few weeks' time autumn will die, winter settling in a gray fashion on the city streets… She's been on the Team for over a year now...

It's not her place to ask him to come back. It's not up to anyone on the Team, not her, not Dick... He's stuck on being normal now, busy running track and getting ready for college and with _Linda_. What if he doesn't even want to come back? What if he wants to pretend the Team never happened? How would it be fair of her to ask him back?

 _(And she is so tired of trying to hold things together than cannot be held. Of trying to control what can't be controlled. The lightning inside Wally was never meant to be tamed, never meant to be held back. And it's not fair to expect anything for her_ — _how is she supposed to save him? How is she supposed to stop him from breaking when she can barely keep herself from falling apart_ — _?)_

Her feet catch on the usual step, her fingers slipping the key out of her pocket as she rounds the stairs to her apartment. She's over thinking this, she knows this—she's not supposed to care this much about whether or not Wally comes back to the Cave.

She doesn't bother shouting out a greeting when she enters her apartment, slipping off her boots in near silence as she closes the door behind her. Paula's working late no doubt, putting in more hours than usual in the wake of the flurry of back to school shopping they had to do. Those Gotham Academy uniforms, as cheap the materials are, don't come for free. Pacing down the hallway she does her best to ignore invading thought of Wally, instead thinking only of pajamas and a steaming cup of tea—

She gets as far as flicking her bedroom light on before her thoughts are cut off by her own gasp, the hand not on her doorknob immediately flying to her eyes. "Oh my god!" She chokes out, half shutting her door as if to hide behind it. "Zee—oh my god—"

"Sorry!" Zatanna gets out, voice still sounding breathless. "Oh my god—sorry, we thought you and Paula were both out tonight!"

There's a flurry of movement, not quite loud to enough to block out what she's just seen—even as she screws her eyes shut the image won't fade: half naked bodies pressing against Jade's old mattress—

"Sorry." Dick's voice sounds out through the sudden rush of movement.

When she gets the courage to grimace away from the paneling on the door she's relieved to find the two of them off each other, although still not entirely clothed. "… We're back to this again?" She asks weakly, looking between them. "You two are together?"

She's not surprised when the two of them do little more than shrug and avoid each other's eyes—they've both never been much good at committing, both far too independent to bother. Rather than answer the question directly Dick makes a show of getting to his feet, still clothed in only his jeans. "I came here looking for you actually—"

"Although I'm pretty sure what you found was much better." Zatanna cuts in, yanking her shirt back over her head.

Ignoring this she glares at her ceiling. "What do you want, Dick? I already told you, I'm not dragging Wally back before he's ready."

"It's not about that—"

"Good, because I'm not in the mood to be yelled at again."

It's a sticky moment; despite the snarling edge to her tone she can sense his naked eyes narrowing at her in defiance as she continues to avoid his gaze, instead focusing on Zatanna when she speaks. "You two are fighting?" She snorts, looking between the two of them. "And you're plotting to bring Kid Mouth back? God, Dick, you could have mentioned something before you shoved your tongue down my throat—"

"Wally doesn't matter, not right now." Dick says over the other girl, expression still uncharacteristically hard as he reaches towards her bedside table and retrieves his glasses. "Look, it's about the Medical Bay. And the Underground. I told you I would look into them, and I did. That's what friends do."

Feeling her nose wrinkle she turns her eyes back in time to watch him replace his glasses over his nose. "... What did you find?"

"An opportunity." He says shortly. "Canary's out tonight and we have about an hour until Red Tornado returns from the Watchtower. I'll work the cameras, get us some time—you want to investigate, or what?"

* * *

"We'd better hurry." Dick tells them as their molecules burst into existence again, the tiled floors of the Cave sounding underneath their heels as they start moving. "We have an easy half hour before RT comes back—forty minutes, maybe, if one of us can head him off—"

She snorts, glancing back over her shoulder. "Well, whose fault is that?" She sniffs. "Next time you have one of these little _opportunities_ of yours don't stop looking for me once you reach my bedroom. You could have called."

"His mouth was a little busy, my fault." Zatanna cuts across their bickering, sending a smirk in her direction as they enter the kitchen. "Now are you two going to tell me what the hell our little mission is about? Because—"

"Our mission? Last I checked this was between me and Dick."

"Hey, you're borrowing Boy Wonder on my time. I get to tag along."

As if he can sense the snarky retort on the tip of her tongue Dick interrupts them both, turning to face them the second they clear the kitchen island. "There's not enough time to check out both the Underground and the Medical Bay. Best we can hope for is a quick sweep of one and cross our fingers for the opportunity to go back more in depth later. Artemis?"

It takes half a second for her to read the look he sends her, realizing suddenly that this is her call. "… The Medical Bay."

For the first time in a long time they feel like a Team as they charge forward, past the common area and down the vaguely familiar hallways—there's no time to doubt herself, no time to back track and second guess the decision to favor the Medical Bay over the Underground. She knows better than anyone how quickly time goes when on missions, how easy it is to waste precious seconds doubting yourself.

The three of them practically skid to a halt, stopping in front of the white door emblazoned with crimson letters. Ignoring the prompt of the keypad next to the door Dick seemingly pulls a cord out of nowhere, linking up his phone and cracking the alarm so quickly she nearly misses it when she blinks. "Pretty sloppy security." She mutters, following Dick as he clears the doorway.

"Same system as the Batcave. Besides, there's not much in here worth protecting at the moment." He mutters good-naturedly, pausing after a few paces inside and looking around. "… Not that they're not ready for it."

The room feels as massive as she remembers it, with the same sterile looking beds lined up in too neat rows against either wall. Despite herself she's overwhelming reminded of a military barracks, all the surfaces too clean and artificial looking to suggest anyone in habiting the place by choice. For some reason they all pause at nearly the exact same spot, standing in a row much closer than they normally would; for some reason the room has almost a haunted quality to it, as if in its emptiness and sterility any movement would expose them, mark them as a target.

She's still gathering her courage when she feels Zatanna exhale sharply before brushing beside her, making her way inside and glancing around confusedly. "Okay, I so don't remember there being this many beds in here." She mutters, brows furrowing. "I was here, back in April—routine burns—there weren't even ten beds in here."

Unconsciously she counts the rows of bedsides and cabinets, pausing at the seventh from the door. It feels strange thinking of it as her bed. "Canary told me the Medical Bay was built to house the whole of the Justice League at one point." She pauses, glancing down at the set of drawers. "She made it sound like it'd always been this big."

Across the room Dick pauses at a shelf, surveying the medical supplies sitting in organized rows and piles. Even from the distance she can tell by the sheer quantities of cotton swabs and scalpels that they're meant to be part of the supplies for a much larger patient list. "... I've seen the blueprints for this place." He mutters, nearly under his breath. "This expansion has to be recent, a few months ago tops."

She can't shake the feeling that they're being watched, her eyes migrating up to the cameras she knows are unseeing thanks to Dick's handiwork; ignoring the instinct to retreat she forces herself to move, walking along he right hand side of beds. "And there's something else—" She starts bending down to examine her cabinet; as ever, the bottom drawer slides out easily, revealing the carefully-sized clothing, while the top remains locked. "There's something in this top drawer, I didn't even think to try unlocking it last time—"

Without her needing to ask the question Dick comes to her side, bending to examine the cabinet with interest. "Looks easy enough to open. Either of you got a bobby pin?"

"No luck, Boy Wonder."

"Ah well." Dick says easily, crossing back and flipping a scalpel from the supply shelf between his fingers before returning to jam it into the lock. "Let's hope no one does an inventory count." There's a loud click followed by a thick sounding clunk, and almost at once the drawer pulls open; not bothering say thanks she elbows past him.

The inside is emptier than she expected; rather than loose papers and medical files there's only one plain looking manila folder emblazoned with the same sterile looking red letters than coated the door outside. "Project Safe House." She hears herself say, squinting at the title as she seizes the file. The weight in her hands feels too-heavy, almost like a paper back as opposed to medical information. "... Either of you ever heard of this?"

"No record of any Project Safe House in Team database. Must be something associated with the League."

There's a creaking as Zatanna sits on the edge of the bed, leaning around her to read. Behind her back she can sense the two of them exchanging a look, as if communicating silently without her; still, as she reads the title wordlessly once more the words send a strange, almost sinister pull through her stomach. With a sense of increasing foreboding she forces herself not to hesitate, flipping the folder open and allowing them both to continue reading over her shoulder.

She'd been right—inside the file is some sort of medical record. She can see her name—first, middle, last—written in a detached, blank looking font. Almost hungrily her eyes drink the words in, skimming down the page, her brows narrowing the more she reads.

 _Name: Artemis Lian Crock. Height: 5'5. Weight: 114 pounds. Blood Type: O. Powers: None. Priority of Survival: Beta._

Zatanna finishes reading seconds after she does. "Priority of Survival?" She repeats, glancing up at her.

 _Beta._

The heaviness of the word sends a sick sort of jolt through her stomach, a deadened weight that makes her nauseous as it echoes around in her head. "Do you guys have files too?" She hears herself say, sounding almost as if she's speaking from a distance. "Your beds— your number corresponds with your bed—"

She doesn't know why she sounds so blank, why her throat seems to be closing up; forcing herself to swallow she turns her eyes back to the page, heartbeat beginning to pound in her ears. She's hardly aware of the sound of Dick charging back across the room, stopping at the first bed in the row, ramming the scalpel into what would be his own bedside drawer. Not bothering with the front cover of his own file he practically rips it open, flipping through papers. "Dick Grayson." He says grimly, eyes flickering behind his sunglasses as he skims the page. "… Priority of Survival—Beta."

Her stomach twists again, the thrumming of confusion and fear so loud in her blood stream she hardly notices Zatanna's usual jumbled words; the other girl rushes to her feet as she counts off the beds, meeting her drawer when it springs out magically to meet her. "Zatanna Zatara." She reads, ripping the file open and fingers fumbling over the pages. "Priority of Survival… Alpha."

She can't even look at her, instead turning back to stare at Dick—for once he seems without a snappy comment. "… What the hell?" He breathes, riffling through the papers.

"They're ranking us." She blurts out, feeling disconcerted as she glances between them both. "They're deciding who they'd rather survive—"

"... In the event of what?" Dick finishes the thought for her, glasses catching the light.

Feeling nauseous she glances down at her own files, pawing through the pages a little more desperately now; paper after paper seems filled with minute information about her, little details she can hardly think of a normal use for—a photo copy of her birth certificate, a whole page devoted to her family medical history, diagrams and charts that look as if they've been taken from hospitals.

"Do you guys remember giving the League this kind of information?" Zatanna asks as she leafs through her own file, voice sounding hoarse.

She's about to answer but something catches her eye: a page, printed on thicker paper than the others and labelled "ATTRIBUTES" in the same block-like crimson writing as before. Disregarding the rest of the file she fumbles to place this on top of the other pages, her stomach beginning to churn as she looks at it.

 _Name: ARTEMIS LIAN CROCK. Powers: NONE. Special Skills…_

Her eyes hardly glance over the rest of the list, pausing briefly on more familiar phrases like _"ARCHERY"_ and _"HAND TO HAND COMBAT_ " before being pulled further down the page; there's a diagram of a human body in the center, emblazoned with one heading: _WEAKNESSES._

 _... Why would the League need to know her weaknesses?_

All at once her stomach gives a lurch as she surveys the figure, marking every serious injury she's ever sustained: she can see the different colors in pen as they were added in over time, pock marking the drawing like the scars on her real body. In the few seconds she stares she can see entries from Metropolis—muscle damage to her leg—and from her childhood—a dainty circle, scratched in the same place her warbled scar used to be… She doesn't want to read anymore, but despite herself she can't look away; beneath the model of her body her eyes flicker over the words " _POSSIBLE POINTS OF EXPOSURE."_

She feels preyed on, hunted, bile beginning to rise in her throat as the page lists off her suggested places to attack her: the old injury on her thigh, the weakness in her ankles; with a lurch deep in her stomach she reads her mother's name, her sister, Oliver, and—

 _Wallace Rudolph West._

She stares at Wally's name for what feels like too long, salivating and attempting not to vomit; although there's more words after this she forces herself not to read them, not to know. It's the most disgusting thing she's ever read, all the possible ways to extort her, to hurt her, and the worst part of it is that it's true, it's all true—

"Why would the League need this?" She croaks out, voice shaking as she glances between the other two; she can tell by their own hardened expressions that they're both reading their own list of weak points. "Why would they need to—to hurt us—"

"It's like they're preparing for something." Zatanna cuts her off, looking wide eyed at her. "And all the beds—you're right, Artemis, it's like they're building an army… Like we're the army. Whether we want to be or not."

Her first instinct is to shoot this theory down—this is the Justice League they're talking about, this is Oliver, and Dinah, Batman and Superman—privately, she knows she'd be hard pressed to find a group of people more invested in the betterment of the lives of such a rag tag group of teenagers. On the other hand, no amount of caring can erase certain facts: the presence of the Underground, the expansion of the Medical Bay, the interest in young Cassie and the insistence, _the insistence_ that M'gann bring Garfield here…

She looks back at Dick only to find his eyes already trained on her, watching as she comes to what's already the same conclusion he's found; before any of them can voice this aloud they're interrupted by a loud beeping from Dick's phone. "The zeta beams are being triggered at the Cave. We need to move."

Almost blindly they ram their files back into the drawers before they start sprinting, her fingers pocketing the damaged scalpel Dick's absently abandoned on his bed to dispose of later; wishing she could keep the file to prowl through later she makes to leave, feeling Zatanna rush past her.

It's an impulse more than anything; as she makes sprint towards the door her head automatically counts off the numbers she knows so well— _Red Arrow, B-06. Miss Martian, B-05. Superboy, B-04—_

"Artemis!" Dick hisses warningly when she beelines towards the third bed from the door. Before she can stop herself she's ramming the edge of the scalpel into the lock on the drawer. "We don't have time—"

She's not as good as Dick at this kind of thing; in her rush she feels the scalpel splinter, pieces of metal getting caught and damaging the lock. But there's no time to care, not anymore—as the cabinet springs open she rips the file from its place, shuffling wildly through the pages. She hardly knows what she's looking for, eyes flickering over words and diagrams, charts and—

And she feels her stomach sink. _Name: Wallace Rudolph West._

 _(Possible Points of Exposure_ : _Artemis Lian Crock.)_

"Artemis!" Zatanna snarls, seizing her wrist; before there's time to put the file back the other girl is slamming the cabinet shut.

"I—"

"Come on!" Before she can stop him Dick's pulling her in front, shoving her out of the Medical Bay before she can even think twice about taking Wally's file.

* * *

"You are, without a doubt," Zatanna drawls, shaking her head, "one of the stupidest people I've ever met."

She can't bring herself to deny it, slouching into her mattress and feeling guilty. "Shut up."

They're all crowded in her bedroom, hiding out like children who just got caught snooping through their parent's things; she can't decide which of them looks angrier with her. "Why would you take Wally's file?" Zatanna huffs, throwing herself into her desk chair. "What could you possibly want to see in there?"

Her heart is pounding as if they're still in the Medical Bay, Wally's file splayed across her thighs as she sits on the edge of her bed; she can't bring herself to open it again, her fingers gripping the manila pages so tightly she's sure she's leaving imprints. "You realize they're going to notice." Dick snarls at her through his teeth. He's still hovering by her bedroom door, as if he's too furious with her to properly enter. "A broken lock, a file missing— they're the Justice League, Artemis—"

"I know, Dick. I'm sorry."

She watches him turn back to bedroom door, staring at the wood for a moment as if about to leave; all at once he seems to change his mind, spinning round to face them again. "... Why would the League need that kind of information on us?" He bursts out. Nobody answers him; she supposes it's the kind of question there's not an answer for. "It's like they're preparing for something—waiting for the moment they'll have to use it... We don't even know what the hell this is yet, and now you've exposed our whole investigation before it's even started."

"I didn't mean to take it, okay? I just—" She's about to lie, about to make an excuse; before she can get any further Zatanna sends her a look so piercing it makes her stomach twist. "... I saw my name. My name under a list of other people who could be used to hurt him. I just... I just took it."

 _(Because now is her chance_ — _the chance to finally unmask Wally. To finally pin him down, to read through him the way he's always seen through her; without knowing how she's so certain of it she's sure this file contains some sort of answer, some sort of reasoning, some sort of proof that whatever the Speed Force might map out for them what's between them is real_ —)

She doesn't want to see the disgusted look on their faces, nor does she want to feel the wave of shame that seems to press her into the mattress; before she can huff out some sort of explanation Zatanna's already turning away, locking eyes with Dick. "It doesn't matter. How are we going to get it back?"

She's expecting him to immediately chime in with a plan, with some way to solve the problem she's created for them; for some reason his expression darkens behind the lenses of his glasses. "... Maybe we don't take it back."

"What?"

Rather than answer right away Dick crosses the room, taking a seat beside her on the bed. "At least not right away." He mutters, almost under his breath; feeling wary her eyes automatically migrate towards Zatanna, the two of them exchanging a bewildered look as he slides the file from her lap to his. "... This file contains all the information the League has on Wally. Everything from the limits of his powers to—"

"Dick." Zatanna hisses, cutting him off.

For a long moment she stares at the revulsion on the other girl's face, the realization of what he's suggesting hitting her too late. "No. No way." She snarls. "You can't be—"

"Why not?" He huffs, looking offended when she grabs the file back but not making any move to stop her. "Look—"

"Just because he's being an idiot doesn't mean we get to crack open this file and extort him however we want, Dick." She snarls, nose wrinkling. "What the hell is wrong with you? How screwed up are you that you'd actually want to manipulate your best friend into coming back to the Team—"

"Because he's not going to come back on his own, Artemis!" Dick bursts out, getting to his feet. "He's trying to deal with something alone and it's not working, I know it's not working. He needs to come back and I don't know why I'm the only one trying to save him—"

"He doesn't need saving, Dick!" She snarls back, ignoring him when he lets out a curse; throwing the file onto her bed she gets to her feet, nose wrinkling. "He's trying to be normal. He's not on the Team anymore. The sooner you realize that—"

"What do you think?" He says over her, turning to where Zatanna is still standing, frozen and staring at them wide eyed.

She's not sure what happens; over Dick's shoulder she watches as Zatanna's features sharpen into a glare, overlong lashes blinking only once before she gets the nerve to answer. "... I think you sound like Batman." She says, the words sounding hushed. "I think extorting someone into coming back is something he would do."

The silence that follows is nearly deafening; she can't see the look that crosses Dick's features as the two stare at each other, every muscle in his body stiffening at the insult. It takes nearly ten seconds before he looks round at her, features nearly emotionless. "Get the file back yourself." He tells her, turning to leave.

"Dick—" She doesn't know what to say; before she can think of anything to call out after him her own bedroom door is being slammed in her face. "... Nice one, Zee. I thought you two were on good terms again."

For the first time ever she's caught off guard when she makes to send an exasperated look towards the younger girl; rather than adopt her usual haughty and uncaring expression her eyes are narrowed, troubled. "Not anymore." She drawls, reddened lips twisting into an unconvincingly careless smile. "... Dick only likes to sleep with people who pretend not to see the worst in him. He'll forgive me once he forgives himself."

She's not sure what this is supposed to mean. "... Zatanna—"

"It's fine, Artemis. He needed to hear it." She says, not meeting her gaze as she glances towards Wally's file. "... Just do us all a favor and get rid of that thing before Dick can get his hands on it."

The words send an unpleasant twist through her stomach, something sinister seeming to curl inside her as she watches the other girl cross the room. "... You think he was being serious?" She ventures, pausing to watch as Zatanna retrieves Wally's file, throwing the pages back together in a random order. "He's that desperate to get Wally back?"

"Of course he is."

Again her stomach squirms as the other girl straightens, shuffling with the last of the pages. "... I don't need to do anything, Zee. You know Dick as well as I do. Better, even. You know we can't stop him. He's been asking me for weeks to help him get to Wally— it doesn't matter if I put the file back, he'll just go and get it himself."

There's more scrambling of pages, the fumbling of fingers over paper; Zatanna's eyes drop to the file, brows furrowing. "... Dick needs Wally back here, Artemis. Almost as much as you do."

"I don't—"

"All I'm saying is, you're both fighting a losing battle." She says over her, finally glancing up from the page. "I've never seen him like this before, okay? He's not sleeping, he's not eating, he's clearly not thinking straight. Maybe it's time to take him seriously before you're forced to."

Without meaning to a whole lurch seems to run through her, back aching as she straightens. "What's that supposed to mean?" She asks, chin jutting out.

"It means," Zatanna starts, fingers wafting over the file and opening it to the worst of all the pages, "that Dick's just been handed a Wally themed manual. A Kid Flash playbook. And you can bet he'll use it to get him back here, whether or not he comes willingly."

"So?"

"So think, Artemis." She huffs, shoving the open file into her arms so forcefully she nearly creases the pages. "If you were taking the shot, where would you aim? Where's his weak spot?"

And she doesn't want to look, doesn't want to see; without meaning to she glances down at Wally's file, throat tightening before she even reads what she knows is there.

 _((Possible Points of Exposure:_ _Artemis Lian Crock.))_

"You pick the target, Artemis." Zatanna whispers, finally turning away. "There's a dozen names on that list Dick could choose from. But we both know that when it comes to Wally— you're the bulls-eye."

* * *

She feels sick, nearly faint; long after Zatanna shoves the truth in her face and storms out she stands there, knees shaking with the weight of remaining standing. Her lungs seems to ache as she tries to breathe, eyes watering with the intensity with which she reads the words on the page, drinking in the foulness of the words written there as if her insides were aflame.

( _Possible Point of Exposure:_ _Artemis Lian Crock.)_

 _(Subject B-07. Previous romantic partner of Subject B-03. Affection that extends into present date. Subject shows a willingness to endanger his own life and the lives of others to ensure Subject B-07's survival.)_

 _(Physical and emotional intimacy uncharacteristic for both parties. _B-03 has been shown to actively fear the termination of Subject B-07. Evidence suggesting B-07's termination whether intentional or accidental will result in B-03's unwillingness to engage with further Team activities.)__

And she can't breathe, she can't breathe— her whole insides seem to combust the longer she stares at the page, pieces of her she'd long forgotten existed igniting and being burnt alive as her eyes roam over the page, her heart seeming to leap into her throat as she spots a footnote, written in fresh ink in an unfamiliar hand—

 _ _ _((Evidence suggesting B-07 is essential for Subject's capacity for survival._ ))__

And she hates it, hates how easily the sterile words consider her death, how carelessly the possibility of her not existing is tossed across the page— but she hates it even more that that's not the thing that hurts the most, it's seeing the truth there, hearing the words screamed inside her head: Wally needs her to survive.

(And here she is, shutting him out in the cold.)

 _((Selfish.))_

She hates how plain it is, how the disgusting words have unmasked Wally in a way she's never been able to. And she hates herself, hates herself for bringing the truth out like this— because that's why she took the file, isn't it? Now that Zatanna and Dick are gone and she's free from their disgusted looks she can admit it to herself; can admit that the temptation of knowing Wally again was too great, can admit that she didn't want to get to unmask him on his terms, can admit that there are some things she needed to know—

 _(And she knows now_ — _it doesn't matter. Whatever it is between them started long before it the truth was lightning born.)_

Because this thing between her and Wally— the history and the lingering feelings and the leap in her stomach every time she hears his voice through the phone line— it's so much bigger than she thought. Bigger even than Lightning Rods and the Speed Force and whatever she might have been fighting against feeling for him. This is survival, this is life or death; and her and Wally take care of each other, that's what they do, so why is it so hard for her to call him home, why does she hate him so much for it—

The pages fall from her hands, and it hits her suddenly that she's shaking; the floor seems to blossom up underneath her knees as she collapses into it, a mess of skirt pleats and cold sweat and paper scattered around her. She shouldn't have stolen the file, shouldn't have read it, but even more she shouldn't be feeling what she's feeling. She should feel selfish, should feel vile, should want to hate herself like she hates the truth of the words. Instead all she can think of is her own file, her own papers, and the realization seems to hit her all at once—

 _(She needs Wally to survive too.)_

The thought makes her wince; without wanting to she can see Wally's name written in that awful sterile writing at the front of her vision. And she can't explain why it bothers her so much, the thought of him seeing his name listed as one of her weaknesses, the thought of seeing the name of the boy who left her, who broke her, who left her to wage war against hell all on her own—

She hates it. She hates it because she knows it's true.

 _(She needs him.)_

(And it kills her, admitting it even inside her own head— how badly she's needed him, how much she's needed him since the moment they first met. She needs him, she needs him and although it's selfish she wants him to need her like this too—)

(And she always thought she didn't deserve him, that she was too broken and too damaged to deserve something as good and pure as Wally West. But maybe she's been wrong, too brainwashed by years of cruelty to see things the way they were— because yes, she is mangled and raw and far from perfect. But maybe she does deserve him, because having him in her life is forcing her to change for the better, forcing her to forget her blood stained fingers and the scars tattooed into her skin—)

Because that's what it comes down to. She needs Wally to survive, she understands now. Because what she's been doing the last few weeks— the fake smiles and the showers that nearly drown her and the numbness underneath her skin— has been the worst way to exist. And she is flawed and she is selfish and she is weak, weak because she will never stop wanting him. She will never stop craving the feeling of his breath against her cheeks and the sound of his gentle humming inside her ears. She will never stop living for the feeling of his fingers caressing her thighs and his hips buckling against hers. And these last few weeks, the lost weeks of loneliness and emptiness and seconds without Wally have been little more than proof of how sick she is, how much of an addict she is, because she can't live without him, she isn't living without him—

 _(And maybe her father was wrong— maybe she's not as good at running away from things as he thought.)_

And maybe it's time she stopped being stubborn, stopped shutting him out and holding him at an arm's length. Because Zatanna's right, isn't she? It doesn't matter if she forces him back, doesn't matter if she wants to hate him. What's between her and Wally is loud and clumsy and broken and it is also the perfect target, the chink in the armor, the weak spot neither of them can deny—

Because it doesn't matter anymore— the thousand reasons not to be with him, the history that's torn her apart from this boy. Keeping herself from Wally, Wally keeping himself for her, all that sacrificing was done in the name of keeping each other safe. But what's the point? That promise, the oath of _taking care of each other_ — someone out there has already put two and two together better than they can. Whoever created this file knows that underneath that promise there are other things—other things like loyalty and protectiveness and maybe the remnants of first love, and they're still planning to use that against them.

 _(And maybe all this time she's tried to pretend not to care because that means being vulnerable. Because that means getting hurt. But it doesn't change the fact that somehow her heart has slipped between her hands, doesn't change the fact that she's lost control, doesn't mean that somehow those feelings have still caught up to her.)_

So why is she pretending? Why is she holding back? She wants Wally, wants to dig into him and cut into him the way his absence has cut into her. She is tired of pretending not to want him, tired of the games and the side-stepping and the denial that's been killing her from the start. She wants to exhale her loneliness and sadness into him and make him choke on it, wants to breathe in the broken stranger who inherited the bones of the boy she could have loved. She is done with running, done with hiding, done with pretending neither of them will get hurt.

She hates him. Truly, she does. But there's no point in pretending not to want him, not to care. It doesn't matter anymore.

 _(Because the world will never stop hunting them. But if this is what it comes down to_ — _another fight, another battle, another instance of life or death_ — _)_

 _((And she's terrified.))_

 _(And like so many other times before she knows her greatest comfort, knows who she wants to protect her. Because there are some people who simply make you feel safe_ — _not because they understand you, and not because they'll die for you, but because they'll still be there despite everything.)_

* * *

She's not sure how long it takes for her to get up, how many hours pass before she manages to piece herself back together; her fingers tremble as she gathers the pages of Wally's secrets back together, sealing them back inside the manila folder without ever wanting to look again. She feels dazed, dizzy— when she finally seems to return to her body she's sitting on the edge of her bed, fingers clenched so tightly into the golden "A" about her neck that blood is dripping down her palm.

"... Now what?" She whispers into the emptiness of her bedroom, voice crackling and hoarse.

Because that's the question, isn't it? Now that she's done running, now that she's given up... What's her next move? What's the next step? What's her plan of attack, now that she's finally turned on her heel and facing the threat?

Her blood feels hot against the metal keys over her phone, coating the numbers and sticking into the plastic creases as she raises it to her ear.

He answers on the third ring; at once there's the sound of crowds, of voices shouting and yelping with laughter. "Hello?" He says too loudly, yelling over the noise. She realizes it's too early— he's not expecting her to call. "Hello?"

The barely-there blood flow down her wrist has stained the crisp white of her school shirt; as she swaps her phone over to her other ear she hardly notices the shaking of her fingers or the way they smear crimson over her naked knee as she curls her hands into her lap. For some reason it doesn't occur to her to say anything, her throat tight as she listens to the sounds echoing through the speaker. "One second..." He says distantly, as if speaking to someone else; she can almost picture him placing one hand to his ear as the sounds fade out further, as if he's trying to find somewhere quiet. "Hello?"

"Wally?" She chokes out, voice breaking.

"Artemis?" He shouts her own name at her; there's the sound of a door slamming behind him as the line crackles. "Is that you?"

The wind whistles through the phone. "Yeah." She exhales, trying to remember to breathe. "Yeah, it's me."

For some reason he doesn't say anything for a moment, as if it takes him a second too long to process whatever she's given up hiding. When he speaks again his voice sounds harder, as if he already knows the answer to the question he's about to ask. "... You okay?"

Her hand is still bleeding, light red trails flowing out from where she's accidentally carved into herself; when she does little more than let out a wobbly exhale Wally tries again, words so sharp he might as well be the one cutting into her. "Answer me, Artemis. Are you okay?"

"No." She forces herself to say. "... Where are you?"

She can sense him stiffening, can sense the way the one word answer strikes through him; all at once the moment passes and he sighs into the phone. "... It's Friday night, Artemis." He says gently. "I'm out with Linda. What's going—"

"Wally." She whispers, ignoring the way his words seem to stab through her, ripping her open.

And she knows immediately he understands, knows that he can hear it in the hitch in her voice; at once she hears him exhale, the breath short and sharp as if to set his resolve. "... What do you need?"

And maybe, if it was months ago or if even minutes ago, she would hesitate. But this time, she doesn't. "You." She grits out, hating the way the single word nearly chokes her. "I need you to come to the Cave, I'm— I'm in my room. Please, Wally."

 _(She can sense it_ — _through the line his hesitancy slices through her, the hardly two seconds that pass before he answers feeling like a knife twisting between her ribs. She hates that she has to beg him for this kind of pain.)_

"... Okay." He says after a moment; she can hear him moving, the noise growing louder as if he's just gone back into the thick of things. "Okay, just... Just give me a few minutes. I'll... I'll make some excuse. Stay there."

"Okay." She whispers, swallowing once before she tries to gather her nerve. "Just, Wally—"

"It's okay, Artemis." He says over her, sounding a hurtful mixture of impatient and tired. She doesn't get to say anything else before the line goes dead.

* * *

She doesn't move, doesn't dare to breathe; her muscles seem to seize up as she sits on the edge of her bed, blood crusted finger tips clenched around her knees as she counts the seconds until Wally arrives.

 _(She doesn't know what she's supposed to say, if now is even the time for words; the miles she's seemed to have travelled in the last few hours have done nothing to prepare her for this moment, haven't given her a clue as to how to approach this. Is it even possible to explain something like this to a boy, possible to explain it to someone like Wally? Because nothing has changed between them yet everything has, everything is different now, different and strange and better, better, yet somehow so much worse_ —)

 _(Because she is done with running. And Wally has never known her when she's standing still.)_

She gets as far as counting off ten minutes before there's a knock on the door, the distinctive two quick and one long combination telling her immediately who's on the other side; at once her heart seems to jump up into her throat, her limbs aching as she leaps up from the edge of the bed, crossing the room and a few measured paces and flinging open the door so quickly it slams against the wall.

"... Wally." She breathes, feeling as if she's about to collapse into the door frame.

He looks tired— the purple shadows underneath his eyes look more etched in that she remembers, the skin beneath his freckles a sickly sort of pale— but besides that it strikes her how utterly fine he seems. Fine. Average. Normal— He looks so _normal_ , so completely unlike himself; if she had just happened to see him on a street corner she wouldn't have ever suspected him to be anything out of the ordinary. He's done something funny to his hair— the windswept locks look glued in place, as if he's attempted to get them to settle but not quiet managed it— a few ginger pieces poking out behind his ears and clashing horribly with the stark scarlet and white of his letterman jacket.

Her stomach twists and she blinks, eyes falling to the vivid '13' plastered on his chest.

"Jesus Christ." Is how he greets her; when she looks up again he's frowning, brows knitted together. "Artemis, what the hell happened to you?"

He doesn't make to touch her, doesn't even move, yet she can feel it; as his eyes flicker over her so do the ghosts of his hands, imaginary fingers flying over her skin. Cheek, chin, lips, collar bones, wrists, knees— _cheek, chin, lips, collar bones, wrists, knees_ — her breath seems to hitch as she pulls her hand from the door frame, realizing she's left a trail of half-dried blood. "I cut myself." She tries to say, voice sounding distant. "By accident. The necklace—"

"God." He sighs, making a funny movement as if to grab her wrist but stopping suddenly, as if rethinking it. More to cover the sticky moment than anything he rocks back on his heels, hand migrating to his jacket pocket. "Here—" He says, extracting a wad of what look like cheap movie theatre napkins and shoving them unceremoniously in her direction. "Is that, uh... Why you needed me?"

His eyes flicker down to the top button of her blouse, where she knows the letter A is sitting above crimson stained skin; taking the napkins from him she swallows. "No. Just— can you come in?"

Wally hesitates when she moves aside, several seconds passing before he finally moves forward. For some reason he takes his time glancing around her bedroom, taking in everything from the clothes on the back of the chair to the unmade bed, waiting until she shuts the door before he speaks. "... What's going on, Artemis?" He asks her, turning in a full circle as if looking for something lurking in the half-light.

She feels as if her throat has closed up, words trying to get up but only fizzling out once they reach her tongue; feeling like a coward she grips the napkins he gave her, hardly aware of how her blood is soaking through the flimsy material. "... You said you weren't okay." Wally reminds her, frowning at her as she just stands there. "Did something happen? ... Another nightmare?"

"No." She croaks out.

"Then what's going on?" He tries again, ginger lashes flickering once again to the blood drops on the top of her blouse. "You asked me to come here. Did someone hurt you?"

"No." She says quickly, finally leaving the door. "No— I mean, not yet, anyway—"

"What does that mean?"

"Just— shut up, for a second." She chokes out, one hand migrating automatically to her forehead, pushing her hair back into the seams of her pony tail and tugging sharply at the delicate hairs around her face. "Give me a second while I figure out how to say this."

It feels like a dream, the two of them standing for a moment in silence in the center of her bedroom; when she lowers her palm Wally's staring at her, jaw dropped and popping against the muscles of his neck. She's not sure if she imagines seeing his pulse flicker against his skin before he swallows, shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his letterman jacket again, as if it's become a habit of hiding in there. "... You're freaking me out, Blondie." He whispers, the old nickname crackling in his throat.

And maybe that's all it takes; the familiarity and comfort of the old nickname seems to quail the flames inside her, sending the kindling to burn low in her stomach. _She can do this. She needs to do this._ "... Do you remember that night?" She starts, voice oddly hushed. "The night I got back from Siberia?"

His throat bobs again; beneath the material of his coat she can sense him clenching his fists. "... Parts of it." He mumbles, ears reddening.

"I know." She amends, taking a gentle step towards him. "I— this isn't about you. It's about me. After what happened to you... Happened." She says vaguely, ignoring the way his eyes flicker with embarrassment towards the floor. "I was taken to the Medical Bay. And while I was there..."

"Yeah?" He says gruffly, eyes jerking back towards her when she trails off.

"There were beds, Wally." She bursts out badly.

"Beds." He repeats after a second, tone suddenly so dry it fades into a short, annoying chuckle. "... In the Medical Bay."

Instantly she can feel her cheeks heat, hating the fact that he's using that slow, sarcastic tone he knows she doesn't like; she's not good at this, not explaining this right. "No— there were too many beds, Wally. And supplies, way too many supplies for just us—" She makes some sort of desperate move towards him and his brows only raise, as if half sure she's in the middle of a break down. "Listen, okay? Each bed had a cabinet. And it was like, each bed was meant for us— I was in the seventh from the door. Because—"

"B-07." Wally finishes for her, nodding as if pretending he follows. "Okay."

"Right." She nods back, feeling like an idiot. "And in my drawer there were clothes— all my size. As if the bed was made for me."

For some reason Wally exhales, hands leaving his pockets to run through his glue stuck hair. "Artemis." He says patiently, taking a step towards her. "You wear what— a small? Medium? Those aren't exactly uncommon sizes—"

"Listen!" She bursts out, nose wrinkling when he rolls his eyes, hands falling back to his sides. "The whole time I was in there I got a weird feeling, Wally. You know me, you know my gut— it's never wrong. But I couldn't sit around and investigate anything because you were—"

She's ranting, she knows it, but the second she ventures a bit too close to that one forbidden topics she stops short; the pause isn't unnoticed. "Because you were worried about me." Wally says stiffly. "Okay. Anyway?"

"Anyway." She agrees, fist crumpling the napkins and flinging them aside. She doesn't even notice that her fingers have stopped bleeding. "I knew something was off, so Dick, Zatanna, and I went back there today. Back to the Medical Bay." She hates than she hesitates, throat closing in on itself for a moment before she gathers the nerve; crossing the room she reaches the edge of her bed, snatching his file off the covers. "Each bed has a cabinet, and each cabinet has two drawers. And inside the top one—"

She feels like an idiot, standing there brandishing the manila folder at him; for a long second Wally only looks at it, one hand extending as his mouth curls into a frown. "... Project Safehouse?" He reads, glancing at her for a moment before he takes it.

"We have no idea what the hell it is." She forces herself to say, heart picking up as he flips the pages open. "But there's one for each other us. I grabbed yours on the way out— as proof." She makes up wildly, thankful when he doesn't glance up to see through her. "It's all the information the League has on us, even some I can't remember disclosing. Our whole family history, special skills, limits to our powers... And other things."

Any trace of disbelief or laughter is gone from Wally's features; when he glances up at her hesitation there's something hidden behind his apple irises, something that sends a twist through her stomach. "... What other things?" He asks carefully, voice hushed.

"... Priority of survival. Weaknesses." Her voice breaks. "Things they would need to know if they wanted to... Use us. If they needed to control us, but... Couldn't. I don't know what's going on, Wally." She chokes out the last part, staring so hard at his features she can feel her eyes straining, trying desperately to read what's running through his head. "I don't know what to do."

Something flickers over his face, some sort of emotion she can't quite place— all she knows is that the sight of it, that maliciousness and anger that's underneath it sends her stomach twisting. "Oh my god." He says more to himself than to her. "Oh my god, what— why—"

"I don't know, Wally!" She nearly yells back, her voice breaking as she tries to hold it together; his eyes are moving so quickly, reading so fast she can hardly see them, his own panic and anger beginning to undo her. "I just found it, and—"

"Why would you show this to me?" He says over her, words sharp and gritty as he shoves the file back into her arms. "Why would you— You're crazy."

It takes a second for her to realize he's angry with her. "... What?" She chokes out, nearly dropping the file. "Why are you— you're mad at me?" She balks out, brows furrowing.

"Of course I'm mad at you!" Wally hurls at her, ears reddening. "I was fine, Artemis. I was off the Team, I was doing okay— why are you showing this to me? Am I supposed to _want_ to come back here now? Am I supposed to want to skip on back and work with the people who are— are what, now? What exactly do you think they're doing—"

"Wally!" She snarls, nearly swearing as him when he knocks past her, already storming out the door. "Wally— did you read any of it? They have a list here of people they'll use to get to you—"

"I know, Artemis." He yells, ignoring her when she tries to pull him back by the arm. "I saw. But did it ever occur to you that I was already on the outside of this? I have a life now, things going on outside of the Team— I could have put all this behind me. You calling me back here, getting me involved, now I've given whoever the hell has this information a reason to go after me."

He swears when she rips him back by the arm, nearly toppling over as she forces him to spin on his heel and face her. "So what, this is my fault?" She snarls, wincing when he jerks his arm out of her grasp. "I thought you would want to know that—"

"Then you thought wrong, Artemis!" He hisses, the redness from his ears beginning to stain his cheeks. "You think I didn't suspect something like this would start happening the second I got lost in that storm? You think I didn't clue in that someone would want to know how to control me, if I ever got lost like that again?"

Wally makes a break for a door again and she swears, throwing the most vile word she can at him as she throws his file on the floor. "So explain why they need this information on the rest of the Team, if you're such a genius _Wallman."_ She snarls. "Explain why they had all this stocked and ready long before that night, explain why the Team—"

"I don't give a shit about the Team!" Wally yells in her face, so loud it sends her ears ringing. "I don't care, Artemis, okay? The only thing that matters to me is that you just closed off my last exit point. I don't have anywhere to run to now—"

And she doesn't know what makes her do it; Wally makes to turn back towards the door and she hurls herself in front of it, the force of her back hitting the wood nearly winding her. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, Baywatch. _There is no running from this."_ She screams, spitting a stray piece of hair out of her mouth. "They've had this information stock piled for a while now. So you can go ahead and pretend to take your vacation to normal-city, pretend you can't break the sound barrier in those beat up trainers of yours— sooner or later whoever the hell has this information is going to make you come back."

"Artemis—"

"Shut up." She snarls, punctuating the words with a blow against the door that sends her fist aching. "Shut up and come back now, Wally, while it's still safe to. Because whoever made that file is going to find a way to drag you back here, and even if you can outrun them— _I sure as hell can't."_

They're both breathing heavily, her breasts heaving as she remains flat against the door; the second she screams the words in his face Wally blinks. "... What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He spits at her.

"I means I read your file, asshole." She hisses. "And I saw your list of names the same way I saw my own. And it means I'm smart enough to know that if I was the one trying to get you back, and if I knew even a fraction of the history between us— I would know that the best way to get you anywhere is to hurt me."

Wally rolls his eyes, letting out a single frustrated breath; despite this a muscle jumps at his cheek and she can tell he's beginning to believe her. "You can't seriously—"

"Why not, Kid?" She challenges, stomach jolting when his green eyes flicker to hers. "Look at tonight. Look at how fast you came here— I didn't even have to ask you twice."

It's almost cruel, watching the way his face twists into a scowl as she snarls at him. She wants to hit him, wants to beat the truth into him; for once in his life Wally stays still, nose sucking in a long breath before his jaw clenches. "... You really think they'd do that?" He asks her, tone almost jarringly quiet compared to his yelling before. "The League—whoever the hell is behind this— you really think they'd..."

She doesn't know if it's a good sign that he doesn't finish, if it means she's finally getting through to him; forcing herself off the door she takes a step forward, glaring at him as hard as she can. "I don't know." She says honestly, hating him. "Are you willing to bet my life on it? ... Because I'm not willing to bet yours."

It's another challenge, another war being waged silently between them; as if daring him to say otherwise she pries herself off the door, glaring at him so hard her nose wrinkles. "... They won't kill you." He spits at her, shaking his head as she shoulders around him. "That was the whole point of the notes there— they have to keep you alive, if I'm going to— how did they put it—"

"Then leave, if you're so sure." She snarls, so angry now she can't stand to look at him.

And as she stands there with her back to him she has the strangest feeling— it's as if they've suddenly come full circle, traced back to that moment months ago when he had been the one daring her to leave, daring her to stop running and be with him. The memory feels so long gone, so lost in time that it feels as if it's been years since then rather than just one summer. Except this time she's the one with her back to him, the one with the most to lose, and Wally's the one with all the power; crossing her arms in front of her chest she closes her eyes, trying not to feel the stinging of tears behind her lids.

 _(And suddenly she's remembering the feeling of her lips pressing into his, how it felt to let go into that reckless abandon, how it felt to make all those silent promises to him. How she would stand by him because she cares about him, how she was finished running_ — _looking back now, after everything that's happened, the words sound like lies. But there's one thing, the one promise she couldn't break_ — _when you care about people, really care about them, you don't leave. Not forever.)_

 _((And in that moment she knows they're not finished with each other. They never will be.))_

She doesn't realize she's waiting for him to touch her until he doesn't; rather than open her eyes at the feeling of his fingers on her skin her lids flicker open at the sound of him sighing. "... What exactly are you asking me, Artemis?" He huffs, voice sounding nearly raw from all the yelling. "What's the plan, exactly?"

"I don't know." She blurts out, feeling angry and suddenly stupid too; when she whips around to glare at him Wally's rolling his eyes, shaking his head at the ceiling. "Just— look, I've already told you everything I wanted to." She lies. "If you still don't understand what I'm trying to tell you—"

"Of course I don't understand!" Wally hurls at her, one arm waving out in frustration. "You're not explaining anything to—"

And without warning her temper flares, hot and furious anger spilling out of her; before she can stop herself she's screaming at him again, the truth thundering in time with her heart beneath her skin. "We're supposed to take care of each other, Wally!" She snarls, nails cutting into her palms as she curls them into fists. "That was the deal we made, that was the one stupid promise we made before everything fell apart. We take care of each other. You and me, that's what we do."

She's breathing too heavily, not in control; rather than yell back at her Wally's ears merely go a shade darker, his voice so steady she could throttle him. "I know that." He says flatly, jaw tight. "Why do you think I've been staying away this whole time? That's what I thought you—"

"The game has changed, Kid." She sneers, hating him. "You aren't the bad guy anymore. This time we have no clue who's coming after us or why, all we know is that they're willing to break the rules. Willing to hurt whoever they have us to get us to play—"

"Then tell me what you want me to do—"

"I want you to come back!" She screams, voice seeming to shatter inside her throat. "I want you back on the Team. I want you—" She stops short, cheeks flaring up for a moment before she forces herself to keep talking. "Me and you, Wally. That's what it comes down to: whatever the hell we're facing... I need you to have my back, here."

For some reason he shakes his head. "I always have your back—"

" _Wally."_

She says his name almost softly, pleadingly, breasts heaving again with the effort of getting it out; for some reason he still winces as if she's just screamed again. Ignoring the way her heart is thundering inside her ribs she forces herself to stare him down, watching as he blinks again, glassy eyes catching the low light in the bedroom. "Okay." He says gruffly after a moment, swallowing before he nods. "If that's what you want. Whatever happens— me and you."

"Okay." She puffs out, feeling suddenly awkward. "... Thank you."

There's a strange sense of finality in the air, as if they've just pledged something between them that can't be broken— but, she supposes, in a way they have. It feels as if both hell and high water have swallowed them whole, as if the world as they know it is ending, and at the end of it all... It's the two of them. Artemis and Wally.

 _(In and out together.)_

Her throat feels suddenly tight; ignoring the way he's still staring at her she turns her back on him, wiping at her eyes. "... That's all I wanted to say." She mutters, feeling stupid as she makes a show sucking in a breath. "Sorry about all the yelling."

She doesn't look at him as she resumes her sitting on the edge of her bed; it seems to take a long time for him to clear his throat, voice still hoarse. "That's fine." He pauses, watching as she runs a hand over the top of her head, giving the ponytail up for a bad job and tugging the too large elastic out of her hair. "... Anything else I should know before I get out of here?"

And it's a moment of weakness, of pure selfishness; as she makes to smooth her hair over one shoulder she gets a sudden burst of courage. "... Would you mind staying?" She blurts out, fingers tangling in the ends of her hair.

"On the Team?"

"No, Wally." She sighs, pushing her hair back to look at him properly; she doesn't blink, eyes flickering down to watch his throat as it bobs in nervousness. "... Would you mind staying here with me? Just... Just for a little while?"

 _(Stay; even as it passes over her lips the word spikes into her, rubbing her raw and exposing her in the worst way. And it hits her how powerful that word is, how permanent it is in its needing. And as she utters it she can feel it pierce into her, tattooing her and marking her; and she wonders if she wears the scars of everyone who has ever stayed and left her_ — _)_

 _((But she needs this. She just needs him to stay, and to take care of her. The way he always does.))_

She instantly regrets the words, hates the way they sound coming out of her mouth; she's expecting him to frown, shake his head, remind her in a million little ways that he's moved on. Instead something about his jaw tightens, apple eyes squinting in the slightest, as if trying to read through her. "Yeah." He says after a moment, tucking his hands back into the letterman jacket's pockets. "Yeah, of course."

Her heart seems to clench inside her ribs as he walks towards her, looking suddenly boyish in a way he hasn't as of late; it occurs to her for the first time that being here, being alone together in her bedroom, has made him nervous. "Sorry." She says, feeling her cheeks heat as he sits down beside her. "You don't have to—"

"I want to, Artemis." He interrupts, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly as he settles. "I promise."

And as he says it something shifts in the pit of her stomach, like an old, much warmer flame kindling inside her; for a long moment they simply look at each other, her eyes tracing the handsome features she's only just now getting familiar with. For the first time in a long time she wants to touch him, wants to feel how hot his skin used to always feel; rather than act on the instinct to move closer she forces herself to lean back, her eyes falling to the '13' emblazoned on his chest. "... Nice jacket."

For some reason he clears his throat again, glancing at her almost sheepishly. "Linda hates it." He says gruffly.

Immediately she gets the impression that he's bringing up the other girl on purpose; before her face can sour she looks away. "I thought all girls liked guys in letterman jackets."

"Do you?"

"No." She says too quickly, cheeks reddening; for some reason Wally lets out a dry chuckle and she wonders if that's what he wanted to hear. "I mean— I don't know. The girls at my school always go for the guys wearing them."

"Huh. Must be me, then." He says sheepishly, the corners of his mouth perking up again. "Linda thinks it clashes with my hair."

She snorts. "It doesn't clash with your—" And she doesn't know why she does it; like an old habit her hand reaches out towards him, going to meet its forgotten mark on the back of his head. She doesn't know what she means by it, why it happens before she can stop it— her words die in her throat before she even touches him, her hand falling awkwardly back to her lap. "—Hair." She croaks, blushing.

For not the first time she wishes the earth would open up and swallow her whole.

As if he knows very well what she's thinking Wally laughs. "... Oh, man." He chuckles, the trail ends of the words bubbling up into laughter.

And she can't tell if it's because she's missed him so much, or if it's simply become impossible to keep him on the outside of her walls; before she can smooth her features or do anything to hide from him she hears herself laugh too. And for the first time since she returned from Bialya all those weeks ago it feels like old times; feels as if they're children again and nothing is broken between them even though they both know the complete opposite is true. In this moment, here and now, it's her and Wally— the two of them, neither friends nor lovers nor heroes. Just the two of them, the way they've always been.

And she laughs, harder and louder than she's done in a while— harder than she can remember laughing in months. She's not even sure what's so funny; whether it's the awkwardness between them or the strangeness of the situation or if it's just easier to laugh when the rest of the world is shut out and it's just the two of them. But it doesn't matter, not now— not as she's struggling to breathe and there's a stitch in her side and her eyes are watering with happy tears—

She throws herself backward onto the bed, cheeks aching as she grins up at him. "God." She sighs, voice weak in a way she it hasn't been in a while.

"I know." Wally grins back, the freckles on his cheeks flushed and boyish in the best possible way; clapping a hand to his forehead he pushes his hair back, twisting to look down at her. "We're a mess, aren't we?"

She means to say something back and merely hiccups, the ridiculous of the sound coming out of her mouth setting them off again; with a larger than life snort Wally throws himself down beside her, rattling the mattress. "God." She breathes, finally managing to quail the laughter. "... I don't know how long it's been since I've felt like this."

"Like what?" He chuckles, grinning up at the ceiling.

And she catches herself before she says it— light. Excited. Happy, even. Rather than admit to anything she shakes her head, smiling.

 _(And as she rolls towards him she feels it— that heat, so different than the fire of before, burning inside her. She's not sure if there's a name for it, for these old feelings haunting her insides, a mixture of old memories and habits and too many other things that won't die without a fight. And maybe she's in too deep, pushing too far, clinging to her vulnerability like a security blanket; all she knows is that her guard is down, her walls have been dropped, and for the first time she feels clothed in nakedness for Wally West like she's never been before.)_

 _(And maybe it's the fact that he's here, like all the other times before— or maybe, really, this is the time that's meant the most. And maybe she's missed him in ways she shouldn't have, felt lonely for his touch like she's long since lost the right to be. But she can't fight against this anymore.)_

Wally grins at her, apple eyes crinkled from where his cheek is pressed against her mattress, and she stops trying to resist anything anymore.

 _(Her fingers find his wrist first, then his hand.)_

The smile fades and the apple eyes flicker shut, brows tensing in the slightest. And she expect him to pull back, expects him to sit up, expects him to push her away... But as her own lashes flicker shut she feels it, as familiar and ancient to her as her own heart beat— Wally's fingers tense around hers like a lifeline and for the first time she realizes they've both finally come home.

* * *

She's not sure how long they stay there like that, whether hours or simply minutes pass as they lie still, hands clasped together and curled too far apart atop her sheets; somehow time seems to slip over them unnoticeably, for once not clawing and ripping at them in its usual wearisome way.

When she finally opens her eyes it takes her a minute to place her surroundings, to find herself in time and place the person beside her. As she blinks sleep from her eyes the first thing she notices is their intertwined hands, gaze flickering to where Wally is now looking down at her, propped up on one elbow. "Hi." She croaks out.

"Hey." He whispers back, sounding much more awake than she is. She wonders if she was the only one who fell asleep. "I didn't mean to wake you. Go back to sleep."

He gets as far as extracting his hand from hers before she realizes he's about to leave. "What time is it?" She asks, blinking blearily as he sits up.

"Late." He says unhelpfully, tugging the front of his jacket as if trying to get it to sit properly about his shoulders. "Linda's gonna kill me— I didn't really explain to her what was going on when I left, I was supposed to call her hours ago with an explanation—"

It's clumsier than she wants it to be— vaguely she registers the numbness of her fingers as she whips out a hand towards him, fisting the leather about his bicep and holding him in place as he makes to stand. "Wally— hold on a second—"

"Don't have a lot of those." He says gruffly, flashing a ghost of a grin at her; he's already getting to his feet before she even finishes sitting up properly. "I have to go, Artemis."

The finality of the tone scares her, as if she doesn't trust that his absence won't be as permanent as it's been the last few weeks. And she doesn't know why her stomach twists, why her throat seems to tighten—and there's no time for embarrassment, for her whatever reservations or doubts that might otherwise talk her out of it; feeling her cheeks redden she scrambles up after him, nearly stumbling over her undone boot laces. "Don't go." She forces herself to say, reaching out to seize the sleeve of his jacket again. "Just— stay. For a bit longer."

"Artemis—"

"Wally." She cuts him off, heart clenching at the way he sighs her name. Against her better judgment she redoubles her grip, forcing him to turn back and face her. "... Stay." She repeats, fingers flexing until she can feel his skin burning beneath his coat.

She's not good at this; as much as she wants the other words to come out— ( _Stay, because she can't live without him. Stay, because she is done with starving herself. Stay, because they've wasted too much time pretending to want anyone other than each other. Stay, Stay, Stay)_ — they don't, nervousness flooding through her as she bites the inside of her cheek. And how quickly her nerve wavers, how quickly she falls back into old habits; at once she pulls back, fingers missing his closeness as they twist nervously in front of her stomach.

And she hates it, hates standing there without the words she needs to get him to do what she wants. She hates how weak she feels, hates that watching the confusion blossom across his face sends a wave of pain through her, and feeling like a coward she drops her eyes to the floor. "I—" Wally starts, brows furrowing as she shakes her head. "... Artemis?"

"Never mind." She says quickly, fake smile cutting into her cheeks as she pushing her hair back behind her ears. "I— It's stupid. Forget it, I'll see you later."

She wants to run away from him, away from the feelings she's afraid of and the truth that's bubbling inside her; crossing the room she makes a bigger show than she has to of gathering her hair into a pony tail, glaring at her reflection in the mirror beside her dresser. "... Okay." Wally mutters, chuckling nervously in confusion; she can hear his feet brush across the carpet as he makes to go. "I'll talk to you tomorrow?"

"Great." She says without meaning it, blinking quickly as she tightens her hair against her scalp.

She hates him, hates how stupid he is; it seems to take all her strength not to turn and scream something after him as he crosses the room, even more not to start crying then and there. How stupid does he have to be? Isn't he supposed to know her, supposed to be able to see through her? Shouldn't he know that something's changed, that she's changed, that everything has changed—

The door opens as she fires out a frustrated breath, fingers trailing down to rub at a sore spot along the joint of her neck. Unconsciously she rolls her head, listening to the unsatisfying cracking of her joints.

He's an idiot.

(But she is too.)

And as her teeth nip into her lower lip she realizes the door hasn't closed; almost comically her lashes flicker up to the mirror, about to send herself a dour expression before it hits her.

... He's staring at her.

He's wearing a look she knows too well; the same look that seems to start at furrowed brows and painted freckles and ends at pensive lips. It's the same look he always dons when he's thinking, trying to see through her— the same look she associates with chess games and hot tea and steam collecting on their window. It's the same look that always reminds her that he's a scientist and that he's still trying to figure her out, the same look that usually proceeds a rash decision in the name of collecting data.

"... What?" She whispers, voice hushed in the half light.

His hand tenses around the doorknob as he stares at her back, eyes flickering to where she's looking at him in the mirror. "... When you said— when you said 'You and Me'." He pauses, voice suddenly hoarse. As if to buy himself some time he swings the door back shut. "... What did you mean by that?"

"Nothing." She says automatically, feeling like a coward as she arranges her features and turns back to face him. "I—"

She realizes too late that it's been a while since she could lie to him; as if he can tell she's making light of things Wally shakes his head, a lone nervous chuckle sounding in the back of his throat. "Artemis." He says warningly, taking a step towards her. "... Come on."

(And she's not sure what makes her do it, why she's suddenly the rash one and so completely ruled by her inability to tell him what he needs to hear. All she knows is that he's looking at her like that, eyes bright and confused and thoughts exploding in the back of his mind, and that look— that stupid look— still sends a flooding of heat through her so powerful she gives up on trying to speak.)

When she does little more than avoid his eye Wally tries again, offering up another flash of his familiar crooked smile before advancing a few more steps. "You can tell me things, you know. We're friends."

And she's sure he doesn't realize it, doesn't realize he once said these words to her months ago; suddenly she's remembering two gangly teens sitting side by side outside of Canary's office and the first brush of his feverish skin against her. And maybe that's what does it— maybe it's the memory, maybe it's the fact that he's now only a foot or two from her, maybe it's the fact that she can see what's between them far more clearly than she ever has—

 _(There's no point in keeping him away now. The world will kill them anyway, the same way it's killed her spirit and her drive and her belief in anything better._ _And maybe she doesn't want it the way she once thought she would, maybe knowing that now only hurts more. But she's meant to die in his arms, that's what the universe wants, why not listen, why not obey_ — _)_

The tailored ends of her skirt brush over her thighs as she turns to properly look up at him, biting the inside of her cheek. Once again it occurs to her that he's a man, no longer boyishly bashful or embarrassed over the unexpected movement; when she gets the nerve to step ever closer she can practically feel his eyes flicker over her as they follow the movement of the garment, lingering for a moment about the blood drops about her collar and the one too-many open buttons of her blouse before the meet her gaze again.

"... I don't know what I meant." She says honestly, voice half hushed as her hand makes to pull the end of her pony tail. "I just... It's us, Wally."

Apple eyes watch her fingers and for a moment the weight of the words settle between them; after a few seconds his eyes narrow. "You ended it." He reminds her, voice uncharacteristically steady.

"I know I did." She amends, hand falling back to her side; more out of instinct than anything else she takes a step closer.

They're less than a foot apart now, so close that she can feel his unnerving heat radiating off his body; the closeness is beginning to get to him, bothering him or making him nervous— she has enough time to watch his hands ball into fists before he shoves his hands in his pockets, shaking his head at her. "You broke up with me." He tells her, voice hoarse but firm. "You're the one who gave up on us. You're the one who— and all the times since then. How many times have you slammed a door in my face—"

"I know, Wally." She interrupts, hating the way the truth sounds coming out of his mouth. "I know I haven't been... I don't know how to say this." She says, voice hushed and catching in the back of her throat. "... When I told you to come home, I meant— I know that since things ended I've been a mess, and— and I've been—" She hesitates, watching his face carefully as the confused expression he's wearing begins to quail into something softer, less easily defined. She's still very aware that she's stammering, not really saying anything at all. "But— but that doesn't mean... I just want you to take care of me, Wally. That's all I want now."

"... You're not making any sense, Babe." He tells her, voice firm but edged with something she can't read, some kind of tender emotion she's not entirely familiar with.

 _(And it doesn't make sense_ — _this feeling now, the old memories buried inside her, the fact that she's changed her mind. And maybe she'll never be able to explain it the way she wants to. Because her and Wally don't make sense, and maybe that's the best part of it. They're flawed and malicious and cruel to each other but somehow they work. Somehow they've made a home out of each other, a home built of warm fingers and sturdy bones and bitten lips. And her home for him is in her heart, and even though over the last few months she's been building fences and putting up walls and drawing curtains to keep him out, and even though the doors inside her might not always be open... For him, they will always ben unlocked.)_

 _((She doesn't care anymore. She's tired of fighting.))_

"I know." She sighs. "... Maybe this will explain it."

And for the first time she's the one to close the distance, the one to make the first move; ignoring the way her stomach is twisting she reaches for him, fingers curling around the underside of his jaw as she pulls his mouth down to meet hers.

He tastes like an old memory, of boyhood and walnuts and the warmth of sand; as she kisses him for the first time in weeks she feels him exhale into her, breathing what feels like nectar into her lungs. And suddenly it's not enough— not enough to feel his chapped lips be stunned into kissing her back, not enough to feel one of his hands leave his pocket to sneak beneath the material of her shirt, not enough to feel the shaking of his fingers as they skim against the bare small of her back, not enough to trace the line of his jaw and knot her fingers in the overlong ends of his ginger hair. Suddenly she is craving heat, craving a fever pitch, craving nakedness—

 _(_ —c _raving something as stupid and desperate as she is now_ — _)_

Wally pulls back just as she runs a hand down his chest, fingers pausing at the zipper of his letterman jacket. "Whoa." He breathes out dazedly, warm hands curling over her wrists and forcing her back. "Just— Linda, Artemis. I'm with Linda."

She very nearly says "So?" but catches herself in time, instead lowering herself from the tips of her toes and settling back onto the balls of her feet. "Right. Linda."

The hand tenses on her waist before it seems to occur to him that he shouldn't be touching her; sending her an awkward look he pulls back, taking an extra step away for good measure. "... Look." He starts, sighing. "I think you're just— you've been through a lot today—"

"I'm not doing it because I'm— vulnerable, or whatever." She says quickly, reaching out to hold him in place and hating it when he shrugs out of her grip. "That's not why—"

"Then tell me why, Artemis." He sighs, for some reason looking annoyed; there's no longer any trace of affection underneath his confusion, just frustration and hurt. "Because I'm getting tired of this. Every time I get my head on straight— I was doing _fine_ — I don't need you to kiss me just because you're going through something—"

She feels her expression sour, nose wrinkling as he throws the words carelessly in her direction. And she hates his tone, the implication that she's being weak, that she's doing this for any reason other than the right one; feeling her cheeks flush an angry crimson she glares at her feet. "Well, what's your excuse?" She mutters darkly. "You kissed me back."

"I shouldn't have." He says quickly, shaking his head. "It's— I mean, it's you and me. But I still shouldn't have— it's not fair to Linda."

"I get it." She says over him, not wanting to hear him explain his rejection. Feeling her cheeks burn she makes a show of wiping him from her mouth, forcing the taste of walnuts from her lips. "Forget it happened, Wallman."

(And she knows the hurt she feels in her bones isn't his fault, but she needs someone to blame for her own mistakes; it's far easier to blame him for his rejection and hate him for it than to hate herself and all the mistakes she's made that led to this.)

She deliberately turns her back on him, walking back to the mirror and ignoring the reflection of the troubled look he's sending her. "Artemis—" He starts, clapping a hand to his forehead and ramming his too-stiff hair back. He doesn't seem to know what else to say.

She saves him the trouble of feeling sorry for her; glaring at her reflection she pretends to fix her hair. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" She snarls at him. "... A girlfriend to call?"

Maybe the last part is a little childish; a few seconds pass before Wally blinks, getting the message as his glare sets into place. "... Fine." He says blankly, turning to leave properly this time. "I— Sorry. Night, Artemis."

* * *

It's possibly the stupidest she's ever felt, standing there and watching him leave; as the door shuts behind him she tries to swallow down the tightness in her throat, hating that she can still taste him on her lips.

... For the first time in a long time it occurs to her that things really are over between them. In some way what's between them feels more dead than it did the first time around, all those months ago when she first finished things in front of their window. Because now there are no more loose ends to tie up, no more moments of weakness where both of them will cling to each other in the dark, nothing left unsaid. She told him how she felt— or at least tried to— and he... He turned her down.

(... She never thought he would turn her down.)

 _(Because this is what the world wanted_ — _the Speed Force, the universe, everything had wanted them to be together.)_

 _(So why did he say no?)_

Her heart feels as if it's combusted, a mixture of ash and hurt burning at the back of her throat; brushing impatiently at the wetness beginning to splinter at the corners of her eyes she sucks in a breath. It's over. It's finally over.

 _((But they would always come back to each other— and that had to count for something, didn't it? They were tied together by more than history, by more than lingering feelings, by more than even the Speed Force; what's between her and Wally is magnetic, a kind of pull towards each other than woke the same way they did that day in the Bialyan desert. But... maybe this time it's different. It feels different. As if a string between them as been severed, as if the path back to each other has been blocked, as if... As if the universe itself stopped throwing them together.))_

(She never thought it would really be completely over.)

And maybe she should feel relieved— and maybe, as she turns her back on her reflection, some small part of her is. No more wondering what would happen if things were different. No more wondering if telling him how she felt— how she's always felt— would change things. No more secrets between them.

(And maybe what hurts the most is that things changed. She changed, broke down, indulged in the feelings she's been barely keeping at bay for long. But Wally changed too, didn't he? He gave up on her. She pushed him too far this time.)

((And it occurs to her that for the first time she really can't call him back, can't convince him to turn on his heel and return to her. He's finally outrun her, finally sprinted past her, and more than ever she feels lonely, worthless, selfish—))

Again she wipes at her eyes, hating that she's crying over him— the whole situation is stupid. She shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have tried to get him to stay. What does her wanting him mean to Wally? He's wanted her a thousand times over, and all this time she's been to cowardly to allow it. She's ruined things, her and her stupid walls and her stupid insecurity and stupid flaws. He doesn't want her anymore, nobody does. He's moved on, forgotten her, just like everyone else...

 _(And it kills her that every person she's ever cared about has become toxic to her. Another living breathing reminder that she's better off alone. Because she messes everything up, she ruins everything, she's not worth it. She's better off alone.)_

She doesn't want to stay here tonight, not when she knows her sheets will stink of walnuts and rejection the second she crawls into them; the whole day has been somewhat of a disaster and she can't think of a time she's wanted the comfort of the fourth floor walk-up more. Ignoring the invitation of her bed she grabs an old hoodie off the back of her chair, already thinking of a cup of tea and how the Gotham sirens will down out the sound of her broken heart.

And as she makes to leave she throws a careless glance around the room, half-expecting more belongings she needs to collect; with a dull pang her gaze comes to a rest over Wally's file, her stomach twisting as she considers it. She can't very well put it back in the Medical Bay, but Zatanna's right— leaving it unprotected in the Cave is only inviting it to fall into the wrong hands. Hating herself she seizes an old gym bag from the corner of her room, shoving the file inside it without looking.

The Cave is cold and quiet, as it always is the time of night; as she pulls the hood of her sweat shirt over her pony tail she feels for the first time watched, hunted as she makes her way through the darkness. In the silence she can almost fool herself into hearing the low buzz of surveillance, a barely there hum that indicates not all is right; as she passes on of the hallway security cameras she wonders if whoever is looking through the other end is aware of Wally's presence in her bedroom tonight, if they're already taking notes, if they know why she called him here...

Hell, she doesn't even know why she called him here. It wasn't just about the file, or Project Safehouse— although it might have started that way. But Wally's presence had held the promise of protection, of comfort when she was at her worst. She had wanted him to come back, to be by her side again— but she shouldn't have told him, tonight proved that instinct was a mistake...

Her shoes squeak as she paces along to the living room, shivering slightly beneath her school uniform; the whole thing was a stupid idea— investigating the Medical Bay, calling Wally, intending to disclose secrets she's not meant to share. And now what does have for it? No Wally, no solution, only more questions than answers. He's right— he was better off not knowing. But still… She's sure if the tables were reversed Wally would tell her, would want her to be aware of what they found. He has people to protect too, he deserves to know, even if he doesn't want to—

... But he's right, she supposes. He was on the outside of this, he was safe. And she dragged him into the center of it, pulled him into the storm— because she's selfish, and stupid, and she ruins everything—

 _(And she feels numb again, numb and tired. Too much has happened today, too much is always happening. And she feels beaten, trampled upon, feels as if she's been out in the pounding rain. She is soaked clean through with emotion.)_

She's on the verge tears again, torturing herself as she makes her way into the common area and glances automatically out towards their window in the same way she always does; pausing mid-pace she stiffens, squinting into the darkness. In the pitch black of the room she can make it out, a silhouette just visible in the darkness outside, broad shoulders visible against the light of the moon on the other side of the window.

And for a second she stands stock-still, fingers clenching around the strap of the gym bag on her shoulder. And she hates herself, hates the lurch in her stomach as she half convinces herself it's Wally— and for a moment she's sure he's come back for her, so convinced that she actually jolts forward, sprinting across the room until she's up against the glass— this is their window, this is their place and he's come back for her, he always comes back for her—

It's not until she's lurching open the glass door to the outside that she realizes something is wrong, not until the chilled October air is whipping up the ends of her skirt and biting into the bare skin on her thighs that she realizes it isn't Wally standing in the alcove. "... Kaldur?" She whispers, throat croaking as she slouches in the doorway, flinching against the cold.

Uncharacteristically he jumps when she speaks, as if he's been so lost in thought her sudden appearance has gone unnoticed; "Artemis?" He whispers back, turning towards her. Beneath the light of the moon she can hardly see his face, only making out the angles of his cheekbones and the blonde top of his head. "... Why are you not in bed?"

"Long story." She shrugs, setting the strap against her shoulder as she shuts the door behind her. "I was just going home when I saw you out here. Thinking of going for a swim?"

"No, I was not." He says blankly, going back to staring out at the water as she makes to join him, arms crossing across her chest to block out the cold. "... I have been meaning to tell you, there is a lead on another link to the artifacts. There is a collector in Gotham City—"

It's only when she gets close to him that she realizes something is wrong, the light finally catching his face; his familiar angular features seems almost blood splotched and swollen, as if he's been crying. "Kal." She interrupts, blinking in confusion. "What's the wrong?"

He doesn't respond right away, a strange wet noise sounding in the back of his throat. "It is nothing." He says flatly before he disappears, scrubbing his cheeks almost childishly on the backs of his hands as if trying to erase the tracks of his tears. "As I was saying—"

"Kaldur." She whispers, one hand reaching out to press tenderly against his arm when she realizes he's shaking. "... Why are you outside? It's cold out here, even for you."

"I—"

"Kal."

For the first time he seems to quail beneath the look she sends him, whatever excuse he's about to throw at her dying in his throat as he shakes his head. "Apologies." He mutters, wiping his face savagely as if embarrassed by the tears. "I did not mean to worry you, I believed everyone was in bed. You should—"

"No, Kaldur. What's wrong?"

She's never seen him cry like this before, never seen him look so young and broken—once more she watches him scrub at his eyes, knuckles dragging over his skin once before they fall back to his side. "It is nothing." He tries to tell her, voice breaking. "Truly. You should return to bed—"

"What's wrong?" She repeats, eyes narrowing; she feels too much like her mother as she drops her jaw, staring him down in the darkness. "… What happened?"

For a long moment he looks at her, and somewhere behind the milky eyes she knows so well something breaks; before she can even hide her own surprise his expression is crumpling, carved cheekbones and full mouth twisting into misery. "… She is gone." He says gruffly, turning back towards the window. "Tula has returned to Atlantis with Garth."

The last words are almost choked out, his head bowing to hide in shadows. She wishes very suddenly that she had just went home. "… Oh." She says badly. "Oh, god, Kal. I'm so sorry."

She's expecting him to keep it together, but the little bit of composure remaining seems to collapse underneath the weight of her hesitant hand as it makes to curl around his shoulder; at once Kaldur's usually steady voice warbles. "She accused me of placing the Team above her. All she has wanted of me is to return to Atlantis." He mutters, fingers wiping clumsily at his cheeks as tears begin to fall again. "It was the third time she had offered me the choice, in one way or another… Now she has returned there with Garth."

He trails off, breath catching in a choking noise that sounds more like a sob than anything else. Wishing she were better at this sort of thing she shifts her hand, fingers flexing into the middle of his back as he leans into her. "I'm so sorry." She repeats, pressing her lips into his temple the same way her mother would when she was a child. "I'm so sorry."

He must find some comfort in what little she's doing, drawing in a shaky breath before reaching for her; not expecting it she unconsciously stiffens as he hugs her, throwing more of his weight on her than strictly necessary. "Shh, Kaldur." She hears herself say, clumsily patting him on the back as he struggles to pull in level breaths; she's never seen him lose control like this before, never seen him as completely unguarded as he is in this moment. "It'll be okay. It'll all work out. Shh."

She's not sure how long they stand like that, her arms quivering under the weight of his shoulders and her chin tucked into the hollow of his neck, her lips still pressing unconscious kisses into his skin as she comes to a loss as to how to comfort him; by the time he seems to get the sense to pull back her muscles are aching with the effort of holding him upright. "Apologies." He mutters again, a stray tear still rolling down his cheek. "I did not mean to—you did not have to—"

"Shh, Kal. I don't mind." She tries to say kindly, forcing her face into what she hopes is a comforting smile; feeling somewhat out of her league she lets a half-forgotten instinct guide her, one hand reaching up to brush against the wetness on his cheeks. "… Come on. I'll— I'll make you some tea, okay?"

She makes to pull back, hand leaving the angles of his face; before she can get much further than an inch from his skin his fingers ensnare her wrist, holding her still. "… Kal?" She asks, watching with confusion as another few tears dribble off his chin.

A few of her shorter pieces of her hair have escaped her hood, tickling her chin and getting caught in the chapped skin on her lips as she stares at him, brows furrowing. Somewhere at the back of her mind she senses several alarm bells firing, another great billowing wave of confusion thrumming over her as she watches him make to push them back into place. "What—"

 _(And it seems to happen slowly, like a long forgotten dream she's never had. But she feels him move closer, closer than they've ever been, closer than he should be. And somewhere between them something slips, and dangling into another universe, another timeline, another place where things between her and Kaldur aren't as defined_ — _)_

Although she's sure the whole thing lasts hardly longer than a few seconds the awareness of his closeness thrums through her in a silent mile of alarm, as if every nerve and sensation in her body is somehow dulled by the sheer amount of confusion flooding through her. She feels the rounded nails scratch her hair behind her ear, feels the calloused fingers run behind her jaw, into her hair, down to the crease of her neck. She watches another tear cling to his lashes and then fall, catching the swell of his cheek, dribble down to his chin—

 _(And before she can pull back, because she can do much more than consider what's about to happen, before she can stop it_ —)

Kaldur kisses her, shattering through whatever boundaries exist between them and tasting momentarily of sea foam and honey dew and copper; almost at once the noise of protest erupts from her mouth, practically spitting him off her lips before she jerks her head away. "Kaldur!" She snarls, shoving him backwards so hard he nearly stumbles into the railing of the alcove, looking as shocked and confused as she feels. "Oh my god—what was— _Kaldur—_ "

"Apologies." He blurts out, neck flushing a brilliant deep purple as he extends a hand to calm her. "I had not—I did not—"

"Oh my god." She repeats, wiping her mouth along the back of her hand, her nose wrinkling as she runs her hand through her hair. "Oh my god, oh my—"

She doesn't want to look at him, doesn't want to hear his stammered out apologies; she catches her reflection in the window glass—her cheeks red, hair messy—but before she can take it in—

Beyond the glass a light flickers on in the kitchen, shattering through the illusion of being hidden in the darkness and underneath the howl of the wind on the beach. And what she sees there is worse, far worse than anything else: Wally, standing stock still in the kitchen, staring at them.

 _(And there's no way he didn't see, no way to what's just happened. She's sure he could see their silhouettes in the darkness, sure he could tell who was out there and what was happening_ —)

"No!" She hears herself snarl over Kaldur's apologizing, but it's too late—before she can do much more than slam a hand against the glass Wally's fingers have left the kitchen light switch as he turns on his heel, ears glowing even in the half light. "Wally!"

"Artemis," Kaldur says her name for the first time, calling her attention away from where Wally's still retreating; to his credit he doesn't flinch when she turns towards him, looking murderous. "I will fix this, I will go and—"

It takes more effort than it should not to slap him. "No." She snarls, running a hand through her hair, already turning to follow her charge. "You're not going to—stay here, Kal. You've done enough."

She doesn't look back, doesn't spare him one final glance; any feels of affection, of tenderness towards him seems to have vanished, been sucked out of her the few moments their lips touched. She feels used all over again, as pinned down by him as she was beneath Cameron, beneath Wally, feels as dirty and betrayed now as she did a few weeks ago.

Kaldur calls her name once more, the sound warbling in the darkness and abruptly stopping as the door to the alcove shuts behind her. He doesn't even try to chase after her.

* * *

 **AN: Okay. To start things off: to anyone who sent me messages, enquiries, or any other follow-ups wondering what the hell was what going on** — **thank you for your concerns. I owe you, and everyone else, an explanation.**

 **As some of you may or may not know through private messaging, I accepted a job this summer up in the Canadian Rockies. The job was in a location that had no cell service and no wifi available without a 40 minute hike in the woods. At the end of May I thought I would have enough time to post another chapter explaining my absence and my brief hiatus in posting, but... Things got busy. I graduated university, broke up with a boyfriend, and was franticly struggling to pack up the remains of my life to go live in another part of the country. Things got away from me, as they do sometimes for everyone.**

 **... I'm sorry for vanishing without a proper explanation.**

 **But thus started a long, amazing summer of working and writing and getting inspiration for Parenthesis. Even though I couldn't actively post my content I was sitting on a chapter that was ready to be posted the day of my return mid-October plus a nice little nest egg of drafts** — **I had ten extra chapters all ready to post, meaning my return to fanfiction would be marked by a flurry of posting on a biweekly basis.**

 **Then tragedy struck, as it tends to do the second you make big plans.**

 **On my way back home I stopped overnight at a friend's place and had my car broken into. I lost a great deal of my belongings but the tragedy in this case was that my laptop was stolen... Meaning I lost all of Parenthesis. All my archived work. All my drafting. All my planning. Over 900,000 words of work, over 5 years of my life. Gone.**

 **... Yeah. It sucked.**

 **Naturally, I've been in a bit of a funk. I nearly quit writing this fic altogether. But I figured... Wally and Artemis' story isn't finished, and season 3 is still a long time coming. The fandom needs this, and frankly** — **I do too.**

 **So I rallied. I've been composing this chapter on my phone and pasting my work into the doc manager every few days, a task that was to say the very least _frustrating_. I can't afford a new laptop at this time so for now you'll have to bear with me as I figure out a way to make this fic work. That being said, I have set up a gofundme to help raise some money for a new laptop, which you can find the link to on the Parenthesis tumblr page (of which there is a link for on my profile. If you're willing to donate money and are having trouble finding the link please message me, I will be more than happy to help you.)**

 **(Also, the Parenthesis tumblr community is now negotiating that in addition to more updates I throw in some Wally-Artemis sex scenes for their trouble of donating. I LOVE THIS. Go take a peek and give me your two cents.)**

 **Long story short: I'm back, and I am so sorry to have kept you waiting. To everyone who left reviews asking for more material, wishing for my return, and even checking in on the Parenthesis tumblr... You guys are the best. I'm so, so happy to be back.**

 **As always, Please Read and Review. I'll try to be back with another chapter as soon as I can.**


End file.
